See Ben Anderson's documentaries on http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1832267517
The British have not been proud of their empire since the 1950s. Thus we, the British, stopped studying it. Three generations have now emerged without a collective knowledge of the many and chronic failures of “The Great Game”, Russia and Britain’s tussle to control Afghanistan through the 19th century. UK general reporting of the Russian failure to control Afghanistan, 1979-88, was sporadic and rarely analytical. It was primarily of the ‘human interest’ kind, for example the tragedy of young Russian soldiers and the effects of their deaths on families back in the motherland.
The result has been that, apart from a general revulsion from war making by Western electorates, there is little factual knowledge to reinforce popular support for non-embroilment in Afghanistan. The facts are there, they are just not part of shared common knowledge.
The West should have known that war in Afghanistan is folly. There is no example of a successful invasion I can think of except Alexander the Great’s brief expedition over the Hindu Kush, and even he did not stay.
Bill Brookman, The Bill Brookman Foundation
