Why has this place always rejected any real form of government...

Kek it was a shithole before the US ever got involved

Jesus Christ, how do you even begin to partition this mess along ethnic lines. No wonder the country has been such a shithole.

Because they are the only true pureblooded Aryans left on Earth, and Aryans despise authority. It's genetic, every man wants to be alpha.

You know Afghanistan has a history longer than the last forty years right? It's had relatively stable periods and opportunities for advancement that were squandered. I fought in Uruzgan for 9 months and have studied the country academically so have a pretty good understanding of why it's failing, can't be fucked writing an essay on it though. Easiest summary is war broke down most traditional structures of society and replaced it with new conflict-based ones that are extremely unstable and easily swayed.

>confusing local warlords with a central government

>what is state consolidation, i.e. how most modern states became a thing
Yes, it's had opportunities.

And it's most definitely had central governments if you're saying it hasn't, I just assumed that was obvious. How that government relates to outlying areas is the key.

At what point in history has it had a central government that actually controlled the greater area of the country rather than just the area immediately surrounding the main cities, or cities in general? I know it didn’t while the british were there.

Any of the dynasties in the area post-Samanids. The classical period with Kushans and such was also very stable.

King Amanullah in the early 20th century had broad popular support. He could have been something of an Ataturk figure, but pushed for reforms too quickly for Afghan society with prompted a revolt.

It's a mountanious an arid country with fertile valleys spread out that occasionally get blasted with severe flooding

Infrastructure is a bitch in that kind of enviroment

Also landlocked between an array of greater powers like Persia, Arabia, India, China and Russia

Basically geography determines destiny

>this guy is a good example
>until the people chimped out like they always do

Not the best example user.

>completely ignoring details of the situation and historical parallels with other countries
If you have no interest in history why are you even here?

>At what point in history has it had a central government that actually controlled the greater area of the country rather than just the area immediately surrounding the main cities
Several times. But due to Afghanistan being located smack dab in the middle of Asia meant that invaders would frequently run through it from all directions so those governments would usually collapse.

I think it was nicest under the Khwarezmians but after the Mongol conquest, cities like Kabul would be referred to as just being rubble for nearly a century afterwards.

>He could have been something of an Ataturk figure
I doubt it. The Turkish people loved Ataturk because he saved them from being Greek/Allied tyranny, which was why he was able to make such radical reforms.
The uprising on the other hand was popular and had support from a lot of sides.

Of course there are many differences, I was just dumbing it down. Also note that Amanullah was at the tail end of a relatively stable and marginally successful dynasty. Afghanistan was not always on a path for today's chaos.

They prefer boys in Afghanistan
youtu.be/eM-xe6wHjnw

Bacha bazi is not a homosexual practice.

OH!

>Why has this place always rejected any real form of government?
Because it is a libertarian paradise.

Whose more ancap
>Somalia
>Afghanistan

Learn some fucking history before you post, afghanistan had a perfectly functional government for hundreds of years before the soviets showed up. The place has just been locked in one of the longest running civil wars ever since the communists took power.

Somalia have a government. Somaliland does not.

>t. Afghan

Look at all those ethnic groups, no way it could ever work.

That would make him more qualified to have an opinion on Afghanistan than you, brainlet.

Why would they form a real government when selling drugs is more profitable?

What do you think a warlord is, user? It's basically just an unrecognized local leader, and the central Afghan government is often just whichever warlord is strongest at the time.

Too much inter-group tension. The solution for afghanistan is to merge the northern territories with Tajikstan, the east with Pakistan, and the west with Iran.

>Jesus Christ, how do you even begin to partition this mess along ethnic lines.
You deport people, that's what Soviets did in areas with mixed German-Polish and Ukrainian-Polish populations that were a patchwork of different areas with mixed population

>just drive people off land they've inhabited for centuries, surely nothing can go wrong

They're years ahead of us and figured out how to put into place a decentralized governance

Can't you just not partition it, what is wrong with you autists and drawing lines.

Drawing the borders of a nation is arguably one of the most important things in its genesis.

Afghanistan is extremely multicultural. Tajikistan has only two different ethnic groups. Kyrgyzstan the same. Also, the central Asians see themselves as one Turkic group. They dont hate each other. Afghanistan was founded by a bloody revolt. The modern Afghanistan lands were part of the Safavid Shia empire. The Safavid tried to forcefully convert the Pashtun or the Afghans to Shia Islam. They revolted and conquered the capital of the Safavid Empire. Until Nader Shah came along and completely destroyed them. Nader suppressed the Pashtun or Afghan really violently. When Nader Shah died his empire fell apart and the Pashtuns took the lands which make up modern Afghanistan. They Pashtuns started to oppressed the Shia, and forcefully converted their subjects back to Shia Islam. The only people who managed to resist this was the Hazaras. To this day they are still killed for being Shia. Then they divided the identity of the majority Persian speakers in their lands and labeled them as tjiks. They are not really Tajiks. They are just Persian just like Iranian Persians. The Pashtuns are really the only Afghan. Afghan is just another name for Afghan. The country has literally being at war since it revolted against the Safavid. Also since the country is mountainous so organized armies are at a very big disadvantage. That is why the British and the Russians failed. So multiculturalism, history of blood and suppression, and harsh terrain.

>>just drive people off land they've inhabited for centuries, surely nothing can go wrong
Worked perfectly well in borderlands between Poland, Germany and Ukraine after WW2.
Nobody wants to talk about this loudly but ethnic cleansing Soviets engaged in and later occupation for 50 years ensured peaceful borders and end of ethnic conflicts.

>Also since the country is mountainous so organized armies are at a very big disadvantage.
There's also the fact that it's not an extremely important patch of real estate so in all honesty, no army has ever put 100% effort into subduing it. It would be easy enough to do with enough soldiers.

I agree. Apart from the US nobody has really put much recourses in conquering. Usually, that is a big advantage. Its funny how much money nato has invested in that shit hole. They have really fast internet in the big cities, and HD tv. Yet, the country produces nothing. I guess the only advantage is that its next to Iran and China.

youtu.be/XKVDXbIpW9Q

NATO has been horribly inefficient and risk averse. I'm the dude who fought there, and you had thousands of soldiers (mostly non-combat) sitting in the main base doing fuck all while there were a tiny number of us actually out patrolling the badlands playing whackamole. Even now the country could be bought under control pretty quickly just by saturating it with troops. There'd be a lot of casualties, but if you aren't prepared for that don't start the fucking war in the first place.

Just want to post this email of Rumsfield asking an aide what languages were spoken in Afghanistan. Several months after the invasion of course

You mean 1.5 months.

Afghanistan was governed for thousands of years. I realize from the question you're not educated on the matter and only know from the media, but Afghanistan was historically ruled like any other place. The Bactrians, one of the ancestors of Tajiks, profited heavily from the Silk Road. Bactria and later Khorasan were all ruled and governed like any other place. Baloch and Pathans are less "ruled" because they are more like Bedouins and Gypsies.

Only since the invasion of the Soviet Union has there been a breakdown of the central government, there were attempts to create a unified government by most of the Mujaheddin, but the Taliban refused to have peace. Afghanistan is still in civil war and obviously the government isn't going to have complete control.

>literally 4 decades of nonstop war
I love Afghanistan.

Soviet deployments were saturated the country and look where that brought them. The US learned from their mistake, you only need to control the big cities and centers of industry and infrastructure. What difference does it make if rebels roam the countryside?
Continuous war also means a permanent excuse to maintain the occupation, instead of conquering the country and then having to leave to preserve face about "bringing democracy" like they did in Iraq.

>you only need to control the big cities
That's exactly what the Soviets did.
>What difference does it make if rebels roam the countryside?
Are you retarded?
>maintain the occupation
Not an occupation brainlet. USA is supporting Northern Alliance/mujaheddin side of the civil war.

>Soviet deployments were saturated the country and look where that brought them.
The Soviets had less forces in Afghanistan at any one time than NATO did.
> you only need to control the big cities and centers of industry and infrastructure. What difference does it make if rebels roam the countryside?
This is retarded. Look at the goals the US had going there in the first place - eliminate terrorism and (unstated) create a stable, pro-US democracy to export their values to the region. Neither of those are achieved by holding on to cities. Moreover, insurgents left to control the countryside don't just sit there, they attack said cities.

>The Soviets had less forces in Afghanistan at any one time than NATO did
Entirely wrong. Soviets had more than ten times the number of troops in Afghanistan than NATO ever did.
>Look at the goals the US had
The goals were to support the Northern Alliance against the Taliban regime and get Bin Laden. Both were accomplished.

>Entirely wrong. Soviets had more than ten times the number of troops in Afghanistan than NATO ever did.
Soviets had a peak of 115,000 troops there, ISAF had 140,000.
>The goals were to support the Northern Alliance against the Taliban regime and get Bin Laden. Both were accomplished.
At least educate yourself before opening your mouth. If this is the case, why did they stay there more than two months?

>Soviet deployments were saturated the country
That's just wrong, they were mostly concentrated in Kabul and surrounds and used VDV, Spetsnaz and Hinds to fight the guerilla's in the hills

>Soviets had a peak
Nice try brainlet, Soviets in total deployed more than half a million troops. ISAF never deployed more than 20,000 in total. If you have a source about 140,000, cite it.
>If this is the case, why did they stay there more than two months?
What part of support Northern Alliance against Taliban did you not understand?

Decades of Communism rushing their culture will do that

But Afghans have always fought off invaders so they're even more independent.

>ISAF never deployed more than 20,000 in total. If you have a source about 140,000, cite it.
What the actual fuck are you smoking dude?
"The number of Nato forces peaked at about 140,000 in 2011"
bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11371138
>Soviets in total deployed more than half a million troops.
Yes, so far, far less than ISAF/NATO did over the years.
>What part of support Northern Alliance against Taliban did you not understand?
Oh, so they just thought the Northern Alliance were nice people and just wanted to help them? Or was it to "create a stable, pro-US democracy to export their values to the region"

>Oh, so they just thought the Northern Alliance were nice people and just wanted to help them?
It was obviously to give the Chinese mineral rights user, America got out fucking played

>The number of Nato forces
That was ten years after the invasion in 2011, it was only ever 100,000 or more for a brief period of a year. Otherwise it was usually far less than ISAF/NATO did over the years.
NATO was there for almost two decades now, Soviets didn't even make it to 10, but I can't find any numbers for NATO total, so I don't know which side totaled more.
>so they just thought the Northern Alliance were nice people and just wanted to help them?
You can meme answer as much as you want, but NATO believed in the enemy of my enemy and helped Northern Alliance a lot. The Afghan government was entirely Northern Alliance for a while.

>That was ten years after the invasion in 2011
Irrelevant to anybody's point.
>You can meme answer as much as you want, but NATO believed in the enemy of my enemy and helped Northern Alliance a lot. The Afghan government was entirely Northern Alliance for a while.
What the fuck are you talking about? Obviously they helped the Northern Alliance, but they didn't help the Northern Alliance because they wanted to help the Northern Alliance. They did it because they were the most useful tool in the box.

>Irrelevant
It's not, because there wasn't much fighting in 2011 comparatively. The >100,000 troop levels were brief and not much really happened. Just stats if they don't do much.
>because they were the most useful tool in the box.
That's what I said. It was the most pragmatic thing to do, not about exporting USA values like you said.

>It's not, because there wasn't much fighting in 2011 comparatively. The >100,000 troop levels were brief and not much really happened. Just stats if they don't do much.
Why do you say things when you don't know anything about it? I was there fighting in 2010-11 and it was by far the most intense period of the war. Look up the stats, icasualties.org should do it for you.
>That's what I said. It was the most pragmatic thing to do, not about exporting USA values like you said.
Can you please explain what you're trying to argue? I don't get it. Are you actually saying that the US government makes foreign policy decisions based on "we want to help these guys", not what helping those guys would achieve?

>what helping those guys would achieve?
You claimed that the USA was trying to export it's values. I claimed that the USA was helping the Northern Alliance because it was the most pragmatic thing to do.

This is incredibly retarded though. Why was helping them pragmatic? Why did they need the northern alliance for anything? Why did they go to Afghanistan? I'm actually astounded there are people so braindead that they think a country just invades another country to "help" a random militia for literally no reason and not out of self-interest.

>Why was helping them pragmatic?
Because they were enemies of the Taliban.
>Why did they need the northern alliance
To actually run the country. You're such an idiot, you probably wonder why South Vietnam was needed.
>Why did they go to Afghanistan?
To capture Bin Laden and/or beat the Taliban

I assume you're mentally retarded based on how you are unable to grasp two and two. If you don't get it still, you will never get it.

>To capture Bin Laden and/or beat the Taliban
OK but Bin Laden escaped and the Taliban were defeated in a month or two. Why did foreign forces stay there for almost two decades and try to rebuild a new country with a new government? Might I suggest you actually read something about the matter? I'm probably not going to bother responding anymore though because arguing with a literal retard who's never left his home town isn't very stimulating.

>Taliban were defeated in a month or two.
Confirmed retard

check'd

>he doesn't know about the years of little to no combat after the Taliban were driven out of power before redesigning themselves as an insurgent force often called the neo-Taliban
Pathetic.

>neotaliban
>t. brainlet
What is Operation Anaconda

...

An operation that didn't even last a month?

t. Trump supporter. You retards are so easy to spot

Operation market garden didn’t last a month either. Length doesn’t minimize the importance of an operation

It sort of does when you're saying there weren't periods of no fighting in Afghanistan though and your retort is an 18 day offensive

>taliban exdcutes strategic retreat to safer base areas in the face of superior enemy forces
>retreat is a succes, core of taliban forces escape to pakistan
>'we did it, we won, the taliban is defeated'
>taliban goes on to wage successful insurgency for over a decade
>'w-we won, right guys, we b-beat the taliban, right?'

This desu

>people in 2002 could see the future
Nice shitpost.

I was talking about idiots in the present who still think we 'defeated the taliban', sweetie

Nobody thinks that now, people thought that after the initial invasion which was the entire point and indeed if things had been done better they would never have come back as strong as they did. Sweetie.

>if things had been done better
Things can't be done better, the tribal fuckers who make up the Taliban will view any government as globalist cucks unless it's them, they fucking hate modernity

Taliban is actually pretty fucked, the areas they control are literal empire of dirt with nothing of value, they split into two factions (pro-ISIS and pro-Al Qaida) that fight against one another, and a few days ago they desperately reached out to the US with a peace offer that the US rejected. Acting like this is Vietnam and Taliban is the one in the driving seat is stupid.

The point is if the country was governed better and the populace had faith in its institutions they wouldn't have let the Taliban move in.

Good point, the Taliban's greatest weakness is a lack of foreign support (beyond some half-assed help from Pakistan who are just hedging their bets), without which most insurgencies are doomed.

>The point is if the country was governed better and the populace had faith in its institutions they wouldn't have let the Taliban move in.
And I'm telling you this is never going to happen

They seriously have no money. Al Qaida is in shambles, they don't control opium or any other resource in Afghanistan like the Colombian terrorist groups that got their money from coke trade, they don't have any support from abroad, and they're getting drone bombed to shit every day. It's pretty much over.
That's not to say Afghanistan will be stable, the government will still probably fall apart once the Americans leave, but it likely won't be replaced by the Taliban.

>what difference does it make if rebels control the countryside?
It makes a huge difference, especially when the country is 90%+ rural.

You're right it's going to take either a miracle or decades at this point. Hasn't always been the case though as discussed throughout the thread.

Al Qaeda is toast outside of Yemen, I don't think the Taliban are quite as weak as you say though. I guess it depends how you define Taliban, it's pretty much a loose organisation of various anti-government factions, warlords and drug kingpings at this point. They aren't going anywhere though and will remain a powerful part of Afghan society for the foreseeable future, although this is only because nobody else is powerful either. The country is a fucking joke now.