22 - The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan

Summary

The Forty-Years War in Afghanistan has defied many expectations. Approaching the war as a forty-year strategic interaction, this chapter illustrates the interdependence of the strategic practices – using, creating and controlling force – and show how practising strategy in one way influences the strategic interaction of the ensuing phase of the war. The war in Afghanistan can be divided into a Soviet phase, a civil war phase and a Western phase. During each of these phases of the war, the use of force varied across changing political ends as well as the flux of circumstance and opportunity. Actors sided with former enemies, loyalties shifted, but the fighting continued as generations of young, mainly Afghan men were introduced to the hardship of war. War as a constant companion to everyday Afghan life for the past four decades also illustrates the old strategic adage that it is easier to start a war than to end it.