Invading Afghanistan, 1838-2006: Politics and Pacification
Authors
John Ferris
Abstract
This article is a comparative examination of foreign invasions of Afghanistan since 1838. It assesses why such invasions were launched, why they succeeded or failed, and how Afghans responded to them. It demonstrates that intelligence failures, and confused and over-optimistic policy, shaped all such decisions to invade; that in most cases, Afghans were not so much collaborators or resisters as opportunists; that not all invasions failed, while those which failed, did so less because of damage inflicted by Afghans, than because of the limited value of Afghanistan as an interest. The article concludes by examining current western involvement in Afghanistan in the broader context of this history.
Author Biography
John Ferris
John Ferris is a Professor of History at The University of Calgary, where he also is a Fellow at The Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. He received an MA ( 1980 ) and a PhD ( 1986) in War Studies, from King’s College, The University of London, United Kingdom. He has published four books and sixty academic articles or chapters in books, on diplomatic, intelligence and military history, as well as contemporary strategy and intelligence. His books have been published in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Singapore, Turkey, The United States and the United Kingdom: they also have been translated into French, Hebrew and Japanese. He comments in national and international media, on Canadian and American foreign and military policy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, intelligence, and nuclear weapons.
