When American B-52s went into action on either side of the Hindu Kush in the fall of 2001, the military history of Afghanistan came full-circle. The country that for centuries had stood at the crossroads of the great civilizations of the Old World was suddenly assailed by the young superpower of the New. This time it was not the centrality of Afghanistan but its very isolation from the rest of the globe that incurred the wrath of foreign arms. Once a coveted prize of empires and a source of indigenous warrior kingdoms, the southern Asian country had devolved through the modern era to the status of a buffer state, then a Cold War battlefield, and finally to a mere hideout ¡ª con­veniently pocked with caves offering refuge to international terrorists. Yet in the 21st century A.D., no less than in the 5th century B.C., Afghanistan found itself once again enmeshed in combat with the world¡¯s strongest military power. Given Afghanistan¡¯s long, varied his­tory of conflict, this latest development has not been a surprise.
Unlike some mountainous lands, such as Peru, Nepal, and Norway ¡ª even at times Switzerland, its closest European counter­part ¡ª it has never been Afghanistan¡¯s lot to exist benignly apart from the rest of the world. It has instead found itself at the hinge of impe­rial ambitions since the beginning of recorded history, from the world¡¯s first transcontinental superpower, the Persian Empire, to its latest, the United States. In between enduring or resisting invasions from every point of the compass (and most recently from the air), the Afghans have honed their martial skills by fighting among themselves, in terrain that facilitates divisions of power and resists the concept of centralized control. The wonder is that the Afghan people, who at this writing have experienced non-stop warfare for a quarter of a century, present the same problems to foreign antagonists today as they did 2,500 years ago. And battles between disparate cultures or religions continue to underlie the din of arms. Afghanistan, as ever, remains the stage for not just clashes of armies but of civilizations.