Afghanistan : from a buffer zone to a space of terror : why and how has the “war on terror” been territorialized in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan:

From a buffer zone to a space of terror

Why and how has the “war on terror” been territorialized in

Afghanistan?

Supervisor: dr. Polly Pallister-Wilkins Co-Supervisor: dr. Said Rezaeiejan

Content

Abstract 4

Acknowledgement 5

Introduction 6

Scientific and social relevance 8

1. Literature review 10 2. Theoretical framework 14 3. Research design 21 3.1. Method of analysis 22 3.2. Data 23 3.2.1. Documents 23 3.2.2. Interviews 23

3.5.1 Reliability & validity 26

4. Background of the conflict and actors 27

4.1. 1 Ethnicities 27

4.2. The Afghan fraction 28

4.3. Taliban 29

4.4. Regional actors 31

4.5. Supranational actors 33

5. Analysis 38

5.1. Local and national level 38

5.1.1. Northern Alliances and governing group 39

5.1.2. Taliban and Al-Qaida 41

5.2. Regional and supranational level 42

5.2.1. Pakistan and India 42

5.2.2. Saudi Arabia 45

5.2.3. Iran 46

6. Conclusion 54

Abstract

This case study examines the territoriality of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan after the event of 9/11. The central question is: what can explain the territoriality of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan? By applying a spatial analysis I have made an attempt to explain the motive behind this war in terms of territory and territorial advantages. Afghanistan plays an important role as a crossroad to Central Asia. The “Great Game” between the actors, which are seeking to gain more spheres of influence or prevent the gains of others. There is power struggle between the local-national actors as well as between the regional and supralocal-national actors. Their geo-political and geo-economical interest and policies will explain the territoriality of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan.

Acknowledgements

During the education year 2014 – 2015, I have attended the master International Relations at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). This master program has contributed enormously to my development. This research is conducted in the context of the master project “Geopolitics, Borders and Conflict”. Attending this course I have learned several theoretical skills as well as analytical. Throughout this course I have learned to look at space and territory and their meanings and importance from a different perspective. I am very grateful to everyone who has supported me during this course and I would like to thank specially my supervisor Dr. Pallister-Wilkins for her encouragement, guidance and advice. Her professional insights contributed enormously to my academic development and to my own insights. Next, I would like to thank dr.

Said Rezaeiejan for his suggestion and advice. Furthermore I would like to thank Lester Ramsey

for his help concerning the lexical issues. I am also very thankful to UAF foundation and (Groesbeek- Assenbroek Stichting) foundation for their financial support. Without their support it was not possible to study. Next I would like to thank people who help find respondents and respondents for their cooperation. Finally I would like to thank my family and friends for their moral support.

Fawad Adib 30 Sep. 15

Keywords: Afghanistan, “war on terror”, territory, Space territoriality, security, Geo-politic, Sphere of influence

Introduction

This research concerns the territoriality of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Afghanistan has always had an important role in international geopolitics. It has a long history as a space of interventions and it seems to be an important space strategically and geographically. Afghanistan territory has played a great role as a vital crossroads for armies and has witnessed history-shaping clashes between superpowers.

Afghanistan attracted the empires and superpowers such as the Greece, Arab, Mongol and in more recent times, has been invaded by three modern world powers respectively Great Britain, Russia and America and its allies. Because of the diverse interventions Afghanistan is termed the “graveyard of empires”. It has been the chessboard of the great powers geopolitical and geostrategic games. When Captain Arthur Connolly, a young British officer 1823 to 1842, had hopes for a “great game” to be played out in these extraordinary lands, he could have had no idea how his aspirations would echo down the centuries (Gregory 2004: 31). The day Soviet troops crossed the Afghan border the United States finally had a chance to entangle the USSR in “its own Vietnam war” (Gregory 2004: 45) and the “Great Game” continued between these two imperial powers. While the world talked about the Cold War, weapons industries of the two blocks, east and west, caused two and half million causalities in Afghanistan.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’ Afghanistan experienced another intervention. President George W. Bush (2001) announced “the war on terror” in response to the attacks with the following sentence: “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there”. The War on terror in Afghanistan, which broke out on October 7, 2001 was launched by the United States military as “Operation Enduring Freedom” (OEF). The purpose of the invasion was to capture Osama bin Laden and put him on trial, to demolish the organization of Al-Qaeda, and to overthrow the Taliban regime that was supposed to be sheltering Osama Bin Laden and his organization (Hanhimäki 2008: 55).

There are some remarkable points; first the persons who committed this bloodshed were not Afghan residents. And the leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, settled in Pakistan where he was assassinated by the US Special Forces. Al-Qaida was active in Pakistan during the Afghan

particular during the Taliban regime. But its main headquarters remained in Pakistan. From Pakistan it could coordinate and operate. The question is: why was the “war on terror” territorialised in Afghanistan? Is that because there was a perception that Afghanistan was a safe haven for terrorists and the US and the NATO focused on Afghanistan? So Afghanistan became a space that needed to be changed and secured. These perceptions are based on a particular way of thinking about Afghanistan as it was in the case of India when Europeans concluded that Indians were sub-human and ought to be removed from the land (Sack 1986:133).

The main question that arises is: Why and how has the “war on terror” been territorialized in Afghanistan?

To provide a proper explanation for the main question I divide it into the following sub-questions.

a) How did Afghanistan shift from a buffer zone to a space of terror? b) Which actors are involved in the war?

c) What does Afghanistan’s territory mean for different people and who gets territorial advantages?

d) How did al-Qaida get territory in Afghanistan?

e) Who benefits economically from the conflict locally and internationally?

This thesis examines the reasons behind the territorialisation of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan and analyses the “war on terror” by focusing on diverse factors and actors. In this context, a critical theoretical approach can help demonstrate what territory means, what it offers and how territory and space is produced and reproduced and how and why the “war on terror” is territorialized in Afghanistan.

Scientific and social relevance

Through a focus on the territorial questions, it will add a crucial dimension, an insistence on the aspect of territory and space in the international relations. On the one hand the geopolitical strategies of the US and the “coalition of the willing” and on the other hand the internal power struggle make Afghanistan vulnerable for intervention and the territorialisation of the “war on terror”. The US and its allies have fixed terror to particular states like Afghanistan to intervene in them. This is the territory of failed and rogue states. The geographical imagination behind the military interventions in Afghanistan has definitely attempted to territorialize terror and the “war on terror”. On the other hand, while geographical aspects of the “war on terror” are widely discussed, the specifically territorial aspects are not. There is a relation between terrorist training camps, politics and territory (Elden 2007).

I will argue that this is the question of territory. The ideas of security are used to invoke a special kind of politics, involving exceptional prerogatives, emergency measures, and recourse to violence and the reassertion of sovereignty to counter threats, here is the territorial stress important. There was a necessity to respond to those terrorist attacks. This means that these emergency measures had to happen somewhere, and that somewhere is Afghanistan. This research provides -context specific- empirical evidence with regard to theories concerning “war on terror” in the context. A spatial analysis of the empirical data in this research will contribute in this way to the existing literature and theories.

The social relevance of the research will be contribution to describing and understanding the ongoing war in Afghanistan and its societal, economy, political consequences. This research will provide a deepened understanding of the conflict and security and insecurity issues. A good understanding of the conflict will help working and find towards a potential solution. This research will be significant for any diplomat, policy maker or scholar working towards a peace solution.

First I will discuss the existent literature concerning “war on terror” and 9/11. Thereafter I will provide a theoretical framework that will also define and explain the key concepts. Then by discussing the background of conflict I will examine how Afghanistan is changed from a “buffer” zone to a “space of terror”, of course this is the history part. Next, I look at how the

economically and gets territorial advantages from this conflict locally and internationally. Finally I will draw a conclusion and formulate an appropriate answer to the main question of this thesis. In the following section is a literature review concerning the “war on terror”. This aims to shed a light on the previous researches on this topic.

1. Literature review

The “war on terror” is thought to be an exceptional war, it does not happen anywhere and it is an abstract enemy. It is not a conventional war happening between two states. The war on terror seems to imply a de-territorialisation of war. The abstract and de-territorialized nature of terrorism as an enemy implied that this was never going to be a straightforward interstate conflict (Chandler 2009: 255). But this is not really the case. Though, a primary priority for the US and its allies was the identification of a clear territorial target for the envisaged military action. This point of view is most intensely echoed in the US Vice President Dick Cheney’s comments at the emergency national Security council meeting on 11 September 2001: “To the extent that we define our task broadly, including those who support terrorism, then we get at states”. And it’s easier to find them than Bin Laden (Jeffry 2009: 55).

The “war on terror” has a territorial dimension and spatiality to it and had to happen somewhere and it is territorialized in Afghanistan. In the nineteenth century Afghanistan was the object of international geopolitical strategies similar to those that existed in the late twentieth century. Both the Soviet Union as well as the United States treated Afghanistan as another extra-territorial arena in which to fight the Cold War (Gregory 2004: 45). There is a body of literature concerning the “war on terror” and conflict in Afghanistan but there is less attention paid to the territorial dimension of this war that has not been explored. Elden argues that while geographical aspects of the “war on terror” are widely discussed, the specifically territorial aspects are not well discussed there is a relation between terrorists training camps, politics and territory (2007).

On the other hand Gregory and Pred argue that the political violence and terror are partly a state action. And place, space and landscape are essential components of the real and imagined practices that constitute organized violence, past and present. The logics of the “war on terror”, as discussed above, have rapidly reorganized the spaces of the world on different levels (2007). According to Gregory and Pred terror is a form of calculated political action with defined goals (2007). Those goals could be their own or their supporters interest. As Dale (2008) argues that what is slowly emerging from the revelations of al Qaeda’s activities in Central Asia during the 1990s is the scope to which the group acted in the interests of both American oil companies as well as the U S government. In one-way or another a few Americans in the 1990s cooperated

countries notably Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan al Qaeda terrorists have provided pretexts or opportunities for a U.S. military commitment and even troops to follow. This has been most obvious in the years since the end of the Afghan war in 1989 (Dale 2008: 203). The “war” is needed because these countries are out of control, and terror has to be domesticated, brought back into the capable hands of well-ordered states (Hindess 2006: 248).

On the other hand in the territorialisation of the war on terror the colonial and cultural motives have also played a role. As Gregory points out, issues of culture and geography are central to understanding how colonial pasts bleed into contemporary Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Based on Edward Said’s argument, Gregory features colonialism as a cultural process. He argues that culture implicates the production and circulation of meanings through representations, practices, and performances that enter fully into the constitution of the world (Gregory 2004: 8). Since no one is outside or above culture, one is in one way or another all bound up in on-going processes of colonizing the performance of the colonial present (Gregory 2004: 10). Gregory points out that the post-9/11 representations of Afghanistan, and Iraq in the colonial mind, are portrayed as ‘fabrications’ built on the classical dichotomies of “us and them, civilized and barbaric” with the horrifying outcome of turning those spaces into a theatrical stage (2004: 11). Accordingly, Gregory examines the empirical detail of the colonial present and interconnected geopolitics and geo-economics of violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Gregory shows how geography is involved in cultural judgments and evaluations that underlie the ongoing exercise of colonial power. Intertwined constructions of difference and distance continue to privilege the unleashing of archetypal violence against other people and places. Gregory claims that “imaginative geographies” are performances of space (2004: 16-19) and he argues that Afghanistan has been substituted for terrorism, because it is accessible to military power, and terrorism is not. The territorialisation of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan was more than an instrumental expediency. By constructing its response to September 11 as a war on terrorism the US necessarily co-constructed other states in an “axis of evil” and projected this political geography beyond Afghanistan. In so doing it, not incidentally, pleased the cartographic imperatives of the neo-conservative “Project for the New American Century” (PNAC) (Gregory 2004: 51).

Furthermore, Dale explains partly the “war on terror” in terms of PNAC. He argues that 9/11 offered the American empire of George W. Bush and his neo-conservative administration to implement the agenda, which was build long before 9/11 (2007: 3). Dale observes the evidence that the 9/11 attacks were the apex of long-standing, but secret, trends that menaced the existence of American democracy as an open society. He argues that there has been a substantial cover-up of the events on 9/11 and he tackles the suspicious statements and actions made by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before, during and after 9/11. Dale says that the Bush agenda depended on 9/11, “or something like it” such as Pearl Harbor to get America to accept and wage an aggressive war (2007: 193). Dale argues that America’s military expansion into the world under the banner of 9/11 has been the result of crucial but surreptitious arrangements made by small elites reactive to the agendas of privileged affluent agendas, resulting in the disbursement of the communal democratic state. Irrefutably, this is an imposing and scrupulous examination of how secrecy and terror are used as political weapons when shifting public authority to an unaccountable prosperity class (Dale 2007).

Ingram and Dodds argue that “homeland security” is the key referent in discourses as in earlier stages of geopolitical transformation. The globe itself has also re-emerged as the level at which the most important processes are assumed to operate and upon which security is presumed to rest. Whereas there are many continuities with earlier colonial and Cold War eras, the conditions of contemporary globalization are enabling visions and strategies of security to become ever more expansive (2009: 2). The maximized notion of security indicates how counter-terrorist operations in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on the US are linked to a much wider project. It is not simply about the security but also liberal globalization (Ingram and Dodds 2009: 2). This project is couched in terms of a simple “imaginative geography” and several spaces of control have been created in many diverse places connected by a network of communication influences and coercion that contradict conventional maps of world politics. These go beyond mere foreign intervention in spaces such as Afghanistan to produce “complex features and topologies that are reframing the meaning of territory and sovereignty” (Ingram and Dodds 2009: 2-3).

War II indicates the continuity of President Bush's foreign policy with the past. He argues that the US is seeking for “extra regional hegemony” and proposes a policy of offshore balancing to defend American interests. The “Open Door” worldview has two elements, namely a political and an economic. First, the economic element implies that the US is committed to provide access to capital and goods to all markets. Second the political element includes its ideological dimension (Layne 2006: 30). The 'Open Door' is similar to the "informal imperialism" or the "imperialism" of free trade and this policy would have three advantages for American, prosperity, domestic political stability and global peace. Other states would follow the American liberal ideology and would open their markets to US economic expansion (Layne 2006: 32-4). The “Open Door” maintains as ideology five related and overlapping elements, namely: economic expansionism, promoting free markets and a liberal world order, promoting democracy, externalizing the enemy and the exceptionalism of the USA (Apeldoorn and de Graaff: 2011). Additionally, Parmar (2005) argues that there is a parallel between the attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11, and he claims that both cases were a “window of opportunity” for the United States. And this “window of opportunity” offered the Bush government the possibility to carry out its agenda (2005). Parmar claims that the ideas on foreign policy after Pearl Harbour were brought into practice even before Pearl Harbor. It was Pearl Harbor that offered the possibility to implement those ideas. Parmar argues that in the case of 9/11 the ideas and strategies already existed and were carried out by the Bush administration.

The main argument discussed by the authors concerning the “war on terror” is that this war is seen as a window of opportunity for the US liberal imperialism and it played as a catalyst for the Bush administration to implement the long existent neoliberal capitalism agenda. In the background of the insights of the literature can be said that there are other motives an objectives behind the “war on terror” than merely security issues. It is about the territory and the territorial advantages, which offers the actors to achieve their geo-political and geo-economical interest. But in the specific case of Afghanistan is the territorial importance is not will examined. We see also that there is link between the past and present, how and where the war is actually practiced. In the following chapter, theoretical framework, I discuss the literature concerning conceptualization of the territory, the importance of it and what does territory mean and what does it offers. This also aims to define the key concepts.

2. Theoretical framework

To offer a proper answer to the research question, I will provide a theoretical context using Sack’s theory “The Human territoriality”, the article of Brenner and Elden “State, Space, and Territory” as the main literature.

This theoretical framework also aims to explain the key concepts concerning this thesis. The history of Afghanistan shows that it is the geo-strategic space in a pivot era. It was a site of contestation and of course it is not new that Afghanistan is a battlefield between interested actors. The “war on terror” became to be not about the terrorism rather it became a local geo-strategic war between local and regional interests. Because Afghanistan had been continually destabilised, that enabled al-Qaida to get into Afghanistan.

By adopting these theories this thesis will explore: what is territory? What is the importance of territory? How has space been utilised for political purposes in particular for political interest. How space is use for political purposes and shapes politics and the socio-political relations. And how space itself is an agent in political and social as well.

Brenner and Elden argue that, according to Lefebvre, space is political and it is an agent of politics. Space is that over which there is political conflict and contestation. And states employ spatial strategies as well as individuals in order to get something from power (2009). Lefebvre sees the politico-spatial organization as a key modality of modern statecraft and as a strategic dimension of modern politics. And the state/space relationship cannot be understood adequately without a more systematic, historically specific interrogation of the problematic of territory (2009: 356). Especially its historical and geographical conditions of possibility, its specificity and periodicity, its institutional and symbolic expressions, its strategic roles, and its actual and potential limits persist to be comprehensively explored (Brenner and Elden 2009: 356).

On the other hand Elden points out that there is a relation between “terror” and “territory” and the linkage between “terror” and “territory” is more than merely coincidental (2007: 822). He argues that territory is formed both from the Latin “terra” land or terrain, as is generally recognized, and also from the notion of “territorium”, a place from which people are warned.

maintaining it as such requires constant vigilance and the mobilization of threat; and challenging it necessarily entails a transgression (Elden 2007: 823). Whereas terror might sometimes posture a threat to the territorial order of states, the possibility that territory and terror derive from the same Latin root suggests that territory can be a fundamental part of this order’s functioning. The territory of a state is continuously associated with the threat of violence toward those who do belong, as much as to those who do not (Hindess 2006: 243).

Territory refers to a portion of geographic space, which is claimed or occupied by a person or by group of persons or an institution. There is a relation between the territory, political and social power (Storey 2001). Territory exists at different spatial scales such as at the global down or macro scale and the local or at a micro scale. At macro or global scale the major powers pursue spheres of influence, like in the eras of formal colonialism, superpower tension or other forms of geopolitical rivalry. In all those cases it represents a distinct version of territorial behaviour (Storey 2001: 1). In the Cold War era both the US and the USSR were establishing geographical spheres of influence. It was a process whereby “friendly governments” were encouraged or sometimes forcibly installed in countries, which the superpowers thought to be essential to their strategic interest. Consequently the world was divided in some way or another into countries, which were allied to one side or the other (Storey 2001: 3).

The process whereby persons or groups claim such territory is referred to as territoriality. Sack defines territoriality as:

“The attempt by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area (1986: 19). Also territorially can be understood as a primary geographical expression of social power” (Sacks 1986: 1).

This definition of the territorially shows that political territoriality is a human activity. It is used to create and mold political relationships through socially constructed territories. That might include both the physical demarcation of a geographic era, as well as the establishment of coercive and socializing mechanisms and institutions to sustain territorial control, “by restricting and asserting control over a geographic area and also as a geographical expression of power”. As

already emphasized, territoriality is a strategy to affect, influence and control. For Lefebvre, state space and territory are mutually constitutive politico-institutional forms (Brenner and Elden 2009: 364). Territory is always produced and reproduced by the efforts of the state and through political struggles and at the same time territory also conditions state operations and ongoing actions to contest them (Brenner and Elden 2009: 367). Sack points out that: “territoriality” is always used in conjunction with non-territorial spatial strategies. Both the selection of territoriality and the effect it has depends on social context: on how space in general is used and conceived as well as on who is controlling whom and for what purposes” (1998: 52).

Territoriality can also be observed at the local scale through the division of a country whereby the consideration of territorial behavior and strategies are not straight related to the state. The spatial divisions within the urban areas can exist with dividing zones in term of affluence, class or ethnicity. Subsequently particular areas could be characterized in certain discourses like poor, working class or. Such division of urban space into informal territory results in a consideration of the ways in which a space can be seen as gendered or racialzed (Storey 2001: 5). Territoriality is defined as “either the organization and exercise of power over units of space or the organization of people and things into discrete areas through the use of boundaries”. Territoriality of spatial division is generally thought of as a strategy used by organizations and groups to organize social, economic and political activities (Gregory et al 744).

Every society uses different forms of power. They have different geographical organizations and conceptions of space and place. When societies change Geographical landscapes meanings change as well. Spatial organizations and meanings of space have histories and so do the territorial uses of space (Sack 1998:26). The logic of territoriality, as a spatial strategy offers several advantages to help affect, influence, and control and these constitute the domain of reasons for, or consequences of, using territorially (Sack 1998: 26-7). Sack suggests that territoriality is a geo-political strategy and a basis of power. “Territoriality’s effects are more than simple relationships, because they pertain to people and not to atoms”. They are more appropriately termed potential “reasons or causes” of, or potential consequences, or effects of territoriality (Sack 1998: 29).

We should keep in mind that whether or not particular advantages are used in a particular case depends on who is controlling whom and for what purposes (Sack 1998: 27). These incentives are also essential for exploring and explaining the territoriality of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan. In other words we should take into account the strategic, geopolitics and economic interest of the actors involved in the Afghan conflict and the “war on terror”. Western companies are interested in the resources-rich territories of northern Afghanistan. They also want to enter the adjacent countries of Central Asia: such as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan for minerals, particular oil and gas. All these interests and ambitions, according to the plans of the true instigators of war, must be realized and go by the shortest route through Afghanistan to the Pakistani seaport of Karachi (Saikal 2006: 222). So Afghani territory as a crossroad offers the involved actors the possibility (and the necessity) to reach and control the Central Asian countries and resources.

The space regulates and organizes a disintegrating national space at the heart of a consolidating worldwide space. Lefebvre terms it ‘‘abstract space’’ and suggests that it represents a qualitatively new matrix of socio-spatial organization, which is produced and regulated by the modern state. Brenner and Elden point out that for Lefebvre space generally, but abstract space especially, is inherently political, instituted by a state It is institutional and it is politically instrumental (2009: 359). Further, Lefebvre argues that the production of abstract space entails transformations in both political practices and institutional arrangements, as well as in political imaginaries. It contains new ways of visualizing, conceiving, and embodying the spaces within which everyday life, capital accumulation, and state action are to unfold (Brenner and Elden 2009: 359). Accordingly, Lefebvre argues that abstract space is “inherently violent and geographically expansive”. He suggests that it provides a framework for interlinking economic, bureaucratic and military forms of strategic intervention at both the scale of every state as well as at the worldwide international scale (Brenner and Elden 2009: 359).

According to Brenner and Elden, Lefebvre is insisting that the state and territory interact in such a way that they can be said to be mutually constitutive. They point out that for Lefebvre there is no state without a territory and equally there is no territory without a state. According to them, Lefebvre suggests that territory is the political form of space produced by and associated with the modern state. And space functions as a pre-existing reality, which is subsequently transformed

into territory through various political mechanisms, strategies and interventions (Brenner and Elden 2009: 362). Within the geo-historical framework of capitalist modernity, state power comes to serve as the institutional site, medium and outcome for the production of territory. “Territory enables, facilitates and results from the evolution of state action and concomitantly, state action produces, facilitates and results from the evolution of territory” (Brenner and Elden 2009: 364).

According to Gregory et al, the “territorialisation” is the dynamic process whereby humans and their affairs are fixed territorially in space by a range of actors but primarily by states (745). In the post-Cold War period there is a new security discourse, which was structured around the ubiquity of neoliberal globalization and the presence of a single superpower. The practice of rethinking security threats also entailed a process of reterritorialization and the reconstructing of spatial and geographical interactions (Jeffry 2009: 48-49). The reterritorialization of security threats has been structured throughout a fusion of notions of development and security, as Jeffery suggest, “through a circular form of reinforcement and mutuality, achieving one is regarded as essential for securing the other” (2009: 49). Jeffery points out that the US and the UK security strategies published since the launching of the “war on terror” have claimed that there is a single model for global security established upon the intersection of neoliberal economic notion, democratic governance and the sanctity of the state as the primary unit of international relations (2009: 50). This mean that in the “war on terror, development, good governance, humanitarian intervention and regime change” are all required to avoid fragile states becoming failed states, to build state functions where they are non-existent, and to bring rogue states within the crease of the international community (Jeffery 2009: 51).

Jeffery (2009) argues that Afghanistan was stated by the administration to be harbouring terrorists and was not able to govern its territory. This criterion of failure could have been applied to neighbouring Pakistan, which was not only an ally of the Taliban but had, since 1999, been ruled by its military leader General Pervez Musharraf. But president George W. Bush presented Pakistan as a strong ally’ and president Musharraf as a strong leader As Jeffery notes, Pakistan’s support was essential for logistical and symbolic reasons, in particular supporting President Bush’s declaration that the conflict in Afghanistan was not an attack on the Islamic faith but

rather a targeted strike on specific terrorist groups and the provision of humanitarian relief (2009: 55).

The connection of Afghanistan and terror needed two interlinked spatial strategies. 1) A “performance of sovereignty” whereby the fragmented space of Afghanistan could be characterized as a coherent state. 2) A “performance of territory” through which the unsolidified networks of al-Qaeda could be fixed to a bounded space. And this geopolitical framing of Afghanistan was set within a larger bio-political basis for the military intervention. The mapping of terrorism onto the Afghan state was accepted by the UN Security council resolution 1378. It suggested deeply concerning the grave humanitarian situation and the continuing serious violations by the Taliban of international law and human rights (Jeffrey 2009: 56). President George, W. Bush conveyed the threat posed to women under the Taliban regime and the subsequent opportunity for female liberation offered by US-led military intervention. The Afghanistan intervention consequently demonstrates the ability of the failed state marker to both spatialize the “development security nexus” while simultaneously providing a recognizable target for military intervention (Jeffrey 2009: 56). The US security strategies were structured around a supposed privileged geopolitical scene, the imagined ability to interpret the world with clarity unavailable to others (Jeffrey 2009: 61). Jeffrey conclude that:

“The fragile, failed and rogue state labels, then, serve to mask political practice behind technical and rhetorical renderings of state competence, severed from geographical and historical networks within which any given territory is entrenched. In doing so, the illusion of pluralistic political order structured around horizontally arranged sovereign states is reproduced” (2009: 62).

Storey (2001) notes that the social view of territoriality thus operates with the notion of social and political production of territory and its reproduction as a means of confirmation of established social norms and power relations. Individuals or groups, in order to attain and maintain control, employ territorial strategies. Thus control over territory is a key political motivating force and the allocating of space or particular territory results from interaction of social and political forces (2001: 6). On the other hand space and territory is where insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) take place and external forces, including nation-states, might

funding an insurgency for their own interest and benefit. They may also combat a competing state that supports the existing government. Consequently modern insurgencies can often cross multiple countries (Field Manual Interim 3-24.2 2009: 1.1). US Field manuals Interim 3-24.2 defines the insurgency as:

Organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict … It is normally a protracted political and military struggle designed to weaken the existing government’s power, control, and legitimacy, while increasing the insurgency’s power, control, and legitimacy (2009: 1.1).

To prevent or fight an insurgency, a counter-insurgency strategy is indispensable. Counter-insurgency involves all economic, military, paramilitary, psychological and civic actions that can be taken by a government to combat an insurgency (US Field Manuals Interim 3-24. 22009: 1.2). States employ spatial strategies and embrace societies to penetrate and control them effectively. States must be in a position to locate and lay claim to people and goods in order to extract resources and implement policies (Torpey 1998: 244).

On the basis of these theoretical insights I will analyse the empirical data. We see that according to all authors, territory is closely related to terror and violence. So there is a strong relationship between territory, state, terror and terrorism. They suggest that not only states, but as well groups and individuals, employ a scale of techniques, policies and several manoeuvres to control, exercise power and gain geo-political and geo-economic advantages.

In the following chapter I will discuss the research design and I will explain and justify my choice for Afghanistan as case study. Further I will explain the data gathering and the interview process. And I will explain the possibilities and limitations, which I was with confronted. And the reliability and validity of this research will be discussed in brief.

3. Research design

This is an interpretative qualitative case study research. According Baxter and Jack (2008) a qualitative case study is an approach to research that enables exploration of a phenomenon within its context using a variety of data sources. The issue can be explored not through one lens, but rather through a variety of lenses, which allows for multiple facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood. (Baxter and Jack 2008: 544). Baxter and Jack point out that according to Yin (2003) you can use a case study approach or a case study design should be considered when:

• The focus of the research is to answer “how” and “why” questions; • When one cannot manipulate the behavior of those involved in the study;

• The researcher wants to cover contextual conditions because he/she believes they are relevant to the phenomenon under study;

• The boundaries are not clear between the phenomenon and context.

This research accomplish with the points concerning a case study. It concerns about why and how questions. It examines the territorialisation of the war on terror as a phenomenon with multiple facets. It is not a quasi-experiment and, as a researcher I cannot control any of the events and behaviors of the involved actors and manipulate the situation. It also accomplishes the other important points concerning a case study as Baxter and Jack point out, such as “time and place, time and activities, definition and context” (2008: 547).

While the main question of this research is: “why and how has the war on terror been territorialized in Afghanistan? The case of Afghanistan as a case study complies with all above-mentioned points it can consequently be considered an appropriate case study. The interpretative approach is chosen because this research is intersected in order to understand the situation and context, to construct understanding from the point of view of the researched subjects. In employing an interpretive approach to make sense of how others make sense of the world (Pallister-Wilkins 2008: 6) and in this case how Afghan people make sense of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan.

3.1 Method of analysis

A spatial analysis is adopted because the concepts of territory and space are at the core of this research. The “war on terror” is about the territory and the territorial advantages, which allows the actors to achieve their geo-political and geo-economic interests rather than a security issue. Accordingly, Elden points out that in a number of ways Bush’s “war on terror” has shown the importance of Lefebvre’s notion that space is the ultimate locus and medium of struggle, and is therefore a crucial political issue. Space is not just the place of conflict, but also an object of struggle itself. And for this reason Lefebvre claims, “there is a politics of space because space is political” (2007: 822). Ingram and Dodds (2009) argue that a number of writers have observed many developments that were visible before September 2001 and have intensified and crystallized, sometimes in new ways, but invariably also reflecting the imprint of earlier specializations. To apply a spatial analysis it will help to examine and understand the imbedded purpose behind the “war on terror”. It will enable me to show that the “war on terror” take place in real spaces and territories, in certain time and in real battlefields in Afghanistan.

By analysing the data I will take into account the next factors: • Space, territory, security

• Geo-political and geo-economic interest • Sphere of influence

The analysis will be conducted on three levels: local, national and supranational. This research is based on a literature study of existing research concerning this topic. My analysis is based on 15 interviews as well as US, EU and Afghan policy documents. This will be further widely discussed later.

Prior to the data collection and empirical research, I have provided a literature review and theoretical framework of existing theories and (historical) descriptions concerning “war on terror” and the main concepts of this research. That provided me with useful concepts that served as a guide in my research. To analyse the empirical data, I made the following themes. Those themes enabled me to have a clear grip on data in addition to serving as a guideline. The Interviews had been transcribed and both those transcriptions as well as other documents have been coded. That process enabled me to have a better overview of the gathered and analysing data.

3.3 Data

The data, which I will analyse, consist of the interviews and policy documents and reports. Further, I will interview some Afghan officials, authorities, scholars and experts to get primary information and to represent their understanding and perception of the “war on terror” and the purposes behind it. It will make sense of what Afghans think about the intervention in their country and what it means to them.

3.3.2 Documents

I will analyse and interpret the following documents:

• US National Security Strategy documents, before and after the event of 9/11. I will examine if there is continuity in the US foreign strategy.

• US policy documents. • Afghan policy documents.

• US and Afghan presidential speeches. Especially speeches and videos of president Bush and president Karzai.

• US- Afghan Strategic Agreement document. • And other policy rapports.

3.3.1. Interviews

To examine the territorialisation and context of “war on terror” I have conducted interviews with several people with different background from Afghanistan, among whom political analyst, former mujahidin, former government, (so called communist regime), officials. In this way I have tried to have a representative picture. The interviews that I conducted were open interviews and semi-structured in nature. In conducting interviews I explained to the respondents about my research and how I was going to use the data. I insured them that their anonymity would be absolutely respected if they so wished. Some of them preferred to be anonymous while it did not matter for some others. The interviewed persons reside in different countries including Afghanistan, England, and Germany. Because of the circumstances, a face-to-face interview was often not possible therefore in these cases I conducted telephone interviews. Almost all interviews were recorded which might have influenced the openness of the interviewee. All interviews are conducted in Farsi/Dari.

Initially it was not easy to find respondents, especially people who were functioning during the so-called communist regime in Afghanistan. Most of them are very reticent for various reasons. For my research I was partially dependent on several people who arranged interviews for me. Another point, which should be stressed, is my own role as a researcher within this research. Given the fact that I am originally from Afghanistan my own view and attitude may have influenced the outcome of the research. But as every searcher should be aware of his/her own perceptions and attitudes regarding the researched subjects, I was also aware of my own bias and have tried to deal with my objectivity and subjectivity. The following respondents have been interviewed.

1. Abdul Rahim is Retired general works as Deputy to Programming and Analysis Directorate, Ministry of Defence since 2008. He lives in Afghanistan Kabul and the interview is conducted via Skype on 7 July 2015.

2. Abdul Qudous Asghari functions as policy advisor in Guldara district in Kabul province and he lives in Kabul. The interview is conducted via Skype on 12 July 2015.

3. Ali Chakari is a political scientist and functions as Policy Officer at Ministry of Infrastructure in the Netherlands. The interview is conducted on 10 June 2015

4. Abdul Ahmad Amage is a political analyst and works as university teacher at Kabul university. The interview is conducted in Rotterdam. The in interview is conducted on 05 August in Rotterdam.

5. Abdul Fatah Falahi woks as Deputy Director Inertia Multimedia & Consultancy. The interview is conducted via telephone on 30 August 2015.

6. Fareedoone Aryan functions as Director of Program America Abroad Media Kabul, Afghanistan. The interview is conducted via telephone on 01 September 15.

7. Bashir Baghalani is a Political Analyst and he has worked as Governor of Baghlan province and later Farah Province. He lives in Germany and the interview is conducted via telephone on 19 August 2015.

8. Dad Mohamad Nouzadi is a former police officer. The interview is conducted on 25 August 2015 in Amsterdam.

9. Mohamad Ikram Andeschmand is a political analyst and writer. He worked as director of the Afghan TV and Radio during the Mujahidin regime. The interview is conducted via telephone at 02 September 2015.

10. Mohammad Asif Reha is a political analyst. He worked as journalist in Afghanistan. The interview is conducted in Amsterdam on 15 August 2015.

11. Shir Shah Nabi works as a researcher at the department of criminology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. The interview is conducted in Amstelveen on 15 September 2015. I had not the opportunity to meet and interview all respondents; in this case Skype and telephone were the best alternative. Only with the respondents who live in the Netherlands was a face-to-face interview possible. As I have mentioned, in some cases face-to-face-to-face-to-face interviews were not possible because of my personal situation; I am not able to race to have an interview with particular person. Only with persons who are in the Netherlands was a face-to-face interview possible. And I had to conduct interviews on the telephone or via Skype, which has its own complexities, in particular in the case of interviews with respondents within Afghanistan. Sometimes was it not easy to make a call because the line was very busy. When you have made a call then the line was not always clear and I had to continually ask for more explanation. And sometimes was the call disconnected and I had to make other efforts to continue the conversation. This process may influences the interview and the responses to the question. I think that a face-to-face interview was much better because if you see people you can have a little talk prior to the interview, which may help to have mutual trust.

A researcher may influence the respondents in such a way that it affects the outcome of the research as well as the perceptions of the researcher. Especially my background as a resident of Afghanistan and my own view on the on-going conflict most likely entered into the final product. And since the interviews were only semi-structured and the analysis an interpretative character, it is possible that another researcher might have had different answers and different outcomes. By choosing a combination of interviews and policy documents I have tried to construct as representative a picture as possible. I was aware of the probability that my own bias as a researcher might influence the outcome of the research as well. And my own cultural background and frame of reference might have biased the evolvement of the interviews and my interpretations of the data. I have to mention that a different researcher might have had a different sampling of respondent and therefore different interviews with a different interpretations and outcomes. Though I tried to remain as objective as I could, it is possible that, aware and unaware, I took a particular position within the interviews, which could have influenced the outcomes of the interviews and in analysing the interviews and data.

3.5 Reliability & validity

Through the use of semi-structured and deep interviews, it is not likely that this research can be repeated in exactly the same manner. Due to its nature, this research uses qualitative research methods. A combination of the data sources like existent literature, interviews and documents will help enhance the validity. My analysis is based on the US and Afghan policy documents and media rapports and the interviews with people from diverse background and their experience. The use of a triangulation method to conduct this case study may contribute to its validity. But concerning the reliability due to the fact that I have conduct semi-structured and deep interviews and it is possible that other researchers may come to other conclusions.

The following chapter discusses the Background of the conflict and involved actors, which help to provide a good understanding of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Frist will be the

4. Background of the conflict and actors 4.1 ethnicities

Afghanistan is one of the most mosaic states in its region. Its population, estimated to be around 27 million, consists of a number of micro-societies, divided along ethnic, tribal, clan, sectarian, and linguistic lines (Saikal 2012: 80). There are about 14 ethnic groups among the country’s population: Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Balochis, Turkmens, Nooristanis, Pamiris, Arabs, Gujars, Brahuis, Qizilbash, Aimaq and Pashai. The identities of these ethnicities have been formed by their relationship with local and region rather than national landscape. In one form or another most of the micro-societies have substantial cross-border ties with Afghanistan’s neighbours, for example the Pashtuns, have many more members on the other side of the Durand line in Pakistan. The Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmens are much more numerous in the contiguous Central Asian countries to the north (Siddique 2012: 2). Among the Afghan ethnicities respectively the Pashtuns 42%, Tajiks 25-30%, and Hazaras 10% are the largest (Saikal 20012: 80). But defining various ethnic identities is not always easy because of an absence of accurate survey data determining the true percentages of the ethnic groups and it can be problematic and contentious (Siddique 2012: 2).

According to Schetter (2010), why ethnic groups become politically relevant is that the Afghan state was created by the two rival colonial powers Great British and Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. The Pashtuns ruling family crowned by British India favoured Pashtun elements in their concept of the nation-state. The Afghan national language became Pashtu and the Afghan history was written from a Pashtun perspective. The politics of the ruling family employed the ethnic patterns, which came into existence in order to regulate access to public goods and offices (Schetter 2010: 3). Between 1929- 19 73 Afghanistan experienced a period of stability that rested largely on a Pashtun clan dominating the political and military leaderships, Tajik providing mostly the intelligentsia and administrators, and the other groups were under-privileged (Saikal 2012: 81) Tajiks were engaged with the economic sector and the educational institutions, whereas the Hazaras were marginalized in general. An ethnic hierarchy was created by politics of the nation-state. Despite that there were surprisingly few ethnic conflicts. The ethnic card was never played openly by the parties but remained covert (Schetter 2010: 5).

4.2 The Afghan fraction

During the next half century, Afghanistan witnessed a stable, centralized, mostly Pashtun-dominated government, which relied on foreign assistance to bring about gradual modernization. The relative political freedoms granted under the 1964 Constitution allowed the formation of leftist oriented and Islamist groups. At the same time, ethnicity played a more prominent role in political alignments. Setam-e Milli (National Oppression) emerged as a decidedly anti-Pashtun organization whose focus was the overthrow of what they described as the Pashtun dominance of Afghanistan. On the other hand, Afghan Millat, a Pashtun nationalist political party, advocated greater “Pashtunization” of Afghanistan and even aspired to unite all Pashtuns. Many leaders of the two major factions of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) also supported such views (Sidiqiue 2012: 3).

Ethnicity became a political-military force to reckon with when the Afghan war broke out in 1979. Even though the war was dominated by the antagonism of communism versus Islam, regarding the paradigms of the Cold War, the belligerent parties increasingly enhanced the ethnic momentum to strengthen their positions (Roy 1986). The communist rulers hoped to tie certain ethnic groups closer to them by raising them to the status of nationalities. Even more important was the creation of militias that relied on ethnic affiliation such as the Uzbek militia of Rashid Dostum (Roy 1986).

In the late 1989 the Soviet troops had to leave Afghanistan and gradually decreased support to the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime in Kabul, which finally fell in April 1992. What should have been a glorious victory for the Mujahideen proved instead to be a time of troubles for them and another phase of conflict occurred, as Tajiks behind Ahmed Shah Massoud and Pashtuns behind Gulbuddin Hekmatyar began to fight each other (Dale 2008: 203). All combating parties, which dominated the military and political actions in the last decade, were more or less supported by members of one of the four major ethnic groups. The political movements used ethnicity as the main argument for their political existence, because all other ideologies such as Islam as well as communism or royalist lost ground as a basis for the mobilization of the masses and as instrument of political demands (Schetter 2010: 4-5).

the survival of their ‘own ethnic group’ was endangered through the aggressive behaviour of ‘other ethnic groups’. Nevertheless, by means of the ethnic momentum the warring factions stirred up a collective anxiety as well as hate and jealousy (Schetter 2010: 5). The parties demanded economic and political resources of the state and society in the name of their ethnic groups. Furthermore all combatant factions justified their political demands referring to the size of their ethnic group and their territorial backgrounds. Also all combatant parties used ethnicity in their military actions. Ethnic cleansing and ethnocide occurred frequently in Kabul between 1992 and 1994, in the Shomali plains (a large district in north of Kabul) between 1996 and 2001, in the Hazarajat between 1998 and 2001 and in Northern Afghanistan, especially Mazar-i Sharif, since 1997 (Schetter 2010: 4-5).

Suhrke points out that while the mujahedin groups turned on each other, supported and backed by Afghanistan’s neighbors. Neither the US nor the UN was willing to intervene and try to stop the violence, thereby opening the ways of opportunity for the Pakistan-supported Taliban movement to seize power and control (2006). Even when the Afghan defense minister Ahmad Shah Masoud called for assistance and help during a press conference in Paris and warned president Bush for the consequences as he said: “ if my massage to Mr. Bush would not be paid attention to in establishing peace in Afghanistan it will have catastrophic consequences, not only for Afghanistan but also to America as well as other countries” (March 2001). At the dawn of 21st century, the conflict in Afghanistan was seen above all as an ethnic struggle. While Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were seen as bankrolling a Pashtun takeover of the country by supporting the Taliban (Ssidiqiue 2012: 5).

4.3 Taliban:

Eventually, a large group of so-called Muslim fighters, consisting mainly of the Pashtun majority, had become disillusioned with the Islamic State of Afghanistan and the brutalities, persecutions, and licenses it perpetrated in the name of Islam. Many of them were former students from the madrassas, religious schools that had been set up in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan and in Kandahar. They were known collectively as the Taliban and they sought to restore law, order, and stability to Afghanistan through the removal of the warlords and the imposition of a radically purified Islam (Gregory 2004: 39-40).

In 1994 Taliban troops had seized Kandahar, their spiritual home and effective capital, and severed the supply lines between the Islamic State of Afghanistan and its arch-protagonist, Iran (an action endorsed and even encouraged by the United States). (Gregory 2004: 40) The Taliban finally forced Massoud's fighters out of Kabul in September 1996. Faced with such a resounding defeat, Massoud formally resurrected the Northern Alliance as the United Islamic and National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (though it continued to be widely known by its old name) (Gregory 2004: 39-40). The Taliban began their military operation as an insurgent movement. Military-focused insurgents often believe that a small group of guerrillas operating in an area where grievances exist can eventually gather enough support to achieve their aims (Field Mauals 2009: 1.1).

In 1996 the fall of Kabul to the Taliban was reached with Pakistan’s generous logistic and combat assistance in a manner that had not been provided to the Mujahedeen to fight against the Soviets Union. It also opened a bloody new chapter in the evolution of Afghan and regional politics. In a subsequent Taliban assault on Mazar-e Sharif in August 1998, as many as 1,500 Pakistani military personnel took part in the attack (Saikal 2006: 224). Taliban declared the foundation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. This was more than diplomatic show. Pakistan continued to pursue its policy in addition to its desire to contain nationalist ambitions for an independent Pashtunistan and had, since 1990, been prepared to support any regime that would allow guerrilla fighters to train in Afghanistan for its covert war with India over Kashmir. (Gregory 2004: 39-41)

Throughout the following year the Taliban made repeated attempts to push further into the territories into which the Northern Alliance had withdrawn, and several hundred members of al-Qaeda fought alongside Taliban troops. The scale of the violence, and of the exaction and repression visited upon the civilian population by all sides, was stunning. (Gregory 2004: 39-42). Gregory points out that:

“Those who enlisted in the civil wars in Afghanistan, from inside its borders and beyond them, were not pawns on the chessboards of the United States, Pakistan, and

Saudi Arabia, any more than those who resisted British and Russian imperialism in the nineteenth century were pawns on Curzon's lordly chessboard” (2004: 46).

Despite these open violations of human rights, the US supported the Taliban, to secure a contract for an oil pipeline through Afghanistan that would enable a US-based oil company to gain access to Caspian Sea oil (Stabile and Kumar 2005: 769).

A great deal of controversy surrounds the role of countries other than Pakistan in the orchestration of the Taliban. Pakistan’s then Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, has disclosed that Pakistan was not alone in setting up the Taliban. She has said: “Weapons were supplied to the Taliban by the USA and Britain with money from Saudi Arabia”. Pakistan’s territory was used to train solely the Afghan refugees namely Pashtuns, who made up the pillar of the Taliban movement (Saikal 2006: 223).

The Taliban suited not only the interests of Pakistan, but also these other countries in different ways. For example given the Sunni, but the same time anti-Shi’a and anti-Iranian, character of the Taliban, the Saudi and US objectives were very much shaped by a mutual desire to contain the Islamic Republic of Iran and prevent it from gaining influence in Afghanistan and in the mineral and market-rich region of Central Asia (Saikal 2006: 223). Because of these economic interests the US did not want to antagonize the Taliban, and remained silent when the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996 and began its barbaric assault on women (Stabile and Kumar 2005: 769).

4.4 Regional actors

At the dawn of 21st century, the conflict in Afghanistan was seen above all as an ethnic struggle. Also Pakistan and Iran used the ethnic potential for conflicts. On the grounds of Shiite loyalties Iran established the Hizb-i Wahdat, which was strong amongst the Shiite Hazaras. During the 1980s the Jamiat-i islami the oldest resistance movement, developed into a representation mostly for the Tajiks. Pakistan supported the Pashtun-dominated Taliban (Schetter 2010: 4). Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were seen as financing a Pashtun takeover of the country by supporting the Taliban. On the other hand, Iran, Russia, some Central Asian states and India supported the Northern Alliance existent mostly from non-Pastusns, to prevent a whole Taliban victory when the fundamentalist militia already controlled more than 90% of Afghanistan’s territory (Saikal 2006).

Mitton (2014) argues that the Indo-Pakistani rivalry has played a role in determining the outcome of the current war in Afghanistan. The Indo-Pakistan rivalry has complicated matters for the war efforts in Afghanistan. The author argues and provides evidence that India seems to view access to Central Asian resources as the key issue and Pakistan views its encirclement as the key issue. The involvement of India and Pakistan may very well make establishing stability in Afghanistan very hard indeed. Mitton points out that the importance of Pakistan’s cooperation with NATO/ISAF has long been recognized; for years, limiting military operations to Afghan territory allowed insurgents to slip across the Afghanistan Pakistan border into relative safety, where they could recuperate, replenish, and coordinate future attacks (Mitton 2014). For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea. India, in reaction to Pakistan and possibly concerned about China's long-range influence in the region, views Iranian influence in Afghanistan and a greater Russian presence in the former Soviet space more favorably (Brzenzinski 1997: 139).

4.5 Supranational actors

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Britain fought three bloody Afghan wars in order to beat back the influence of tsarist Russia and secure the borders of its Indian Raj (Gregory 2004: 30). As already mentioned Afghanistan played the role of buffer state between the Russian and British empires, then between the Soviet Union and British India and finally, until 1992, between the Soviet Union and US and its allies. Afghanistan is important enough largely because of its strategic location (Saikal 2006). The conceit of the British and Americans could be easily extended to the Soviet Union as well:

“These two nations have, in turn, enjoyed the experience of global supremacy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a consequence they are known by the world far better than they, in turn, know that world. To use an analogy, the slave always has to know his or her master, in order to maximize the chances for survival. The master can enjoy the luxury of ignorance at least until his throat is cut” (Saikal 2006: 7).

This was a complex and uneven process, and given the indifferent proclivities of colonial cartography it is scarcely surprising that deep fractures remained. Of particular significance was the Durand Line, an arbitrary border between Afghanistan and British India that was drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand, the Foreign Secretary of the colonial government of India. The Durand Line proved to be much more difficult to delineate on the ground than on a desk; it was finally surveyed in 1894-5, slicing through tribes and even villages, and cutting the territories of the Pashtun in two. After India's independence and partition in 1947, the line became the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but these fractures neither severed trans-border connections among the Pashtun nor shattered the dream of a united “Pashtunistan” (Gregory 2004: 31).

Britain was in Afghanistan three times, during the wars of 1839–42, 1878–79 and 1919. The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 with catastrophic consequences for Afghanistan as well as the Kremlin. The “Great Game” has been a tournament of shadows in a secret war of illusions and costly to everyone involved, but Afghans in particular. (Saikal 2006: 8). Most political conflicts in modern Afghan history have not begun as disputes over such issues as the direction of development, religious belief, constitutional rights or social class. Rather, they