Digital Be informed with the essential news and opinion. Delivery to your home or office Monday to Saturday FT Weekend paper — a stimulating blend of news and lifestyle features ePaper access — the digital replica of the printed newspaper. Team or Enterprise Premium FT. Pay based on use. Does my organisation subscribe? Group Subscription. Later in the 20th century, when the competition shifted into the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union known as the Cold War, Afghanistan remained one of the world most strategically significant territories.
In the 21st century, air power claimed a place that belonged exclusively to naval power in the 19th and 20th centuries.
And Afghanistan? Take a look: from air bases in this country warplanes can reach Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, and Tehran. It is no surprise that during its year project in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies built two of the world biggest airbases at Bagram and Kandahar.
Incidentally, Afghanistan is not "impossible to conquer" as is often claimed. It has been conquered many times by people who stayed and settled there. Those conquerors are what we now call "Afghans". What has proved intractably difficult is for an imperial power to govern Afghanistan from afar through proxies. There is an inherent cultural tension between urban and rural Afghans.
Any national government in Afghanistan has to be based in Kabul, as geography requires it, and any national government has to deal with foreign powers that have interests in Afghanistan. However, this outward-facing inclination and necessity tends inherently to put the government in Kabul at odds with the tribal powers in rural Afghanistan. When the government in Kabul becomes an obvious proxy for some distant and culturally different imperial power, the tension between Kabul and the demands from the people grows exponentially.
As a result, the country becomes less and less governable. For the reasons I have sketched above, it is difficult to imagine that foreign powers will not seek to interfere in Afghanistan again in the future. GT: Some countries are mulling over imposing sanctions on Afghanistan. What do you think of the sanctions? Will they be effective or will they lead to more disasters for the Afghan people? Ansary: Sanctions, it seems to me, are an effective tool for forcing the rulers of some nation to the bargaining table if they have a functioning economy.
Sanctions threaten to undermine the economy of a country and thus create internal problems for the rulers. Therefore, sanctions put pressure on those rulers to come to the bargaining table. Afghanistan, however, has been living on foreign aid for years. The bulk of its national budget has been coming from foreign sources.
The massive development projects in Afghanistan, the roads, the factories, the power plants, the airports, the apartment buildings and the rest, were funded by foreign governments and foreign companies. As is often the case in such situations, ordinary people will suffer while a small ruthless ruling elite will have an easier time imposing its will internally. I think there is a substantial possibility that a humanitarian crisis of monstrous proportions may erupt in Afghanistan regardless of what the international community does.
I cannot see that sanctions on Afghanistan will do anything but exacerbate that possibility. GT: How do you evaluate the role that China can play in Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation process as well as in its economic reconstruction? Ansary: China can play a positive role in Afghanistan at this time by offering the sort of aid Afghans will need to secure their immediate future.
The Taliban controls 80 per cent of the country. Osama bin Laden, who has been expelled from Saudi Arabia, enjoys protection in Afghanistan and his terror group is based there. Sanctions are issued. Taliban rulers swiftly flee Kabul — either to Pakistan or the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, where they prepare to mount a counteroffensive.
December : Western forces take the final Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south of the country. January : The UK Government announces 3, British troops are to be deployed in Helmand province, one of the most volatile regions of the country. June Captain Jim Philippson, 29, of the 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, is the first British serviceman killed in fighting after a gun battle with suspected Taliban militants in Helmand.
December : UK forces are heavily involved in heavy fighting and tactical operations in Helmand following escalating attacks from insurgents. March : Prince Harry flies back to the UK after serving in Helmand when foreign websites break a media blackout on details of his deployment. June 8 : Three British soldiers are killed in a suicide attack in Helmand, taking the number of military personnel killed in the conflict since to July : Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, becomes the most senior British Army officer to die on operations since the Falklands.
June 20 : The British death toll in the conflict reaches when a Royal Marine from 40 Commando dies in hospital in the UK eight days after being wounded in the Sangin area of Helmand province. July : The UK Government announces it is increasing development aid spending in Afghanistan by 40 per cent, including a new Business Challenge Fund aimed at increasing enterprise. November : At a Nato summit in Lisbon, a timetable for the handover of security control from the ISAF to Afghan forces by the end of is agreed.
May 2 : Osama bin Laden is killed by a US special operations unit after being tracked down living in a compound near Abbottabad, Pakistan. June 23 : US President Obama announces the withdrawal of 10, US troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, to be followed by a further 23, by the end of September July 6 : Mr Cameron announces that the UK will withdraw another troops from Afghanistan in , to follow due to withdraw over the course of During the s, the Taliban imposed social restrictions on women , like the mandatory burqa, and restricted access to health care, education and jobs.
As a result of prohibiting women from appearing in public spaces without a man, many widows and their children starved to death. In , less than 10 per cent of girls were enrolled in school. According to the United Nations, 80 per cent of Afghan women have been victims of domestic violence. By , 27 per cent of Afghan members of parliament were women. At the time, Canadian troops prepared to leave Kandahar, and I worried the gains made by women would be lost.
My fear is that as the news cycle changes, the world will forget about Afghanistan until violence erupts once more and we see the horrors once again in the media. Already, the space they carved out in society is disappearing. Already, they are becoming invisible. How long before their plight fades from our headlines and they become invisible to us, too?
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