Afghanistan in the Balance

The United States faces a classic challenge in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires, as it attempts to meet its pragmatic security interests. The rugged, landlocked terrain has provided historic sanctuary for its warrior-tribes and safe havens for terrorist groups that have attacked and continue to threaten America. Afghanistan's geographic and cultural realities favor insurgency as a normal form of warfare. The context in Afghanistan is different today than it has been in the past, however, and the military forces available to the US are more mobile, effective, and powerful than ever before. These capabilities emanate from its unprecedented airpower, without which the United States would have no seat at the balance-of-power table in Central Asia. If it employs its airpower responsibly, America can help sow the seeds of a previously unknown creation-a stable, economically vibrant Afghanistan. The balance-of-power dynamics of the nineteenth century Great Game in Afghanistan between Britain and Russia reveal timeless patterns of realist behavior. The record of airpower's use (and misuse) in the twentieth century informs the failures of Britain and the Soviet Union and instructs the employment of airpower by the United States today.