ARIF AYUB December 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. That epochal event led to unforeseen circumstances from which the region has still not recovered and shows no signs of recovering in the foreseeable future. Pre-invasion Afghanistan was in some sort of balance of external and internal forces delicately set up by the British and the Afghan monarchy. The British likened it to the Afghans walking the international tightrope between the Russians and the British while the British held the safety net. Of course, when the British left India the safety net also disappeared leaving the Russians with a distinct advantage in political and diplomatic terms. The international balance for Afghanistan was created by the British through a trial and error mechanism. The overall objective was however very clear; the safety of India's northwestern frontier, which was the traditional gateway for all recorded invasions of India, starting from the Aryans in 2500 BC and ending with the Afghans. This chronicle of invasions from the northwest created an obsession in the minds of the British for the defence of India. However, the invasion when it finally came was instead from the northeast as the Japanese tried to change the balance of power in Asia. This example shows the importance of keeping ones vision on the future and ones mind on the present while learning from the lessons of history. It is important not to become prisoner of preconceived assumptions or dogmas but to realistically assess the changing diplomatic balance of power. Nevertheless, while the British remained a prisoner to their conception of an invasion from the northwest they attempted to deal with the issue in their usual militaristic colonial style which had served them so well in India. The result was two wars of occupation which tried to establish the natural boundary of India on the Oxus river. Surprisingly, despite the British being at their height of worldwide supremacy both ended in disastrous ignominy for the British, who realised they were dealing with a people who could not be cowed down by a mere display of might. But would require a military and economic commitment which was beyond their colonial resources. At the same time, the Russian power in the north was growing and the threat to India was increasing as the Russians slowly enslaved Central Asia. This rivalry was termed 'the Great Game' by the British and 'the Tournament of Shadows' by the Russians who reciprocated British suspicions. Having learnt the futility of the military occupation of Afghanistan, the British resolved to settle the issue diplomatically and the result after protracted negotiations was the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907 demarcating the northern boundaries of Afghanistan. The southern boundary had already been settled in 1893 with delineation of the Durand Line creating the buffer State of Afghanistan. This policy created its own internal dynamics and led to an unfulfilled Afghan irredentism and the attempt by the Pashtun tribes to overthrow infidel rule. While the Afghan monarchy was kept satisfied by heavy subsidies, the British were never able to solve the problem of the tribes. Under Lord Curzon the tribes were to a large extent managed through a politically institutionalised system but the region remained an arena for annual military campaigns against recalcitrant tribes ever since the British overthrew the kingdom of the Sikhs. This complex mosaic was inherited by Pakistan and was handled quite well with military campaigns against the tribes declining to once in a decade. However with the Afghan government matters were considerably worse. The British withdrawal from the scene gave the Afghans a chance to restate their irredentist ambitions under the guise of Pasht-unistan. The lack of a countervailing power also encouraged the Russians to back the Afghans on this issue. The US which had inherited the mantle of the British reconciled themselves to containing the Russians through the northern tier of allies in the Baghdad Pact and CENTO, but were indifferent to the growing Russian dominance of diplomatic, political and economic affairs in Afghanistan. Matters came to a head when King Zahir Shah refused to listen to Pashtun extremists and remained neutral in the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, a major achievement of President Ayub's skilful diplomacy. The result was the removal of the King by Prince Daud in 1973 supported by Pashtun nationalist, who had by this time been considerably infiltrated by the communists. When Daud too refused to be a compliant puppet and tried to mend fences with Iran and Pakistan he was also violently removed in 1978 by the communists. The Russian political manipulation of domestic Afghan affairs had not gone unnoticed and Islamic movements supported by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami were also set up to counter communist infiltration receiving direct support from the Pakistan government after Daud's coup. While the Islamist could not achieve anything against Daud, the moment the communists took over their extremist policies it enabled the Islamists to be transformed into a national liberation movement with considerable support among the traditional Afghan population and the nationalists and modernists in the defence forces and bureaucracy. Fearing an Islamist victory with its unforeseen consequences in Central Asia, Russian troops were flown in to stabilise the situation. The rest of the world did not however consider this action with equanimity and considered it an unacceptable change in the balance of power with the Russians now being able to advance to the Gulf either through Pakistan or Iran. To prevent this worst case scenario the Afghan Islamist groups were provided international assistance on a phenomenal scale which ultimately led not only to the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan but also paved the way for the demise of the Soviet Union showing an inherent weakness which had never entered into the calculations of those who were mesmerised by Soviet military power and capabilities. The Soviet withdrawal led to a reciprocal US withdrawal and the region was left to recover on its own from two decades of warfare that proved impossible and Afghanistan became a centre for instability for the region. This led to the US invasion in an attempt to rectify their previous mistakes. However the Afghan problem is to complex for a military solution and requires a consensus of internal and regional players. The writer is a former ambassador.