Afghanistan's Future as Seen from Hindustan's Military Past

摘要

This article stems from an informal inquiry into how military history was employed in British and North American centres for higher military education to prepare officers for deployment to Afghanistan. The discussions were conducted with professional military educators who were actively teaching in institutions tasked with educating middle and senior ranking officers. When questioned about course reading materials and texts, there was little commonality of approach between the three North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies. There was, however, a common working assumption that the only applicable military history lessons were those drawn from the three Anglo-Afghan Wars fought in 1839-1842, 1878-1880 and 1919 respectively. When asked about the linkages of Afghanistan to Pakistan and the wider South Asian region, there was a begrudging admission that the war in Afghanistan could not be fought in isolation and that any lasting peace had to be considered within a greater regional framework. Yet when it was posited that there may be benefit to a wider approach to the applicability of regional military history, those queried could see little to no benefit in considering any military history lessons but those derived from the three previously cited Anglo-Afghan Wars. This paper suggests that if military history has a useful role to play in contemporary conflict analysis and, more importantly, professional military education, then there is merit in considering a wider historic canvas and that the events of Hindustan's military past lend themselves to such an application.