> There is a area, with tribes, in small medieval villages divided into patriarchal famuly clans governed by warlords.
Germany used to be the same until 1871, a loose federation of fiefdoms that regularly went to war amongst each other. Fun fact, the tariff region structure [1] very much resembles a map from what was "Germany" before then [2].
It's not impossible to turn a bunch of small fiefdoms into one powerful entity. All you need is a compelling story and, as I wrote in this thread, some sort of economic incentive/perspective that actually shows to the population that the new government is actually better for their individual lives than what was before.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/c18q0r/das_heilige_tari...
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Heiliges_R%C3%B6misches_...
Well congrats they got that story, they repelled in order: the mongols, the greek, the chinese, the russians, the british, the russians, the americans and soon the chinese. Are they the swiss yet ? Some ingredient is missing , the story aint it.
Up until the Soviet era, a lot of the natural resources Afghanistan has simply were not relevant, or maybe that fits it better, there were easier ways to acquire them than a country thousands of road (!) miles away from the powers that were.
The Soviets wanted Afghanistan for imperialist reasons, during the first Taliban era there were enough other sources that were more convenient, the Americans lacked the conviction and coherence to follow through... and now the Chinese are swooping in with money.
