Thanks for that.
I find it incredibly condescending to contend that attending university in mini-skirts is a sign of progress. Many countries in the world had young students doing that in the 60's and 70's and many have since stopped. Countries, however, still have an educated and well informed citizenry - without having to wear mini-skirts. Also, does every city in the East need to be a 'Paris of....' (Wasn't Beirut the 'Paris of the Middle East'?). Such laments are old and prejudiced.
I agree that we all suffer from recency bias - but the point still holds. Afghanistan is fractious like many other countries, especially in Asia, which weren't formed as Westphalian 'nation states' , but were born out of colonial enterprise and thus many tribal and ethnic loyalties were stitched together.
India was doomed for failure too because it stitched together so many ethnicities and languages. But there was a history going back millennia where India was governed as a collective entity, in a centralised fashion, for many centuries at a time. Part of it has to do with geography.
India is a place where you settle/sack/plunder - you merely pass through Afghanistan to get to other riches (east to west or west to east).
My point in my earlier article on Af was exactly this - the U.S. performed an exercise in colossal group think and did not involve Afghans in the process.
https://medium.com/discourse/the-us-made-every-conceivable-error-in-afghanistan-69152f011445
