Did Alexander the Great Succeed in Truly Conquering Afghanistan? Debate - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15189773
So here is a question, did Alexander the Great truly succeed in completely subduing and conquering Afghanistan? I lean towards saying no. I had this debate with a Greek-American friend of mine. He thinks Alexander the Great did indeed truly conquer Afghanistan and completely subdued it. However, I would like to hear what others think here on PoFo?
#15189777
Politics_Observer wrote:So here is a question, did Alexander the Great truly succeed in completely subduing and conquering Afghanistan? I lean towards saying no. I had this debate with a Greek-American friend of mine. He thinks Alexander the Great did indeed truly conquer Afghanistan and completely subdued it. However, I would like to hear what others think here on PoFo?


@Politics_Observer ;

Good question! I think he did not truly conquer Bactria and Sogdiana, as his successors in the area almost immediately had to face rebellions which eventually drove them out. Some colonists survived and became a tribal people themselves. The Parthians and Kushans did their part in all that too.
#15189780
I don't really know one way or the other but I do know how it was presented by a history professor who I admired very much, who was a specialist on middle east history.

He said Alexander was the only one to ever conquer Afghanistan.

On the other hand, I have seen YouTube videos which basically said he made his way through and one all his battles, but I don't know that the entire land was ran through and subdued necessarily.

Than again, Alexander's empire split up as soon as he died. I think that Afghanistan was a part of his empire then for all intents and purposes.

But perhaps sort of a backwater.

I don't really know. My professor seemed to think he did though (and that he was the only one to ever conquer it.)
#15189781
annatar1914 wrote:
@Politics_Observer ;

Good question! I think he did not truly conquer Bactria and Sogdiana, as his successors in the area almost immediately had to face rebellions which eventually drove them out. Some colonists survived and became a tribal people themselves. The Parthians and Kushans did their part in all that too.



Annatar, about your tag line, Nietzsche was partly talking about what he saw. What he saw was a world that was becoming secular. He wasn't leaving Christianity, the Modern World is mostly secular. My one criticism of that is he didn't go far enough.
#15189782
@annatar1914 @Crantag

Yes, I agree with you Annatar. A Soviet Afghan veteran who lived here in the U.S. and whom I correponded with long before my deployment to Afghanistan wrote a book on his experiences serving in the Soviet army in Afghanistan. He snapped a picture where Alexander the Great left a statue that stated "Anybody may occupy Afghanistan but ye shall never vanquish it." That picture is in his book. The Pashtuns in Afghanistan mentioned how Alexander the Great ran into trouble in Afghanistan as well. When Alexander the Great died, his soldiers tried to leave but were forced to stay by the tribes men or were killed if they resisted too. The dogs ate some of the bodies from what I understand which shocked even some of Alexander's battle hardened veterans.

Edit:

The Soviet Afghan veteran's book I am referring to is this: https://amzn.to/392mev2 . He lived in Vegas and had a serious gambling problem before he died. He didn't have a Russian wife but I think he had an American wife but I am not sure and I can't remember what he told me. Last I heard he passed away and was flown back to Russia to be buried. But he lived out most of his life here in the U.S. after his service in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. I bought and read his book long before I deployed and then went back to it and read it again just before I deployed, learning lessons of those who came before me.
#15189785
Politics_Observer wrote:@annatar1914 @Crantag

Yes, I agree with you Annatar. A Soviet Afghan veteran who lived here in the U.S. and whom I correponded with long before my deployment to Afghanistan wrote a book on his experiences serving in the Soviet army in Afghanistan. He snapped a picture where Alexander the Great left a statue that stated "Anybody may occupy Afghanistan but ye shall never vanquish it." That picture is in his book. The Pashtuns in Afghanistan mentioned how Alexander the Great ran into trouble in Afghanistan as well. When Alexander the Great died, his soldiers tried to leave but were forced to stay by the tribes men or were killed if they resisted too. The dogs ate some of the bodies from what I understand which shocked even some of Alexander's battle hardened veterans.

Edit:

The Soviet Afghan veteran's book I am referring to is this: https://amzn.to/392mev2 . He lived in Vegas and had a serious gambling problem before he died. He didn't have a Russian wife but I think he had an American wife but I am not sure and I can't remember what he told me. Last I heard he passed away and was flown back to Russia to be buried. But he lived out most of his life here in the U.S. after his service in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. I bought and read his book long before I deployed and then went back to it and read it again just before I deployed, learning lessons of those who came before me.


@Politics_Observer ,

I've known of a number of ''Afghansty'' war veterans. Some of them went on to fight in Chechnya... Same basic enemy, really.

But yes, with Alexander, nothing of his Empire survived him in any case, his successors fighting each other constantly until the Parthians and Kushans and Romans inherited it all.

Sometimes though Empires aren't made for a mad quest for glory, but for survival and a better way of life, to stop constant slaving and kidnapping and looting raids, of arson and murder and demands for tribute. That's when such folk have to be conquered.
#15189786
@annatar1914

That's the Russian mentality you are speaking of. The view of the Russians is conquer or be conquered. This is because they have been invaded so many times throughout history. The problem with that mentality is that it necessitates Russian being aggressive towards it's neighbors if left undeterred. And these neighbors are not all interested in fighting Russia who is much stronger and more powerful.
#15189838
Politics_Observer wrote:@annatar1914

That's the Russian mentality you are speaking of. The view of the Russians is conquer or be conquered. This is because they have been invaded so many times throughout history. The problem with that mentality is that it necessitates Russian being aggressive towards it's neighbors if left undeterred. And these neighbors are not all interested in fighting Russia who is much stronger and more powerful.


@Politics_Observer ;

Little nations and peoples will always test their limits, especially if they are tribal and warlike peoples, constantly raiding raping and pillaging their neighbors unless they are honestly and cleverly dealt with from a position of strength, which is the only thing they respect from infidels. Like the Chechens and Crimean Tatars of old, the Central Asian Mongol Turkic tribes, and the Ancient Afghans, the Sogdians and Bactrians of old who were a bother to Alexander-although he got Roxanne out of all his troubles.

This is the real world, not Orange County California. It's a tough neighborhood full of bullies, always has been. I'm sure you know this, but I'm not sure you've taken it to heart. Alexander knew, otherwise he wouldn't have even made it to 33 years old.
#15189845
@annatar1914

I am fully aware that this is the real world and it's a dangerous place. Putin is playing a dangerous game and should respect the sovereignty of his neighbors. The Ukrainians simply wanted their own country and to choose their own destiny but Putin has decided to punish them for doing so.

They had no interest in threatening Russia and the only time US troops ended up in that part of the world was in response to aggressive moves by Russia. If Russia was never aggressive our troops wouldn't be in the region of our NATO Baltic allies.

We have zero interest in fighting Russia especially given the consequences that all sides would pay. But we have a commitment to keep with our allies to assure their defense just as they kept their commitments to us.

It appears Soviet Afghan veterans have been fighting each other in Ukraine on opposing sides. However my view is that war should be prevented and that it is a form of unhealthy conflict. People and nations will always have conflict but their is healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict. War represents unhealthy conflict between nations or groups.

It is a rather shitty mess Russia has created in Ukraine and it's sad to see that these Soviet Afghan veterans are back to fighting in a war. I would hope that they would try to build a better future for themselves and their people.
#15189848
Politics_Observer wrote:@annatar1914

I am fully aware that this is the real world and it's a dangerous place. Putin is playing a dangerous game and should respect the sovereignty of his neighbors. The Ukrainians simply wanted their own country and to choose their own destiny but Putin has decided to punish them for doing so.

They had no interest in threatening Russia and the only time US troops ended up in that part of the world was in response to aggressive moves by Russia. If Russia was never aggressive our troops wouldn't be in the region of our NATO Baltic allies.

We have zero interest in fighting Russia especially given the consequences that all sides would pay. But we have a commitment to keep with our allies to assure their defense just as they kept their commitments to us.

It appears Soviet Afghan veterans have been fighting each other in Ukraine on opposing sides. However my view is that war should be prevented and that it is a form of unhealthy conflict. People and nations will always have conflict but their is healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict. War represents unhealthy conflict between nations or groups.

It is a rather shitty mess Russia has created in Ukraine and it's sad to see that these Soviet Afghan veterans are back to fighting in a war. I would hope that they would try to build a better future for themselves and their people.


@Politics_Observer ;

I'm sorry but you are simply not correct. Many times myself and other posters have told you about the truth of the situation, I have told you a number of times about the Fascists who took over in Ukraine and their attempted ethnic cleansing of the Russian Donbass region. It's not something I made up, I have friends whose relatives were shot at and bombed, turned into refugees, for the ''crime'' of being ethnic Russian and Orthodox Christian. But you don't see that, you never see that because you don't want to see it. It gives too much of a nuance to fit your black and white narrative where the Russians are all bad and their neighbors, all good. Did you know the Poles occupied Moscow once? That some Ukrainians (not most, most Ukrainians are great people trapped by Fascists) welcomed Hitler and formed an SS division during the Great Patriotic War? There's a long history there, and it's far too messy to suit simplistic stories.

I gave you perfect illustrations, from the life of Alexander in Afghanistan no less, that smaller bands of people can in fact be a real pain in the ass for decent civilized people, and that they only settle down when civilized folk are stronger. Otherwise, they tear great big chunks out of you and set on you like a pack of savage and cruel wolves around a sick bear...
#15189871
@annatar1914

I think you have been brainwashed by Russian propaganda. The facts are on my side. Moreover, we are not talking about World War II, we are talking about today and today Ukraine sought to choose it's own destiny and Russia punished Ukraine for doing so. These are the facts. We do not agree. The U.S. needs to back it's NATO allies in the region as well as provide support to Ukraine.
#15190125
@Politics_Observer ;

You might be interested in the Non-Islamic Kalash people, some of whom claim to be descended from the armies of Alexander the Great.... Jury is still out on that, but their culture and religion is reflective of the early Aryans, the Indo-European peoples who were known in the region of Afghanistan as Sogdians and Bactrians;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people
#15190139
Politics_Observer wrote:The facts are on my side

The dark side of the uprising.

Increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.

These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kyiv is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.


— The Nation
#15190169
After Alexander, the area that is now Afghanistan was under unified rule by his successors, first Seleucid then the breakaway Greco-Bactrian kingdom, for about 150 years, and then fractured over another 150 years or so before Greek influence finally faded. Yeah, I think he succeeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom
#15190202
Afghanistan has been conquered a lot of time by foreign powers, Greeks, Mongols, Timurids, Sassanids, Saffavids, Mughals and more. The graveyard of empire is just a cool sounding phrase and is just not true. Furthermore, it relegates Afghanistan to this static place in time and space where it was always like this unchanging trapped in a brutal medieval era which is also just not true. The Taliban and associated religious extremism is a very modern phenomenon. Again which doesn't mean that it was a beacon of progressive forces 100 years ago, what I am saying is that people should stop romanticizing Afghanistan.
#15190245
You might be interested in the Non-Islamic Kalash people, some of whom claim to be descended from the armies of Alexander the Great....


The following results show no evidence of Greek admixture in the Kalash who have a high proportion of Y haplogroup L3a lineages. The Kalash do not have typical Greek haplogroups such as E3b and I, while sharing G and J2 with the Greeks (18.2%, 9.1%) derived from Anatolian farmers. The earlier Anatolian farmers were the original PIE speakers.

In 2007, a genetic analysis of Y-chromosome in 44 individuals found Haplogroups L3a (22.7%), H1 * (20.5%), R1a (18.2%), G (18.2%), J2 (9.1%), R * (6.8%), R1 * (2.3%), and L * (2.3%). A similar research of 2006 found that the relatively typical for the Greeks Haplogroup E3b is not found in the Kalash.

The Kalash could be considered a genetically drifted ancient northern Eurasian population. The shared drift was observed between the Kalash and the Yamnaya Neolithic pastoralists who lived in the Russian steppes.

The Kalash Genetic Isolate: Ancient Divergence, Drift, and Selection

The Kalash represent an enigmatic isolated population of Indo-European speakers who have been living for centuries in the Hindu Kush mountain ranges of present-day Pakistan. Previous Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA markers provided no support for their claimed Greek descent following Alexander III of Macedon's invasion of this region, and analysis of autosomal loci provided evidence of a strong genetic bottleneck. To understand their origins and demography further, we genotyped 23 unrelated Kalash samples on the Illumina HumanOmni2.5M-8 BeadChip and sequenced one male individual at high coverage on an Illumina HiSeq 2000. Comparison with published data from ancient hunter-gatherers and European farmers showed that the Kalash share genetic drift with the Paleolithic Siberian hunter-gatherers and might represent an extremely drifted ancient northern Eurasian population that also contributed to European and Near Eastern ancestry. Since the split from other South Asian populations, the Kalash have maintained a low long-term effective population size (2,319–2,603) and experienced no detectable gene flow from their geographic neighbors in Pakistan or from other extant Eurasian populations. The mean time of divergence between the Kalash and other populations currently residing in this region was estimated to be 11,800 (95% confidence interval = 10,600−12,600) years ago, and thus they represent present-day descendants of some of the earliest migrants into the Indian sub-continent from West Asia.

We observed that the Kalash share a substantial proportion of drift with a Paleolithic ancient Siberian hunter-gatherer, who has been suggested to represent a third northern Eurasian genetic ancestry component for present-day Europeans.36,37 This is also supported by the shared drift observed between the Kalash and the Yamnaya, an ancient (2,000–1,800 BCE) Neolithic pastoralist culture that lived in the lower Volga and Don steppe lands of Russia and also shared ancestry with MA-1.36,37 Thus, the Kalash could be considered a genetically drifted ancient northern Eurasian population, and this shared ancient component was probably misattributed to recent admixture with western Europeans.

Whereas the Kalash have recently been reported to have European admixture, postulated to be related to Alexander’s invasion of South Asia,6 our results show no evidence of admixture. Although several oral traditions claim that the Kalash are descendants of Alexander’s soldiers, this was not supported by Y chromosomal analysis in which the Kalash had a high proportion of Y haplogroup L3a lineages, which are characterized by having the derived allele for the PK3 Y-SNP and are not found elsewhere.7 They also have predominantly western Eurasian mitochondrial lineages and no genetic affiliation with East Asians.4

Am J Hum Genet. 2015 May 7; 96(5): 775–783.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570283/
#15190325
What is the stick and carrot for the conqueror to go into Afghanistan? The stick is obvious - take the area and hit the people because they are raiding/attacking you or they/others will stage from there to raid you. But what is the carrot? Except for Tin deposits in the bronze age, I dont know of any carrot that would make conquest a natural desire. The harsh terrain makes 1) hiding/resistance easy for locals and 2) living off the land as a foreigner difficult, let alone 3) profitable. The harsh terrain also means 4) willing settlement is unappealing (probably why the Persians sent all those rebellious Greeks there) to establish your own local and loyal population. The rationale and methods of foreign conquest and occupation are different to those applied to richer/lisher areas, so the kind of occupation and integration into an empire will also be different. Did Alexander conquer the area? was it really part of his empire? .. did they pay tribute? follow his orders?

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