ABSTRACT
Thomas Barfield chose The Perilous Frontier as the title for his book on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds. Although written with reference to relations between nomadic societies and China between 221 BC and 1757 it will be argued that his work resonates in present attempts to create a new polity in Afghanistan.1 Although the present situation in Afghanistan is popularly presented as a clash between al-Qaeda and a resurgent Taliban on the one hand, and a fledgling Afghan government supported, to varying degrees, by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the United States and Afghan warlords on the other hand, this chapter argues that the present conflict can more accurately be viewed through the lens of the longer-term dynamics of state-formation in Central Asia. The first section analyses the external dynamics of state formation in Afghanistan and Central Asia, focusing on the historic usage of security concerns and perceptions of ‘oriental despotism’ as pretexts for external intervention in Central Asia. It then analyses internal dynamics of state formation, arguing that the external pretexts for intervention can be attributed to the historical tensions between nomadic and sedentary societies. It is further argued here that there are historical continuities between present rhetoric, which presents Afghanistan as a base of fanatical Islam and lawless tribalism, and the dominant discourse of the so-called ‘Great Game’ era between 1830 and 1914. In both instances, such rhetoric reveals more about mainstream Western thinking than the regions they are applied to.
