AWARENESS OF THE ECONOMIC BASE WOULD AVOID TRAGEDIES LIKE THIS

"WE WERE NAIVE," SAID THE LAST COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ALLIED FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN...

Harald Wolff

"We did not understand that Afghan corruption was inevitable, and when the authorities took the pay of the teachers and soldiers, we lost the support of the people."  

-- General John Nicolson, talk at the American University of  September 27, 2019

If we Americans had understood

 that the feudal Afghan economy 

was utterly different from our own, 

we would have known that imposing

 our ways was impossible. 

But the history we are usually taught,

which itself stems from our economy,

is about everything except the economic base.

End of this introduction.

Next chapter,

V. 2.
Curbing growth: kings and ritualized warfare