IN his recent book Emperor of the Five Rivers author Mohammed Sheikh refers to historian William Dalrymple’s comments from his book Return of a King: “Ranjit Singh outmanoeuvered the British during negotiations and managed to turn what was planned as a Sikh invasion in Afghanistan in British interests into a British invasion in Sikh interests”.

The wily Sikh leader knew the fate of armies which tried to subdue Afghans. History has time and again proved that such misadventures in Afghanistan only result in humiliation and disaster for the occupiers. This is exactly what happened to the British invasion (1839-1841).

Dalrymple says: “The first Anglo – Afghan war ended in Britain’s greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation of the world was utterly routed by Afghan tribesmen.

“It was an extraordinary defeat for the British Empire, at a point when the British controlled more of the world economy than they would ever do again and at a time when traditional forces everywhere were being massacred by industrial colonial armies. It was a moment of complete economic humiliation”.

Interestingly, the same British, who suffered a historic defeat at the hands of the Afghans in 1841 went on to inflict a crushing defeat on the Sikhs in 1848 thus ending the 49-year Sikh rule of Punjab.

Ironically, while Afghanistan still exists despite various wars, there is no sign of any Sikh state anywhere today.

Lesson: never underestimate your adversary. Donald Trump, it seems, has yet a lot to learn about Afghan character and resilience. Underestimating the Afghans or blaming Pakistan for US military failures in Afghanistan will not help. No military solution will work.

Mohammed Idress Chaudhry
Lahore Cantt

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2017