Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The towering Hindu Kush range dominates the center of the country, creating three broad environmental zones: the comparatively well-watered, fertile northern plains and basins; the rugged, earthquake-prone central highlands; and the desert-dominated southern plateaus. Kabol (Kabul), the capital, lies on the southeastern slopes of the Hindu Kush, linked by narrow passes to the northern plains and by the Khyber Pass to Pakistan and the rest of South Asia. . . . The protracted nineteenth-century competition between the Russian and British empires over control of Afghanistan--with the wider purpose of controlling adjacent Central Asia—went down in history as “the Great Game.” In fact, modern Afghanistan owes its existence to this contest: the Russians and British agreed to tolerate it as a geopolitically neutral cushion—or buffer state--between them. During the second half of the twentieth century, Afghanistan was pulled into the Cold War, suffered a Soviet invasion and ten years of occupation, the emergence of violent Islamic militants (particularly al-Qaeda), the presence of U.S. troops since 2002, and most recently a resurgence of the vicious Taliban jihadist forces." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 349]