Spanish views from a small town

So, what will be the next move in this elaborate game of chess that no one will win?  Back in the eighteenth century, Afghanistan appeared as a nation separate from Persia. Not much longer after that, the British appeared. They wanted to keep Afghanistan as a "friendly" nation to them, to act as a buffer state between Russia, which was expanding its power among the Central Asian countries, and its protectorate of India. (In modern times, much like Eastern Europe was kept as buffer states between Western Europe and the Soviet Union.) The British went through three wars in the nineteenth century, only to see Afghanistan be one of the first countries to formally recognize the newly formed Soviet Union.  The twentieth century was a complicated one for Afghanistan, still a monarchy and impoverished. After the Partition, and the creation of Pakistan, the Durand line still held, and was a source of bad feelings between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Durand line was an arbitrary line ...