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a thought occurred to me recently: though Afghanistan has been invaded numerous times, it hasn't been (or has only rarely been) properly conquered. the Macedonians couldn't do it, the British couldn't do, the Soviets couldn't, and the Americans couldn't either (saying this as an American). Afghanistan is also very mountainous, much like a particular Germanic state in western Europe. i also learned recently that, for a time, one Afghan leader was working towards westernizing the country (i forget who though)
now here's what i'm getting to: what if Afghanistan was the country which, after a time, was more or less completely neutral but hired out mercenaries to surrounding monarchs as bodyguards (like the Emperor of India or the Shah of Persia, for instance), while Switzerland is the land of strife which is invaded numerous times but never conquered and which comes under the control of an authoritarian, fundamentalist, terrorist-supporting political force (eg, a Christian version of the Taliban) which is eventually ousted and replaced by an arguably not corrupt government by outside forces
alternatively, we can just discuss Afghanistan being the Switzerland of Asia; that's really all that i'm interested in