Yet more media interest in the idea floated by professors for a White House history council

A few years ago, I was chatting with some US politicians in Washington when the conversation turned to Afghanistan — and the Allied strategy there. “Let’s hope we don’t see a repeat of Gandamak,” I joked grimly.

 “Gandamak?” one of the group asked, looking baffled. I explained that I was referring to the first ill-fated effort that the British had made to conquer Afghanistan, in the 19th century, which ended in retreat — and brutal slaughter at the village of Gandamak.

My explanation was met with blank stares. These particular policymakers had only a hazy idea that Britain had twice tried to conquer Afghanistan, and that both these attempts — like those of the Russians a century later — ended in failure.

This is dispiriting. When the Allied forces went into Afghanistan a decade ago, with the objective of subduing al-Qaeda and the Taliban, American voters were assured that it would be a short and easy campaign. But anyone with a cursory knowledge of the so-called “Great Game” that Russia and Britain played in 19th-century Central Asia would have known this was not going to be the case: while outsiders have often subdued Kabul, they have never controlled Afghanistan for long.

 It is little surprise, then, that the Allies are still battling in Afghanistan today; nor that fresh evidence emerged last month of a Taliban advance. The only real shock (at least to someone like me, who once studied Central Asian history) is that this turn of events was not foreseen — and that the lessons of history were ignored.

 Is there a solution? The usual response to this question is to call for educational reform; if only our children learnt more history at school, so the argument goes, our policymakers might be a little wiser. But there is another idea, now being promoted by historians such as Graham Allison and Niall Ferguson (both professors at Harvard University). Namely, the introduction of mechanisms that would force governments to improve their historical awareness, in a systematic way. ...