Afghanistan has been a talking point for decades. Since the Soviet invasion and the American funding of the anti-communist groups. The country is an area of huge importance for a couple of reasons, its is the crossroads of Asia being the most important country of central Asia because of this. It is an entrance from the Middle East to the rest of Asia and into Russia. Hence why Russia wanted control of it in the first place.
The reason the conflict has lasted this long though is because the rebel groups are very hard to get rid of. Ideas in the first place are extremely hard to destroy but on top of that Afghanistan has very difficult terrain which means its hard to wage war. You cant just take the capitol or their leader when there are always places to run to.
The Afghan government is also extremely conservative and doesn’t really operate with more western ideals such as women’s rights. This is apparent when sickening violations of peoples privacy are the norm such as virginity tests on women. These tests are done without the consent of the women being tested and can be done for even just suspecting shes been with a man. The tests are humiliating and a clear violation of basic rights. The issues caused don’t end there either. Afterwards people in the communities will basically shun these women and treat them less than human and unpure for even having had to take the tests. Problems like these are growing symptoms of a failed state that no one can seem to solve.