The idea of Afghanistan as "crisis" has a lineage that stretches back at least to 1818. The British thrived on the idea of Aghanistan as ungovernable, since it gave them license to meddle in its internal affairs under the pretense of establishing governance. The Afghans would have none of it, and even at the high-point ... Dalhousie’s senior, Lord Ellenborough wrote in his diary in 1829, “I feel confident that we shall have to fight the Russians on the Indus, and I have long had a presentiment that I should meet them there, and gain a great battle. All dreams, but I have had them a long time.” That dream became reality a hundred and fifty years later.