The modern history of Afghanistan is in large part the history of England and Russia. England's interest in Afghanistan was economic, the goal being to protect and expand British hegemony over trade by preserving a buffer between the expanding Russian empire and British territories in India (which then included modern-day Pakistan) and the Middle East.
Both the British and the Russians considered Afghanistan to be backward and ungovernable, and both made it their mission to civilize it to more modern standards, with particular focus on economic standards. See for example Britain's forcible re-installation of Shah Shuja in 1839, who was amply patronized by the East India Company.
Here's a good summary of Britain's societal goals in Afghanistan by Edward Ingram from his paper Great Britain's Great Game: An Introduction [1]:
"The first industrialized state and the first free society [Britain], in its own eyes naturally, was to take advantage of its superior technology, its steam power, its iron and its cotton goods to take over and develop the economy of Central Asia. And after British goods would follow British values, in particular, respect for private property. Given security for the just rewards of labour, nomads would settle and oasis cities surrounded by tribes of herdsmen would be turned into territorial states with agreed frontiers on the European model"
Both the British and the Russians considered Afghanistan to be backward and ungovernable, and both made it their mission to civilize it to more modern standards, with particular focus on economic standards. See for example Britain's forcible re-installation of Shah Shuja in 1839, who was amply patronized by the East India Company.
Here's a good summary of Britain's societal goals in Afghanistan by Edward Ingram from his paper Great Britain's Great Game: An Introduction [1]:
"The first industrialized state and the first free society [Britain], in its own eyes naturally, was to take advantage of its superior technology, its steam power, its iron and its cotton goods to take over and develop the economy of Central Asia. And after British goods would follow British values, in particular, respect for private property. Given security for the just rewards of labour, nomads would settle and oasis cities surrounded by tribes of herdsmen would be turned into territorial states with agreed frontiers on the European model"
1 - https://sci-hub.st/10.2307/40105749