The Afghan conflict , also called the Afghan crisis or Instability in Afghanistan , is a series of events and wars that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. The country's instability began after the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the 1973 coup d'état; with the overthrow of Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah, who had reigned for almost forty years, Afghanistan’s relatively peaceful period in modern history came to an end. The triggering event for the first major war in Afghanistan during this period was the Saur Revolution of 1978, which overthrew the Republic of Afghanistan and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Rampant post-revolution fighting across the country ultimately led to a pro-government military intervention by the Soviet Union, sparking the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s.

Following the Soviet withdrawal at the end of the Cold War, mujahideen forces continued fighting against the government, which collapsed in 1992. Unable to come to agreement on a governing coalition, a multifactional war broke out between various mujahideen groups, with grave atrocities committed by many of the factions. By 1996, the Taliban, a militia group supported by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), captured Kabul and took control over most of the country, declaring an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that received little international recognition. However, much of northern Afghanistan remained in the hands of the Northern Alliance, with war continuing between the two sides.

Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, an American-led invasion deposed the Taliban government and reinstated a transitional government. Afterwards, a Taliban insurgency was waged against the government and a NATO-led coalition for almost twenty years. The Taliban recaptured most of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of NATO forces. Though the state of war in the country has ended as of 2021, armed conflict persists in some regions amid fighting between the Taliban and the local branch of the Islamic State, as well as an anti-Taliban Republican insurgency.