Soliciting Russian help, however, was a little like asking a dragon for help building a bonfire. The czar’s forces might offer too much help, as it were. Then again, asking the British for help posed similar risks. A third possibility existed: to play one power against the other, using each to keep the other out of Afghan territory. But, in that case, who would help Amir Dost Mohammed Khan recover Peshawar? How would he reconstruct the whole of Ahmad Shah’s empire?
