The thesis deals with specificities of a long-term conflict in Afghanistan and focuses on Taliban regime and Western interventions, both the Enduring Freedom and the ISAF operation. Aspects that are being contemplated are the reasons that forestalled good governance and establishment of the strong institutions in Afghanistan, and at the same time facilitated the return of Taliban as a potent political figure. Most prominent mistakes of the Western intervention are choosing the Northern Alliance as a long-term partner, insisting on warlords as a sustainable governing arrangement, shortage of interest, lack of coordination between all of the stakeholders and an expectation of a fast and easy victory. The Taliban movement responded by filling up the political vacuum in places where strong and adamant governance was not provided. The Taliban built the shadow government, recruited people from tribes that felt neglected, offered their services in communities where local authorities were highly corrupted. Eventually, they started to promote global jihad, used media to fight in information warfare and emerged with their own suicide bombers - all techniques adopted from al-Qaeda. Neotaliban, the new generation of the Taliban movement came back to the political stage directly because of the poor adjustment of the Western forces to asymmetric warfare, the lack of the knowledge in cultural, religious and historical aspects of conflict and absence of the long-term institution and nation building strategy.