The spanish, like other colonizers from europe, expanded their territory in the americas which let to exploration
Afghanistan being in a very strategic position has provided the Soviet the advantage of controlling trades as it is in the juncture between Asia and middle east. This gave better leverage to the Soviet compared to the united states having control of pakistan after WorldWar 2. The soviet influenced has not been good in terms of improving afghan either as it made several internal tribal sect enemies with each other due to oppression and poor economy impacting poorest of the poor families.
They had very little supplies and financial backing for the war.
