> Think of Afghanistan as an example,

A country that has been destabilized by foreign invasions again and again. The last one from the USA.

It is not about culture, it is about been ruled by outside powers that do not allow for internal development. Except for a few tax havens, former colonized countries struggle with violence, inequality, and corruption. That was the system that was setup for them and it will take decades to fix if they are left alone, it will never be fixed if other countries intervene to keep the status quo to profit from it.

Why blame outside powers again? There are very large differences where you have very limited differences in outside power rule, a big example being India vs Pakistan. And this is very far from the only example.

There have always been and always will be outside powers. Hell, the very first stories we have, from the Epic of Gilgamesj, the oldest stories in the Bible and Greek Legends are all about outside powers intervening, and here we are, over 4000 years later, and there's (checks wikipedia) 32 current wars (and none are "the west" doing that at the moment, China is currently the worst offender, there's of course Russia and Ukraine/Europe) where outside powers are trying to dominate someone else. At some point you have to accept outside powers trying to fuck things up as a basic part of life. So other countries will keep intervening, probably for another 4000+ years.