So, I have recently been enjoying Every Single Soldier and Retro Epic's Afghan War strategy game, Afghanistan '11 ( http://store.steampowered.com/app/580710/Afghanistan_11/ ). I had previously been a big fan of their well researched Vietnam War game as well, Vietnam '65. Afghanistan '11 is more complex, being a sequel, and honestly it's actually a big stressful. You have all the Hearts and Minds and Political Points game mechanics from their Vietnam game, but you also have to administer an eventual handover to Afghan forces. It's more complex and actually feels mentally exhausting even though I've played the Vietnam game quite a bit.

One of my favorite things was to cue up my very own Vietnam War playlist when playing Vietnam '65, since that game didn't have any music. Since each scenario in Vietnam '65 was randomly generated and was all about doing whatever it took to boost your Hearts and Mind scores and keep your Political Points up, it thematically worked very well with a lot of the historical criticism that the action on the ground in Vietnam was bizarre and disjointed from the abstract thinking at the top. The eerie silence, unless you chose to break it up with things like Paint It Black, War Pigs, Fortunate Son, and so forth, worked very well for that.

I am thinking I need a musical playlist for Afghanistan '11. However I wasn't such a big fan of popular music back in '11 and don't know nearly as much about cultural association of music with the war in '11 as compared to during the Vietnam War (other than knowing that Green Day is associated with such music).

Does anyone have a culturally authentic Afghanistan '11 playlist they could share with me?

This may prove helpful:
http://www.bobborst.com/popculture/top-100...year/?year=2011

As far as music associated with the war, AFAIK there really isn't any. The Bush, Obama, and now Trump administrations have gone out of their way to keep the war in Afghanistan out of the public eye and mind. Yeah, there are news stories here and there, but the war just isn't getting the detailed, in-depth coverage that 'Nam did. That's a shame, IMO, because some real, live journalism might help to dispel the notion that Afghanistan is "winnable."

If you want truly authentic music to play I would look for regional music from each of the tribes in Afghanistan. Here is a link:
Ethinic groups of Afghanistan

I served in Afghanistan in 2004. While I was on tour we mainly listened to 90's rock music (mostly of the Grunge Rock variety), or Euro Pop music (ISAF was made of over 30 countries, mostly mainland Europeans). If you want to hear the music we were listening to, I would make a list of the most popular mainstream rock music played in the USA and Canada, and add in the most current Pop music played in the European Union.

The main reason was that the war was ultimately boring. Most of our patrols were uneventful, and when they weren't, it was because of IEDs. Nothing irritated me more than when I returned from patrol and I'd have some reporter (usually American) shove a mic in my face and ask me if something happened, or if I killed someone. Too bad we weren't allowed to punch those jerks.