Great Game to 9/11

A Concise History

of Afghanistan’s

International

Relations

Engaging the World

Air Force

Michael R. Rouland
Cover

Aerial view of a village in Farah Province, Afghanistan. Photo (2009) by MSst. 

Tracy L. DeMarco, USAF. Department of Defense.

Great Game to 9/11

A Concise History

of Afghanistan’s

International Relations

Michael R. Rouland

Washington, D.C.

2014
The Engaging the World series focuses on U.S. involvement 

around the globe, primarily in the post-Cold War period. It includes 

peacekeeping and humanitarian missions as well as Operation 

Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom—all missions in 

which the U.S. Air Force has been integrally involved. It will also 

document developments within the Air Force and the Department 

of Defense.

Great Game to 9/11 was initially begun as an introduction for a 

larger work on U.S./coalition involvement in Afghanistan. It 

provides essential information for an understanding of how this 

isolated country has, over centuries, become a battleground for 

world powers. Although an overview, this study draws on primarysource material to present a detailed examination of U.S.-Afghan 

relations prior to Operation Enduring Freedom.

Engaging the World

Great Game to 9/11

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of 

the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Air Force, the Department 

of Defense, or the U.S. government. Cleared for public release.
Contents

Introduction

 The Razor’s Edge 1

One

 Origins of the Afghan State, the Great Game, and Afghan Nationalism 5 

Two

 Stasis and Modernization 15

Three

 Early Relations with the United States 27

Four

 Afghanistan’s Soviet Shift and the U.S. Response 39

Five

 The Helmand River Valley Project and the Pakistan Question 51

Six

 Socialist Afghanistan and War with the Soviet Union 63

Epilogue

 From the Soviet Withdrawal to 9/11 79

Notes 85

1

Introduction

The Razor’s Edge

In 1907, Lord George Nathaniel Curzon observed from his time in South 

Asia the precarious balance on the borderlands of Afghanistan and 

its impact on the world: “Frontiers are indeed the razor’s edge on 

which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace, of life 

and death to nations.” 1

 From the British-Russian “Great Game” rivalry 

that started in the nineteenth century to Operation Enduring Freedom 

in the twenty-first, Afghanistan, despite its remote location and often 

dysfunctional government, has continued to claim the attention of the 

world’s great powers.

In addition to the Europeans, for almost a century, U.S. leaders have 

considered economic and strategic interests and the careful balance of 

power in the South Asia region. These concerns returned to public view 

in the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the experiences of 

the past reveal patterns in Afghanistan of weak political regimes, tribal 

unrest, and diplomatic intrigue.

A review of modern Afghan history raises two important questions: 

how did ethnic politics shape Afghanistan’s national policy, and how did 

Soviet and U.S. strategic interests influence Afghanistan’s international 

affairs? To answer these questions, a narrow focus on Afghan history after 

the 1979 Soviet invasion or on U.S. links to the mujahideen is of limited 

utility. A broader, albeit concise, examination of the long-term structures 

of Afghan domestic politics and international diplomacy offers a fuller 

understanding of this complex region.

Afghanistan’s path from empire to nation-state in the eighteenth and 

nineteenth centuries established enduring conditions for ethnic conflict 

and resistance to modernization in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

Its turbulent history has been marked by recurring patterns of political 

centralization, then concessions to tribal authorities; resistance to foreign 

influence, then foreign intervention; and support for modernization, 

then reaction against it. These tensions have plagued Afghanistan 

throughout its history.
2

Long before the Cold War standoff between the United States and 

the Soviet Union and the subsequent conflicts between al-Qaeda and the 

West, Afghanistan endured centuries as a frontier zone between larger 

opposing empires: Persian in Western Asia; Mughal in South Asia; and 

Turkic in Central Asia. Economically, the area has remained on the 

margins. Even when Peshawar, Ghazni, Turquoise Mountain (Ghor), and 

Kandahar emerged as metropoles during the indigenous Kushan (first to 

third centuries), Ghaznavid (tenth to twelfth centuries), Ghorid (twelfth 

to thirteenth centuries), or Durrani (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries) 

Empires, their income was drawn from their Persian or Indian dominions.

Afghanistan was constrained by mountainous barriers that created 

particular ethnic and tribal allegiances. The foundation of the early Afghan 

state rested on confederations of core groups that projected power outward 

rather than establishing strong, centralized political rule from within. From the 

mid-tenth century to the mid-eighteenth century, the rulers of Afghanistan 

were of Turco-Mongolian origin or led a military dominated by TurcoMongolians. Not until the Durrani Empire did ethnic Pashtuns emerge as a 

political force in Afghanistan.2

 Thus it is crucial to consider Pashtun rule 

in the context of Afghanistan’s rich multiethnic heritage.3

 In Afghanistan’s 

Endless War, Larry P. Goodson observed: “If Afghanistan has been 

marked by a history of invasion and conquest, no less has it suffered from 

almost continuous internal strife among the native peoples living in its 

remote mountain valleys.” 4

Complicating matters, the Pashtun ethnic group itself has historically 

been fractured and subjected to shifting alliances. Pashtun rivalries, 

particularly between the Durrani and Ghilzai tribes, remain an important 

feature of a multifaceted ethnic battlefield. While the rivalries subsided after 

the rule of Abdur Rahman Khan (r. 1880–1901), the socialist experiment after 

1978 reignited them. Ghilzais and eastern Pashtuns played leading roles in 

the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA, Hizb-e-Demokratike-Khalq-e-Afghanistan), in several mujahideen groups, and in the Taliban. 

Durranis returned to power with Hamid Karzai at the end of 2001.

In addition to the Pashtuns and their ongoing competition for power, 

other ethnic groups have used their leverage and geographic advantages 

to play key roles in Afghan history. In particular, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, 

Aimaks, Turkmen, Balochs, Nuristani, and Kuchi have made contributions 

to the viability of the Afghan state. Their involvement in military, economic, 

and political enterprises in Afghanistan has been important, and so has their 

drive to establish an enduring Afghan nation-state, despite deeply rooted 

ethnic ties and trade across its borders. Rather than continued existence as 

a buffer zone created by imperious neighbors—Russian, Persian, British, 
3

and later Pakistani—Afghanistan emerged as a confederation of tribes 

with a developing national identity.

Returning to the realities on the ground, mapping and understanding 

the intricacies of ethnic ties in Afghanistan remain difficult. Intermarriage, 

bilingualism, and shared local identity (manteqa), to mention but a few 

factors, have consistently undermined the idea of solidarity along ethnic 

lines.5

 The modern Afghan state reveals the complexities of its role as ruler 

and as subject of successive frontier empires.

A Central Intelligence Agency map of ethnolinguistic groups in Afghanistan as of 1992, 

based on data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Census. Library of Congress.

5

One

Origins of the Afghan State,

the Great Game,

and Afghan Nationalism

In the early eighteenth century, the territory that came to be known as 

Afghanistan was divided between the Safavid (Persian) and Mughal 

(Turco-Mongol) Empires. Ahmad Shah commanded a military unit 

under the ascendant Persian ruler Nadir Shah in his campaigns against 

the Mughals. When Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747 and the Safavid 

Empire collapsed, Ahmad Shah (r. 1747–72/73) established an independent 

city-state around Kandahar. He adopted the name “Dur-i-Durran,” or “Prince 

of Pearls,” and used the term “Durrani” to distinguish the tribes affiliated 

with him. According to an early-nineteenth-century British account, 

Afghanistan after Ahmad Shah became an “orgy of intrigue, treachery, 

torture and murder . . . [an] ever-shifting kaleidoscope of betrayal.”1

 Ahmad 

Shah Durrani and his son Timur Shah Durrani (r. 1772/73–93) expanded 

their domain, conquering territories from Kashmir to the Arabian Sea 

and from the Amu River (da Amu Sind) to the Indus River (Abasin). The 

Durrani realm at the end of the eighteenth century included modern-day 

Afghanistan and most of Pakistan, making it the second-largest Muslim 

empire of its day.

Ahmad Shah Durrani, poet, warrior, and king that he was, wrote of 

his nostalgia for Afghanistan during ten campaigns to expand his rule over 

Kashmir, Punjab, and Sind:

Whatever countries I conquer in the world,

I would never forget your beautiful gardens.

When I remember the summits of your beautiful mountains

I forget the greatness of the Delhi throne.2

This fondness for his Afghan homeland provided a lasting challenge 

to his heirs. Unlike the rulers of other Central Asian empires who moved 

their capitals to strategic and economically viable locations, Ahmad 

Shah consolidated power in the Pashtun bases of Kandahar, Kabul, 

and Peshawar. Thus the Durrani Empire was “a coat worn inside out,” 
6

according to Thomas J. Barfield.3

 Kandahar, Kabul, and Peshawar were 

poor and sparsely populated compared to the rest of the Durrani Empire. 

The wealthiest territories remained on frontiers in every direction.

British penetration into South Asia in the eighteenth century created 

another layer of challenges for future Afghan leaders. Afghans unintentionally 

aided British occupation of the Pashtun borderlands and, more critically, 

allowed the rise of Sikh power in Punjab.4

 Once Durrani’s descendants 

destroyed the Mughal Empire, they could not maintain such a vast and 

diverse empire and prolong their dominance over Kabul, Kandahar, 

Herat, the Hindu Kush, Peshawar, Punjab, Kashmir, Baluchistan, and 

Sind. Moreover, each time the Durrani leader left his seat of power in 

Kandahar, emerging plots from rival Pashtun tribes and other ethnic groups 

threatened to depose him.5

 Afghan rulers slowly lost their territories to 

the Sikhs and the British: Punjab (1801), Kashmir (1819), Sind (1820s), 

Peshawar (1834/1879), and Baluchistan (1879), until Abdur Rahman 

Khan focused his authority in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and the northern 

Afghan provinces in the 1880s. As of this writing, four urban centers 

remain: Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west, Balkh in the north, and 

Kabul in the east. Peshawar and the North-West Frontier Province (now 

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) make a fifth region, which the British gave to 

Pakistan in 1947. Peshawar was historically important to Afghan rulers 

as their summer capital and continues to be strategically significant as 

the eastern gateway to the Khyber Pass, the link between Central and 

South Asia.6

Hoping to counter both internal and external threats, Afghan ruler Dost 

Mohammad Khan (r. 1826–39, 1842–63) attempted to ally himself with the 

British as early as the 1820s and curtailed relations with Persia and Russia. 

However, the inability of the British to agree on the return of Peshawar 

to Afghanistan impeded Anglo-Afghan cooperation. Sikhs maintained 

de facto rule over Peshawar after 1818, and while British forces could 

not quell Pashtun violence on the northwestern frontier, they preferred 

a Sikh alliance with an emphasis on Punjab territories. Ultimately, Dost 

Mohammad could not accept the permanent loss of Peshawar and British 

intransigence, and he turned to the Russians for help in 1838.7

 At the same 

time, British government agent Alexander Burnes had been negotiating 

to restrain the maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Ranjit Singh, from taking 

more territory as an inducement to convince Dost Mohammad not to join 

a Russo-Persian alliance. The British, however, did not provide adequate 

assurances to protect Afghanistan against Russia. A Russian military 

mission took advantage of Dost Mohammad’s failure to gain concessions 

from the British and offered to defend Afghan territory against Ranjit Singh. 
7

The negotiations were not completed by the time British forces invaded 

Afghanistan to secure geopolitical interests in South Asia, resulting in the 

First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42). The conflict ended with an inglorious 

British withdrawal, while Afghanistan abandoned its Russo-Persian 

ties. This was the first gambit in the Anglo-Russian rivalry—the “Great 

Game”—that would plague Afghanistan during the nineteenth century.8

External pressures from Persia, Russia, and British India forced 

Afghanistan to focus on consolidating power in the provinces between 

those empires. Afghan rulers sought to strengthen their own rule while 

deterring the territorial interests of their neighbors. An example of the latter 

occurred when Dost Mohammad wrote to Sir John Lawrence, viceroy of 

India, in 1867, noting, “We have men and we have rocks in plenty, but we 

have nothing else.” 9 In a 2011 study, Joseph J. Collins observed that “in 

a great political paradox, Afghan rulers were strongest within their nation 

when they were supported by foreign subsidies.” 10 British funding and 

arms ultimately provided the cornerstone of a defensive bulwark against 

Russia in Afghanistan.

Dost Mohammad was the first Afghan ruler to consult with foreign 

military advisors. During Burnes’s visits in the 1830s, Dost Mohammad 

This Punch political cartoon from November 30, 1878, shows the “Great Game” at its 

fullest, with the Afghan amir caught between the Russian bear and the British lion.
8

sought his guidance on conscription.11 Although he failed to recruit 

Burnes, he invited a menagerie of American, French, English, Persian, and 

Indian adventurers and military deserters into his retinue. Josiah Harlan, 

a West Point graduate from Pennsylvania, was one of the first and most 

prominent Americans known to have maintained residency in Afghanistan. 

Historian Sir John William Kaye described Harlan in 1851 as “an American 

adventurer, now a doctor and now a general, who was ready to take any 

kind of service, with any one disposed to pay him.” 12 Having previously 

served Ranjit Singh, Harlan moved to Afghanistan and quickly became 

involved in several revolutionary and military intrigues. Ultimately, he 

became an aide de camp for Dost Mohammad and helped prepare the 

Afghan infantry for the Battle of Jamrud (1837) and the defense of the 

Khyber Pass against Ranjit Singh.13

After Dost Mohammad, the Afghan leader most associated with 

military modernization was his grandson, Abdur Rahman Khan (r. 1880–

1901). Historian Vartan Gregorian observed that “Abdur Rahman relied 

heavily on a military autocracy to guarantee his absolutism. Perhaps the 

‘Iron Amir’s’ greatest single achievement was the creation of a standing 

and centralized Afghan army.” 14 By the 1880s, Abdur Rahman had a standing 

army of 50,000 to 60,000 men. He also positioned grain in Herat, Kandahar, 

and Kabul to support expeditionary missions against recalcitrant tribes. 

Barnett R. Rubin described his rule as a “coercive-intensive path to state 

formation.” 15 While his campaign aimed to establish a modern state that 

circumvented tribal rule, Abdur Rahman faced seventeen major rebellions 

in a fifteen-year period.16 Expressing a sentiment that would be repeated 

several times hence, Abdur Rahman cautioned: “I had to put in order all 

those hundreds of petty chiefs, plunderers, robbers and cut-throats, who 

were the cause of everlasting trouble in Afghanistan. This necessitated 

breaking down the feudal and tribal system and substituting one grand 

community under one law and one rule.” 17

Anthropologist Thomas J. Barfield noted that Abdur Rahman “abolished 

the decentralized governmental system in which tribes and regions maintained 

a high degree of autonomy in exchange for submitting to the legal authority 

of the Kabul government. When faced with numerous revolts by his 

own relatives and regional groups, he waged war against his own people 

until he and his government had no rivals of any type.”18 To establish his 

authority throughout Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman singled out Ghilzai 

Pashtuns and Hazaras during punitive campaigns in the 1880s and 1890s. 

He was particularly brutal in reprisals against Hazaras, who sought to 

guard their autonomy while Abdur Rahman centralized state power and 

checked the influence of local chiefs. As Abdur Rahman explained, “I am 
9

quite wearied of the behaviour of these people. They should take with 

them their families and household property and go out of the country, and 

I will populate their country with Afghans.” 19

Ghilzai Pashtuns, the traditional rivals of the Durranis, also suffered 

from forced migrations in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Abdur Rahman 

moved thousands of Ghilzai from the south and east to north of the Hindu 

Kush, depriving them of a Pashtun base in the south and creating a proPashtun population amid the Tajiks, Turkmen, Uzbeks, and Hazaras in 

the central and northern parts of Afghanistan.20 This action weakened the 

ability of Ghilzai Pashtuns to coalesce and further diluted the economic 

and political influence of non-Pashtuns, whose land was often seized.21

Ultimately, Abdur Rahman established Durrani Pashtuns as the privileged 

ethnic group in Afghanistan, and a pattern of their over-representation in 

the government began.22 These actions would have significant strategic 

and political implications for the twentieth century.

In the early 1890s, while Afghan identity remained localized and 

regional, rather than national, Abdur Rahman created a centralized state 

bureaucracy that placed Afghans into one consistent governmental system 

Abdur Rahman Khan, the “Iron Amir,” ruled 

Afghanistan from 1880 until his death in 1901. 

During his effort to establish a modern state, his 

government faced seventeen major rebellions in a 

fifteen-year period.
10

of taxation, administration, and military recruitment that drew them into a 

nascent Afghan state. Abdur Rahman centralized his authority by keeping 

his sons in Kabul and dispatching loyal followers as provincial governors. 

He created a supreme council and a general assembly (loya jirga) with 

representatives from the royal family (sardars), local elites from around the 

nation (khawanin mulki), and religious leaders (mullahs).23 He also created 

new provinces that undermined traditional ethnic and tribal boundaries.

Abdur Rahman did not offer much in exchange for the divestiture of 

power from the regions and the supremacy of the elite in Kabul, however. 

He did not invest in infrastructure, education, communication systems, 

or transport networks. “Afghanistan’s level of urbanization was higher 

in the fifteenth century under the Timurids, when Herat and Balkh 

were international centers of culture and commerce,” Barfield noted, 

“something that late-nineteenth century Kabul (with a population of only 

fifty thousand) never came close to achieving.” 24

Returning to the international arena and following his defeat in the 

Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80), with the subsequent occupation 

of his territory by the British, Abdur Rahman became well aware of the 

new geopolitical realities of the Great Game.In his memoir, he asked the 

rhetorical question: “How can a small power like Afghanistan, which is 

like a goat between two lions, or a grain of wheat between these two strong 

millstones of the grinding mill, stand in the midway of the stones without 

being crushed to death?” 25 His answer was to develop an isolationist 

policy and reject commercial ties with his neighbors. “The greatest safety 

of Afghanistan lies in its natural impregnable position,” Abdur Rahman 

wrote, for “Allah has given us every peak of the mountains for a fortress of 

nature, and foreigners know that the Afghans, being born warriors, can go 

on fighting for ever and ever, as long as they can hide themselves behind 

the stones and do not have to face the enemy in the open field.” 26 Abdur 

Rahman’s observation proved to be an enduring one, as Coalition forces 

in Afghanistan reported the use of these same tactics by Afghan insurgents 

in the twenty-first century. 

Dost Mohammad and Abdur Rahman confronted their limited resources 

and began to define the Afghan nation as a coherent political unit in the 

second half of the nineteenth century. Both leaders rearranged military 

and political structures to meet the challenges of modernity with a mix of 

isolationism, authoritarianism, militarism, and diplomatic skill. Yet while 

they initiated reforms to manage the diverse territories that remained in 

Afghanistan, they institutionalized commercial backwardness, ethnic and 

regional antagonism, and political compromise, leaving the country illprepared for the challenges of the twentieth century.
11

Origins of the Durand Line

One of the defining events in Abdur Rahman’s rule was the concession 

of the Durand Line, which has persisted as an international boundary 

by agreement since November 12, 1893.27 This territorial compromise 

between Britain and Afghanistan confirmed the Treaty of Gandamak, 

signed on May 26, 1879, by Mohammad Yaqub Khan, son of Sher Ali Khan 

and, briefly, amir of Afghanistan. Yaqub Khan ceded autonomy of foreign 

relations to Britain; consented to a British mission in Kabul and deeper 

commercial relations; and transferred the Khyber Pass, Kurram Valley, the 

Pishin Valley, including the Bolan Pass, and Sibi in Balochistan, to British 

India. He did this in exchange for an annual monetary subsidy.

According to Amin Saikal, Abdur Rahman never accepted the Durand 

Line “as more than a line delineating the Afghan and British responsibilities 

in the Pashtun tribal areas. He contended that the line could not constitute 

a permanent border between Afghanistan and British India.” 28 Abdur 

Rahman expressed serious reservations about the agreement with Sir Henry 

Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of British India, and other British 

officials. In a letter to the viceroy of India, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Abdur 

Rahman recalled that Pashtuns in the North-West Frontier Province “being 

Mohammad Yaqub Khan (center) at Gandamak, a village outside of Jalalabad, during 

May 1879 negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Gandamak, the document that 

outlined what became the Durand Line. To his right is Maj. Pierre Louis Cavagnari, 

who became British Resident in Kabul and was killed by mutinous Afghan troops in 

September 1879. Photo by John Burke. British Library.
12

brave warriors and staunch Mohamedans, would make a very strong force 

to fight against any power which might invade India or Afghanistan. I will 

gradually make them peaceful subjects and good friends of Great Britain.” 

He cautioned, however, that “if you should cut them out of my dominions, 

they will neither be of any use to you nor to me: you will always be engaged 

in fighting and troubles with them, and they will always go on plundering.” 29

Although Abdur Rahman was aware of the potential consequences of 

his concession, he did not have many alternatives.30 He knew that unrest 

in the frontier regions would continue to undermine British authority, but 

he wanted to avoid direct conflict with Britain. The British viewed the 

Durand Line as an opportunity to secure high passes into India and to 

curb Afghan interests in Baluchistan. Abdur Rahman, on the other hand, 

understood that his rise to power and authority within Afghanistan rested 

on British support and subsidies. Abdur Rahman later argued that the 

British “had not the sense to understand that taking and keeping under 

British possession all these barren lands on the borders of Afghanistan 

was a very unwise step, by which they burdened the exchequer of India 

with the heavy expense of keeping an army on the spot to maintain peace 

in these territories.” 31 To complicate matters, Abdur Rahman extended the 

practice used by rulers since Dost Mohammad of criticizing the British 

in public while allying with them in private, advocating jihad against the 

British while collecting their subsidies. Abdur Rahman believed, however, 

that his actions slowed imperial encroachment and provided the necessary 

stability for reforms in Afghanistan.32

Responding to the Durand compromise, Abdur Rahman predicted 

the sustained significance of Afghan unity: “The first and most important 

advice that I can give to my successors and people to make Afghanistan 

into a great kingdom is to impress upon their minds the value of unity; 

unity, and unity alone, can make it into a great power. All the royal family, 

nobility, and people must have one mind, one interest, and one opinion, 

to safeguard their homes.” Abdur Rahman was indeed concerned that the 

Durand Line would undermine the consolidation of power he had begun 

a decade earlier: “In your cutting away from me these frontier tribes who 

are people of my nationality and my religion, you will injure my prestige 

in the eyes of my subjects, and will make me weak, and my weakness is 

injurious for your Government.” 33

Although the notion that Afghanistan would function as a buffer 

between Russia and Britain would take hold a decade later, Abdur Rahman 

understood Afghanistan’s importance to the stability of the region and its 

strategic place in Asia. In the end, the Durand Line would have lasting 

implications for the Pashtun borderlands. As a result of the exodus of 
13

Afghan refugees that began during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, 

almost twice as many Pashtuns lived in Pakistan as in Afghanistan by the 

end of the 1990s.34

15

Two

Stasis and Modernization

After Abdur Rahman Khan, Afghanistan entered into a period of sustained 

stasis, or civil strife. A conventional interpretation of stasis is the 

balance of equal and opposing forces that results in a kind of stability. 

In his descriptions of ancient Greece, Thucydides offered a more apt 

understanding of the political dissolution and violence that accompanies 

such a stalemate: “In times of peace, neither side had the excuse or the 

willingness to call in the two great powers, but when the war was on, 

alliances were easily obtained by those on both sides who, plotting a 

new order of things, sought through calling in outsiders both to harm 

their opponents and to acquire power for themselves.” As a shifting war 

between individuals and parties, Thucydides viewed stasis as a cause of 

social and political disintegration.1

When Abdur Rahman died, his eldest son, Habibullah Khan (r. 1901–19), 

who had been groomed to rule, was prepared to succeed him. In Barnett R. 

Rubin’s words, the “peaceful succession was an event with no precedent 

and so far, no sequel.” 2 Habibullah was not as imperious as his father. 

He eased restrictions on the tribal elites, reducing their conscription 

requirements and allowing them more control over local affairs. Habibullah 

still understood the value of a well-armed, modern standing army, but he 

viewed economic development as a subsidiary function of military needs.3

Seeking allies in his father’s former rivals, Habibullah invited back 

many Afghan exiles, including Peshawar and Naqshbandi (Sufi) elites. 

Mahmud Beg Tarzi, an intellectual influenced by the nationalist and 

modernist “Young Turk” movement, was the most influential to return. 

He founded Afghanistan’s first newspaper, Siraj al-Akbar Afghaniyah

(The Lamp of the News of Afghanistan), which was pan-Islamist and antiimperialist in orientation. Tarzi believed that the newspaper was “one of 

the most essential tools of modern civilization.” 4 It became a forum for 

realistic views of Afghanistan’s situation. As historian Vartan Gregorian 

explained, “Tarzi singled out the disunity of the Afghans and their anarchic 

concept of freedom and law as other factors that had contributed to the 
16

backwardness of the country. The disunity was such, he declared, that it 

had calamitously set city against city, village against village, street against 

street, tribe against tribe, brother against brother.” Gregorian continued: 

In Tarzi’s view, one important result of this disunity was that the 

majority of Afghans had developed a negative concept of freedom, 

equating freedom with the absence of restraint or governmental 

authority. He saw lawlessness as historically regressive and as 

alien to the spirit and elevated ethics of Islam. True freedom, he 

wrote, lay in adherence to a positive concept of law, a concept 

in which law is seen as a cohesive and constructive social force 

contributing to the development of religion, national genius, and 

civilization.5 

Using his position, Tarzi sought to root out the causes of social and political 

disintegration and to address Afghanistan’s backwardness.

Influenced by Tarzi, Habibullah pursued the soft power of Afghan 

nationalism and international recognition of the Afghan nation. In 1901, 

soon after his succession, he sent envoys to Great Britain, Russia, France, 

Germany, Japan, China, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Persia, and the 

United States. He followed Abdur Rahman’s model of neutrality, using 

Afghanistan’s natural boundaries to his advantage while impeding Russian 

and British trade concessions.6

During this period of internal stability, Habibullah oversaw the 

development of schools, the construction of the first hospital and 

hydroelectric plant, and the appearance of wealth in the cities. This latter 

development marked the beginning of the great social divide between 

the cities and the countryside. Habibullah also identified the importance 

of a well-funded, centrally managed, modernized army. In 1904, he 

founded the Royal Military College (Madrasse-e Harbi-e Sirajieh) for 

the Durrani Pashtun elite.7

Alongside his military reforms, Habibullah invited foreigners to assist 

and lead several infrastructure development projects. An American, A. C. 

Jewett, formerly an engineer with the General Electric Company, moved 

to Afghanistan in 1911 when he was hired by a British company to build 

an electric generating plant for Habibullah’s summer palace at Jabal Saraj 

in Parwan Province, north of Kabul. By his niece’s account, Jewett “soon 

discovered what later generations of aid providers did—that it is not easy 

to help Afghans. Jewett’s original two-year tour stretched out to seven 

years while he struggled with physical difficulties, bureaucratic delays, 

and cultural obstacles.” 8
17

Habibullah’s measured reforms encountered the harsh realities of 

foreign affairs with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Alarmed by 

the rising power of Germany, Russian and British leaders sought to end 

their conflict in Central Asia and to reaffirm Russia’s 1873 vow not to 

invade Afghanistan. According to the 1907 Convention, the British would 

“exercise their influence in Afghanistan only in a pacific sense,” while 

the Russians, on their part, declared that they “recognize[d] Afghanistan 

as outside the sphere of Russian influence.” 9 Thus the European powers 

agreed to consult with each other on all matters pertaining to Afghanistan, 

and they stipulated that Afghanistan would remain neutral. Afghan leaders 

were incensed when their input was ignored and they had no place in 

negotiations between Russia and Britain regarding interests in Afghanistan. 

The Kabul elite developed a severe distrust of both Russia and Britain and 

rejected, as a threat to national integrity, their requests to expand trade.10

When the Ottoman caliphate called for a global jihad against the British 

and their allies during World War I, Afghanistan sided with the Young 

Turks. Many in Afghanistan were driven to arms with a feeling of intense 

resentment of British imperialism. In 1915, a Turkish-German mission 

arrived in Kabul to prepare an invasion of India, but Habibullah gave only 

Habibullah Khan (left), Abdur Rahman’s eldest son, ruled Afghanistan from 1901 

until he was assassinated in 1919. His third son, Amanullah Khan (right), consolidated 

power after his father’s death. Amanullah instituted a series of unprecedented 

reforms, but his reforming zeal was not supported by political acumen, and he was 

overthrown in 1929. He lived in exile in Italy and Switzerland, dying in 1960.
18

tentative backing to the plans while practicing a policy of neutrality. Before 

the Treaty of Versailles was signed, however, Afghanistan had a new ruler.11

In February 1919, unknown assailants assassinated Habibullah while he 

was on a hunting expedition. Habibullah’s third son, Amanullah (r. 1919–29), 

who was then in charge of the army and treasury in Kabul, seized power. 

He eliminated dissent and gained the loyalty of his chief rival and uncle, 

Nasrullah Khan, who was supported by the ulema (legal scholars) and 

Pashtuns along the Indian border. When Amanullah declared independence 

at the beginning of his reign on February 28, 1919, he set in motion events 

that led to the Third Anglo-Afghan War. This conflict lasted from May 3 to 

August 8, 1919, and consisted of a series of border skirmishes.12

To prevent an escalation of the conflict, the British Royal Air Force 

bombed targets in Jalalabad and Kabul in an early example of air superiority. 

Using a Handley Page V/1500 heavy bomber developed during World War 

I, the British dropped one and a half tons of bombs on Jalalabad in a single 

day and targeted several military installations, an armaments factory, the 

royal palace, and Abdur Rahman’s tomb in Kabul. Combined with the 

disarray of the Afghan army and the lack of popular support in Pashtun 

areas of British India, the British aerial offensive forced Amanullah to 

make a quick concession for peace.13

The war ended with the Treaty of Rawalpindi, signed on August 8, 1919, 

which guaranteed sovereignty to Afghanistan. The agreement confirmed 

Amanullah’s diplomatic independence and freed Afghanistan from British 

interference in its foreign affairs for the first time since the 1870s.14 As 

the price for this independence, Amanullah agreed to uphold the Durand 

Line, although he continued to support Pashtun disobedience and revolts in 

British India.15 For its part, the British Indian government was well aware 

of the need for pragmatism with Afghanistan. As Lord Chelmsford, viceroy 

of India, stated in a report to London in October 1919:

We have to deal with an Afghan nation, impregnated with the worldspirit of self-determination and national freedom, inordinately selfconfident in its new-found emancipation from autocracy and in its 

supposed escape from all menace from Russia, impatient of any 

restraint on its absolute independence. To expect the Afghanistan 

of today willingly to accept a Treaty re-embodying our old control 

over her foreign policy is a manifest impossibility. If we were to 

impose it at the point of the sword, to what end? The Treaty 

would have to be torn to shreds the moment the point of the 

sword was withdrawn.16
19

Afghanistan initiated official foreign relations with Turkey, Persia (Iran), 

Germany, France, Italy, and, most significantly, the newly formed Soviet 

Union, which was the first state to recognize Amanullah’s government in 

March 1919.17 Vladimir I. Lenin decreed Amanullah the leader of “the 

only independent Muslim state in the world,” believing that Afghanistan 

held great importance as a potential model for Asia. Leon Trotsky, then 

people’s commissar for military and naval affairs, wrote that “the road to 

Paris and London lies through the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab, and 

Bengal,” declaring that imperialism alone preserved the capitalist system. 

Soviet support for Amanullah in 1919 cemented the relationship through 

the 1920s. As Afghans endeavored to strengthen their independence, the 

Soviets consolidated power in Central Asia, and anti-British sentiment rose 

in the region.18

The Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Friendship, signed on September 13, 1920, 

and ratified on February 28, 1921, was the new Soviet government’s 

first international accord. Both parties agreed to refrain from entering 

agreements with third parties against the interests of the other. As part of 

the treaty, the Soviets promised to return territory from the Panjdeh oasis 

seized in 1885, but ultimately they returned little land. The Soviets also 

offered limited aid to build a radio station in Kabul and a telegraph line 

from Kabul to Kandahar and to Serhetabat (Kushka), Turkmenistan.19

During the 1920s, Afghanistan and Persia were strategically important 

to the Soviets as a defensive bulwark against the British and as a potential 

font of anti-British nationalism along the Indian frontier. The AfghanSoviet relationship, however, was soon tested by competing interests in 

Central Asia: the Soviets were actively propagating their revolutionary 

ideology in the region, while Amanullah sought to build a confederation of 

Islamic states there. The Basmachi Revolt in Soviet Central Asia became 

a focal point in this rivalry. The basmachi, an Uzbek term for bandits, 

were armed militias led by kurbashi, or local chiefs, and inflamed by 

widespread famine, political uncertainty, and the nationalization of cotton 

and food production. They were loosely organized groups that became 

a popular counterrevolutionary and anti-Soviet movement, based in 

Bukhara, Khiva, and the Fergana Valley.20

By December 1921, basmachi forces numbered 20,000 and identified 

themselves as mujahideen (holy warriors). The Soviets sent Enver Pasha, a 

former Young Turk, to quell the revolt, but he joined it instead. Amanullah 

also decided to support the basmachi and sent his best troops with Gen. 

Mohammad Nadir Khan, the future king, to fight alongside them in 

Muslim solidarity. In July 1922, Nadir Khan declared to the Soviets that 

“if the hostile activity of the Bolsheviks against Bukhara does not cease, 
20

the Government of Afghanistan will be forced to annex Bukhara. This is 

the only way to assist a Muslim state in the center of Asia to stand up 

against Bolshevik intrigues.”21 Enver Pasha led the capture of Dushanbe 

as the rebellion peaked in 1922, but he could never unify the movement 

or generate international support. Ultimately, Amanullah’s concern over 

Soviet expansion in Central Asia was less than his fear of civil war 

caused by British intrigue and Pashtun tribes in the southern and eastern 

provinces. Amanullah finally agreed in November 1922 to Soviet demands 

that he withdraw Afghan troops, and he continued a careful balancing act 

to appease British, Soviet, and pan-Islamic interests.22

While Afghan-Soviet relations deteriorated during the revolt, Fedor 

Raskolnikov, a Red Navy officer, civil war hero, and architect of the 

Soviet Republic of Gilan, arrived in Kabul in July 1921 as the first allSoviet Ambassador to Afghanistan. He supported increasing aid to check 

British influence and to promote his country’s anti-imperialist credentials. 

An important cornerstone of the Afghan-Soviet relationship in the 1920s 

was the creation of the Royal Afghan Air Force. After the success of 

British air power during the Third Anglo-Afghan War, Amanullah sought 

to build air capabilities for his own national army. The Soviet air force 

arranged for aircraft and weapons to be sent from Italy and flew the first 

five aircraft to Kabul in 1924. Later, the Afghan government acquired 

three Junkers from Germany and two British aircraft. By the end of the 

1920s, the Royal Afghan Air Force had twenty-five pilots: three Afghan, 

four German, and eighteen Russian.23

When the Khost Rebellion, initiated by Mangal and Ghilzai Pashtuns 

resisting Amanullah’s domestic reforms, broke out in March 1924, the 

Soviets sent technicians and pilots to help Amanullah subdue the rebels. 

The Soviets also donated Polikarpov R–1s, Soviet copies of Airco DH–

9As, on the condition that Russians would fly them. “From a psychological 

point of view,” Gregorian argued, “the Amir’s use of airplanes piloted by 

Russians and Germans against the rebels was at the least ill-advised. The 

intrusion of ‘infidels’ into an internal feud was not only regarded as a sign 

of weakness but considered irreligious as well.” 24 Despite the political 

ramifications, the use of foreign planes and pilots against the rebels had 

a positive effect on the growth of Afghan air power. French journalist 

Maurice Pernot observed at the time that “at the end of October 1924, 

Russian pilots crossed the Amu Darya, flew over the mountains through 

the gap at the Bamyan River, and brought their planes up to Kabul. The 

impression was considerable. Soon after, twenty-five young Afghans 

departed to Russia in order to learn the craft of aviation.” With profound 

foresight, Pernot wrote in 1927 that Afghan aviation henceforth would 
21

depend on Russian matériel and personnel. British sources agreed that the 

Afghan air force was essentially “a Russian service.” By 1928, the Soviets 

had established an air link with Central Asia and the first flights between 

Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat.25

While the birth of Afghan air power was a small but impressive 

accomplishment, Amanullah’s social reforms proved an important milestone 

in Afghan history. His efforts to modernize Afghanistan exceeded those 

of his predecessors, Abdur Rahman and Habibullah. Amanullah embraced 

European advances in education, improved conditions for women, and 

supported the press. Beginning in the early 1920s, he introduced new 

taxes, universal conscription, an expansion of the educational system, and 

changes to family law, including family affairs and marriage customs, as 

part of a systematic reconstruction of Afghan society.26 Amanullah directly 

challenged local traditions and ways of life, prompting rebellions that 

began in the southeastern city of Khost in 1924.27

After the early uprisings subsided, Amanullah and his wife, Soraya, 

who was the daughter of Mahmud Tarzi, set out on a grand tour in late 

1927 that included visits to India, Egypt, Italy, France, Germany, Britain, 

Darul Aman Palace, “The Abode of Peace” or “Abode of Aman[ullah],” was built on 

the outskirts of Kabul in the 1920s. It is also known as the King’s Palace, as the 

Afghans built a separate residence for Queen Soraya on a nearby hill (see p. 68). Darul 

Aman housed the Defense Ministry in the 1970s and 1980s. It was restored after fires 

in 1969 and 1978 but severely damaged during the civil wars of the 1990s. Proposals 

have circulated to rehabilitate the structure for use by the Afghan parliament. Photo 

(2009) by Sgt. Teddy Wade, USA. Department of Defense.
22

the Soviet Union, Turkey, and Iran. Amanullah received honorary degrees 

from Oxford and Berlin Universities, the Collar of the Annunziata from 

King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, and the Order of the Golden Spur from 

Pope Pius XI. As he embarked on his travels, Amanullah launched a 

campaign to end Afghanistan’s isolationism and foreign dependency and 

to transform its political and economic institutions.28

In a series of major initiatives from 1927 to 1929, Amanullah 

presented a secular constitution based on the Turkish model; attempted 

to define the relationship between religion and the secular establishment 

while both groups refused to compromise; created an independent 

judiciary; invested in schools for girls and teachers from Europe and 

India; expanded legal rights for women; reorganized the tax and budget 

systems; established a national bank (Bank-e Milli); and set in motion a 

campaign against nepotism and corruption. This was the most ambitious 

improvement program in Afghan history, but it was ill-fated from the start. 

Amanullah’s embrace of modernization met with strong reactions from 

tribal and religious leaders, the traditional power brokers in Afghanistan. 

According to cultural historian Senzil Nawid, Amanullah sought to “purge 

the practice of Islam in Afghanistan of its folk ways, traditional taboos, 

and superstitions, which he claimed were espoused by ignorant and selfinterested clergy.” 29 Ultimately, his reforming zeal was not supported by 

political acumen, and his social programs continued to antagonize the 

tribal elites, religious leaders, and the army.

An uprising of Shinwari Pashtun tribesmen expanded to widespread 

revolt in 1928, forcing Amanullah to abdicate in January 1929. At the same 

time, Ghulam Nabi Charkhi, Afghan ambassador to the Soviet Union, 

crossed the Amu Darya with Soviet forces and briefly occupied Mazar-i 

Sharif, where his brother had been governor. He found little support for 

his faction, however, and the Soviets continued to support Amanullah.30

The crisis provided an opportunity for Habibullah Kalakani, derided 

by Pashtuns as “Bacha Saqao” or “son of the water carrier,” to seize 

power. An ethnic Tajik army deserter and charismatic bandit in the style 

of Robin Hood, he ruled Afghanistan from January to October 1929. As 

Shinwaris revolted in the east, Wazir tribes arrived from the southeast, and 

Habibullah Kalahani’s group of Tajiks and Ghilzai Pashtuns moved from 

the north and occupied Kabul. Amanullah, with his attempt to regain 

power having failed, fled from Kandahar to India in May. Habibullah 

Kalakani reversed many of Amanullah’s reforms, banning western 

clothing and closing the schools for girls. He also began preparing for 

battle against another rival, Nadir Khan.31
23

Barakzai Legacies

The earliest rulers of Afghanistan were Sadozai-Popalzai Pashtuns, 

including Ahmad Shah Durrani and Timur Shah. This order changed in 1826 

when Dost Mohammad of the Barakzai clan emerged as the sovereign of 

Afghanistan. Traditionally, the Barakzai clan served as viziers, the power 

behind the Sadozai-Popalzai princes. When Dost Mohammad became ruler, 

many Afghans viewed him as a usurper to the throne. He used the lesser 

title of amir, rather than shah, in deference to his forebearers, a tradition 

maintained until Amanullah declared himself malik in 1926.32

After Amanullah abdicated, Mohammad Nadir Khan (r. 1929–33) 

enlisted the support of the British and raised an army to remove Habibullah 

Kalakani from power. Nadir Khan had been a renowned general and 

former minister of war, but he had been exiled as the Afghan minister to 

France because of disagreements with Amanullah and Tarzi over the pace 

of reforms. To secure his succession, Nadir Khan allied with conservatives 

and arrived in Kabul at the front of a coalition of Amanullah’s relatives. 

Nadir Khan also benefitted from the military leadership of his brothers, 

Shah Mahmud Khan and Shah Wali Khan, who returned from exile in 

France with him. Although Nadir Khan had little personal interest in ruling 

Afghanistan, he acknowledged both his popularity as well as Amanullah’s 

lost mandate when he took the crown.33

In 1929, because the Afghan government was weak and bankrupt and the 

national army had ceased to exist, Nadir Khan made concessions to appease 

local unrest. He annulled almost all of Amanullah’s reforms, confirmed 

Habibullah Kalakani’s enforcement of Islamic law, and reintroduced gender 

segregation (purdah) and the wearing of the veil (chadri). He promulgated 

a new constitution in 1931 that entrenched religious values.

On the international front, Nadir Khan pursued a policy of neutrality 

and sought to curb Soviet economic and political influence in Afghanistan. 

He renegotiated the neutrality pact of 1926 and concluded the Treaty of 

Mutual Neutrality and Non-Aggression with the Soviet Union in June 

1931. One clause declared that each state would prevent activities within 

its territory that “might cause political or military injury.” 34

With respect to military affairs, Nadir Khan moved away from 

Amanullah’s efforts to centralize control of the armed forces. He returned 

the recruitment process to tribes and clans, even excepting the entire Paktia 

region from mandatory military service in recognition of its support in 

ousting Habibullah Kalakani. Nadir Khan also promoted the inclusion of 

Hazaras, Mangals, and Mohmands in the army.35
24

In 1933, Nadir Khan founded the Maktab-i-Ihzariah, a military 

preparatory school for the sons of tribal chiefs. This was a distinct departure 

from the promotion of Durrani elites by Afghan rulers since Abdur 

Rahman. Nadir Khan’s remarks at the launch of the school underlined the 

renewed importance of the army to uphold stability in Afghanistan: 

An era marked by discords and civil wars has ruined and weakened 

our native land, and it is only after a series of coordinated efforts 

that it will be possible to reestablish its might and prosperity. I hope, 

with the help of almighty God, that Afghanistan may possess a 

strong and well-organized army that will constitute a beautiful rose 

on the head of its friends and a thorn in the eye of its enemies—an 

army that would assure peace and prosperity in our country.36

Nadir Shah and his successor Zahir Shah (r. 1933–73) made a 

lasting, ultimately devastating deal with religious conservatives to curtail 

the changes instituted by Amanullah. Low literacy and government 

withdrawal from social reforms meant that educational advances were 

limited to Kabul, furthering a divide between urban and rural areas. 

In small steps, Nadir Shah formed commercial ties with Britain and 

Russia, introduced financial planning, and improved roads through the 

Hindu Kush.

Nadir Shah was assassinated in Kabul by Abdul Khaliq, son of a 

Hazara servant of Ghulam Nabi Charkhi, who avenged the killing of his 

master by Nadir Shah.37 With Nadir’s death, his three surviving brothers 

rallied around Nadir’s nineteen-year-old son, Zahir Shah, who functioned 

first as a figurehead while his uncles—Mohammad Hashim Khan as prime 

minister, Shah Wali Khan as minister of war, and Shah Mahmud Khan 

as minister of the interior—played major political roles in the 1930s and 

1940s. In particular, Hashim Khan led Afghanistan toward neutralism 

and gradualism in foreign policy and provided the foundation for bitarafi, literally “without sides,” the nonalignment strategy of the 1950s 

and beyond.38

As prime minister, Hashim Khan continued the efforts of Nadir Shah 

to strengthen the army and the economy with foreign assistance. He 

looked beyond his Soviet and British imperial neighbors to find additional 

allies to counter their bipolar influences. To this end, Hashim Khan 

invited German experts and business interests to build hydroelectric and 

industrial plants. He also forged ties with Japanese and Italian businesses 

with little British and Soviet awareness of these activities.39 He used the 

fear of Soviet aggression to generate loans from the British and Germans 
25

to buy arms and confront tribal revolt. 

Despite the global economic crisis, 

Afghan leaders avoided enacting heavy 

taxes by extracting revenue from 

foreign gosvernments in the form of 

loans and foreign assistance from the 

Soviet Union, Britain, Germany, and 

Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, and then 

the Soviet Union and the United States 

after World War II.40

In a theme for the era, and an 

enduring pattern, Afghan leaders not only 

balanced disparate and competing foreign 

interests, they also regulated the popular 

mistrust of outsiders to encourage foreign 

assistance. Afghanistan’s experiences 

with British military invasions and 

political hegemony for the better part 

of a century caused general distrust of 

Europeans. At the same time, however, 

the king and his uncles decided that 

European modernization strategies could 

fix Afghanistan’s political and economic 

backwardness.41 As geologist Ernest Fox 

explained after his time there in the 1930s: “Afghanistan still dislikes the 

foreigner. The mountaineer’s natural love of independence, their strong 

militant religious sentiment, and centuries of unpleasant experiences with 

foreign invaders have bred this feeling. But the present Afghan leaders 

realize that they can employ to advantage the technical achievements 

of the West.” 42

Afghanistan embraced a more globalized outlook before World War II, 

becoming a member of the League of Nations on September 27, 1934. On 

July 8, 1937, Afghanistan joined Iran, Iraq, and Turkey to sign the “Eastern 

Pact of Friendship and Nonaggression,” also known as the Saadabad Pact, 

which established the inviolability of mutual frontiers and abstention from 

interference in each other’s internal affairs.43 In seeking these alliances, 

Afghan leaders positioned themselves as a political force in the Middle 

East.44 They also affirmed their diplomatic independence, which had been 

constrained for a century by the Great Game. On November 6, 1941, as 

the growing war became more widespread, the Grand Assembly released 

this statement:

Mohammad Zahir Shah in the early 

1930s. He became king in 1933 at 

age nineteen after the assassination of 

his father, Mohammad Nadir Shah. 

Zahir Shah reigned for forty years, 

then lived in exile in Italy after being 

deposed in 1973.
26

The Afghan nation has at no time been under any obligation to a 

foreign government, nor will she ever be. The nation has always 

been free, and will also in the future maintain its free and independent 

existence. By the help of God, the people of Afghanistan are 

unanimously prepared to live a life of honor by defending their 

rights with all their material and spiritual forces, even to the point 

of shedding the last drop of blood.45

While Afghanistan did not endure the same wartime fate as Iran, which 

was occupied by Soviet and British troops, it did face rampant inflation, 

abandoned development projects, and reduced foreign trade, which resulted 

in major economic upheaval.46 The experience demonstrated to the young 

ruling elites the vital necessity of economic reform and modernization. 

When Hashim Khan resigned as prime minister in May 1946, his brother, 

Shah Mahmud Khan, embarked on an ambitious new modernization plan 

that would have long-term implications for Afghanistan.

A new challenge also arose in the diplomatic sphere when Afghanistan 

could no longer play equal sides against each other. There were many among 

the Afghan elites with German sympathies, but the Afghan government had 

recognized the consequences of Iran’s friendship with Germany and instead 

chose to remain neutral during the war.47 Afghanistan’s experience during 

World War II would soon make the United States a key yet elusive ally.
27

Three

Early Relations with

the United States

When Amanullah Khan began his foreign policy initiatives in the 1920s, 

he included an effort to open relations with the United States. The U.S. 

Department of State, however, delayed the discussion of diplomatic 

recognition. U.S. officials viewed Afghanistan as part of Great Britain’s 

sphere of interest, and they were skeptical of Afghanistan’s acceptance 

of Soviet aid.1

Despite these reservations, relations between the United States and 

Afghanistan remained cordial. In July 1921, Secretary of State Charles 

Evans Hughes wrote to President Warren G. Harding, “There is a Mission 

here from Afghanistan apparently with full powers and desirous of having 

American participation in the development of that country.” 2 Harding 

met the mission, led by Gen. Wali Khan, on July 26, 1921, at the White 

House. A few days later, he wrote to Amanullah, “It is my wish that the 

relations between the United States and Afghanistan may always be of a 

friendly character, and I shall be happy to cooperate with Your Majesty 

to this end.” 3 Relations, however, never progressed beyond epistolary 

pleasantries during the Harding administration.

In 1925, the Afghan government submitted a draft “treaty of friendship” 

to renew the discussion of diplomatic relations with the United States.4

In response, Wallace S. Murray, chief of the State Department division 

for near eastern affairs, argued that “Afghanistan for centuries has been a 

cockpit of Anglo-Russian struggle over the control of the principle gateway 

to India, the Khyber Pass, and there is no reason to believe that this struggle 

will cease now that Russia is controlled by the Bolsheviks. No foreign lives 

in the country can be protected and no foreign interests guaranteed.” 5

Afghanistan’s inability to safeguard foreigners and its prohibition of 

missionaries meant that U.S. visitors were limited to adventure travelers. 

Two such men, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of 

Theodore Roosevelt, wrote that “the Afghanistan route was very difficult, 

and the natives uncertain, to put it mildly. We did not wish to be ‘collected’ 

ourselves before we had a chance to collect any animals.” 6
28

Despite U.S. apprehension, Afghan desire for formal diplomatic 

relations never waned. Mohammad Zahir Shah framed a letter to President 

Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1934 with the opening remarks, “My Dear 

and Most Honoured Friend: In view of the friendship and goodwill, which, 

since the extraordinary embassy of Afghanistan of 1921, are established 

between the two great States of Afghanistan and the United States of 

America.” Zahir Shah informed Roosevelt that his father had died and that 

he had ascended the throne. He continued, “We are pleased to notify the 

desire of the Afghan Government to strengthen the political and economic 

relations, which he had and has still now with the High Government of the 

United States.” 7

Several factors combined to delay U.S. recognition in the 1920s and 

early 1930s. In 1934, Acting Secretary of State William Phillips wrote to 

Roosevelt: 

Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. during their 1925–26 

expedition in South Asia. They observed that “the Afghanistan 

route was very difficult, and the natives uncertain, to put it 

mildly.” Library of Congress.
29

Our failure to recognize the Government of Nadir Shah was 

due largely to the fact that this Government was never formally 

notified of the abdication of Amanullah and the accession of 

Nadir Shah; moreover, we have been naturally conservative on 

the subject of establishing relations with Afghanistan owing to the 

primitive condition of the country, the lack of capitulatory or other 

guarantees for the safety of foreigners, and the absence of any 

important American interests.”8

Thus informed, Roosevelt offered a polite reply without intending to 

change the status quo: “I cordially reciprocate the sentiments which you 

express and, in extending recognition to Your Majesty’s Government, take 

this opportunity of assuring you of my hope that friendly relations will 

always exist between the United States and Afghanistan.”9

Mohammad Zahir Shah’s April 1934 letter to Franklin 

D. Roosevelt, in the original Dari. Zahir Shah expressed 

Afghanistan’s desire “to strengthen the policial and economic 

relations” with the United States. National Archives.
30

Roosevelt initiated a deliberate process to establish U.S. relations 

with Afghanistan that culminated in the “Provisional Agreement 

regarding Friendship, Diplomatic and Consular Representation between 

the United States and Afghanistan,” which was signed in Paris on March 

26, 1936.10 The slow progress toward recognition reflected the economic 

isolationism and noninterventionist foreign policy of the United States 

in the 1930s. But a few U.S. commercial interests began to recognize 

Afghanistan as a potential market. In one such case, U.S. officials 

supported the first Afghan military purchases from the United States, 

beginning in February 1935 when the Caterpillar Tractor Company sold 

fifty tractors to the Afghan army.11

A significant expansion of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan took place 

when the Afghan government offered oil concessions to a U.S. consortium 

that included Seaboard Oil Company, Texas Oil Company (later known 

as Texaco), Case, Pomeroy & Company, and Fisher Brothers. The Afghan 

government granted this group access to oil deposits throughout Afghanistan, 

with an option for mineral deposits, on November 20, 1936.12 The agreement 

called for additional measures and certain infrastructure investment to be 

completed within the first year after signature. The oil exploration was not 

fruitful, however, for a number of reasons. Murray, the State Department’s 

chief of division for near eastern affairs, recounted that despite three years of 

negotiation, which obtained extensive oil concessions in both Afghanistan 

and Iran, the Seaboard Oil Company suddenly and unexpectedly withdrew 

from both agreements.13 Afghan officials did not understand why the 

United States gave up so quickly, after only one year, despite growing 

concerns over the global oil market and increasing security concerns in 

the late 1930s.14 Although the venture failed, U.S. officials began to realize 

the need to formalize relations with Afghanistan. Murray had written in 

July 1937 that “I do not see how we can avoid much longer establishing a 

permanent legation at the Afghan capital.” 15

Afghanistan’s strategic location during World War II prompted the 

United States to bolster diplomatic relations. When Louis G. Dreyfus Jr., 

the U.S. minister to Iran, visited Kabul in June 1941, he noted that “the 

Afghans have a sincere and deep-rooted desire, in the absence of a friend 

or neighbor to whom they can turn, to have a disinterested third power 

friend to assist and advise them, and they have always hoped that the U.S. 

would be willing to fill such a role.” Dreyfus believed that “this is an 

opportunity which should not be missed of establishing ourselves solidly 

in a strategic position in Asia.” 16 When the United States entered the war, 

Murray expressed an interest in developing a treaty of friendship to replace 

the provisional accord of March 1936, but he did not pursue that goal.17
31

The requirements of war did result in the establishment of an American 

legation in Kabul on June 6, 1942. From 1942 to 1945, the first U.S. 

envoys to Afghanistan included Cornelius Van H. Engert, Ely L. Palmer, 

and Dreyfus, all experienced diplomats with extensive backgrounds 

in the region. They directly confronted pro-German sentiments in the 

Afghan government that could have destabilized the British Indian 

frontier during the war.

In July 1942, Engert arrived as the first U.S. minister to Afghanistan. 

In 1922, Engert, then serving as the second secretary of the American 

legation in Tehran, Iran, had been the first U.S. diplomatic officer to 

visit Afghanistan. During his subsequent assignment to Washington, he 

published a confidential study, A Report on Afghanistan, about his travels 

there.18 This work remained a key reference for U.S. officials until Engert 

returned during the war, twenty years later. Upon his arrival in Kabul, 

he informed Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the king of Afghanistan 

“had for many years harbored feelings of great sympathy, confidence and 

admiration for the United States.” 19

On the other side of the globe, President Roosevelt welcomed the 

first Afghan diplomat accredited to the United States, Abdul Hussein 

Aziz, in 1943.20 While U.S. officials considered the strategic implications 

of Afghanistan’s geographic location in Asia, including a secret plan for 

an alternate Lend-Lease route to the Soviet Union and China through 

Afghanistan and India, Afghan leaders viewed the United States as a 

potential counter to British and Soviet interests in Asia. Writing to Hull, 

Engert clarified in November 1943 that “from the Afghan point of view, the 

U.S. would be the ideal powerful friend to whom to cling especially as proBritish elements are still afraid to give public expression to their feelings.” 21

U.S. officials soon perceived the complexities of Afghanistan’s foreign 

policy challenges. On one hand, Engert optimistically told Hull that 

“Afghanistan is ready to exercise a stabilizing influence in Central Asia and 

on the northwest frontier of India provided only that she can be reasonably 

certain that she will not be ground between the upper and nether millstones 

of rival powers struggling for supremacy.” 22 On the other, U.S. diplomats 

were aware of Afghan leaders’ fear of a return to the nineteenth-century 

Great Game as the Soviets emerged as a military power during the war. 

“It is certain that as [a] result of spectacular Russian military successes, 

Afghan officials have been trying to improve relations with [the] Soviets 

and to cultivate closer official and social contacts,” Engert observed in 

February 1943. He added that “there are as yet no indications of [the] 

future course of Soviet policy toward Afghanistan, but Russia has long 

been a most uncertain neighbor, and little trust is placed here in Soviet 
32

promises and undertakings.” 23 In a letter to Hull in April 1943, Engert 

wrote, “The Afghans are convinced that when the war is over Russia will 

demand substantial territorial concessions of her neighbors and that neither 

the U.S. nor Great Britain will be able to stop her.” 24

The Afghans’ attitudes toward the Soviet Union proved no less 

problematic than their relations with Great Britain and British India. 

Following a meeting with the Afghan minister, Aziz, in Washington in 

November 1943, Hull recounted the official Afghan position: “The AfghanIndian frontier presented no problem in so long as the British remained in 

India, but that the Government of Afghanistan would never permit that 

the Afghan tribesmen along the present northwest frontier of India should 

be subject against their will to the control of the Indians.” Anticipating 

challenges that would plague Afghanistan in the future, Aziz concluded, 

according to Hull, that “if the tribesmen in question should by any chance 

prefer to remain with the Mussulmans [Muslims] of India, Afghanistan 

would come to them.” 25

The United States and its allies were able to keep foreign conflict from 

reaching Afghanistan’s borders during World War II, and U.S. officials remained 

interested in the country’s potential strategic value. Engert fought to send aid 

to Afghanistan during the war, despite its neutral status. He also facilitated 

the export of karakul wool, Afghanistan’s primary export commodity, to the 

United States. This was an extraordinary feat during the privation of war, and it 

inspired cordial relations with the Afghans over the next decade.26

The U.S. Department of War shared little of the State Department’s 

interest in Afghanistan. Col. Harold R. Maddux, chief of the liaison section, 

War Department General Staff, argued in June 1944 that “the War Department 

is unable to foresee any military benefits that will accrue to the United 

States as a result of increased effectiveness of the Afghan army.” 27 Two 

years earlier, Engert had sent a telegram to Hull requesting the placement of 

several bomber squadrons in northwest India or northeast Persia (Iran) “to 

bolster his Afghan allies.” Engert argued that “in view of immediate urgency 

of military situation I venture to make a practical suggestion to raise morale 

of Afghan Government: Arrival of a few American bomber squadrons even 

if only for purely temporary duty in North and Northeastern Persia would 

make profound impression in Afghanistan.” 28 In May 1943, Engert and the 

military attaché to Afghanistan had managed to present a Stearman trainer 

plane to the Royal Afghan Air Force.29 The proximity of the China-BurmaIndia theater provided additional opportunities for military cooperation.

A year later, more substantial military-to-military interaction ensued. 

On December 29, 1944, a C–47 carrying members of the Afghanistan 

military mission arrived at Hijli Air Base in northern India to visit Maj. 
33

Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and XX Bomber Command as part of a tour of the 

China-Burma-India theater. The mission toured two B–29s at the base, 

developing rapport and enjoying a halal meal together.30 Toward the 

end of the war, Lt. Gen. Mohammad Daud Khan, the king’s cousin and 

commander of the Kabul Army Corps who would become prime minister 

in the next decade, requested military training for Afghan officers, 

envisioning a training mission in Afghanistan run by U.S. rather than 

Turkish advisors. U.S. government officials refused the request, as they 

did not view Afghanistan as a military ally because it had maintained its 

neutrality throughout the war.31

Since the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of 1931 was still in force at the end 

of World War II, Afghans would have abrogated their treaty by pursuing 

deeper ties with the United States, as that would have constituted a thirdparty alliance. Yet during a visit in November and December 1948, Abdul 

Majid Zabuli, minister of national economy, requested U.S.-manufactured 

weapons to maintain internal security in the face of persistent tribal revolt. 

Zabuli also articulated Afghanistan’s potential aid to President Harry 

S. Truman’s containment policy in two official meetings. According to 

meeting notes, Zabuli asserted that “properly armed and convinced of U.S. 

In December 1944, Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and XX Bomber Command hosted a 

visit by senior Afghan officers at Hijli Air Base, India. The delegation included Lt. 

Gen. Mohammad Daud Khan, the king’s cousin, who would become prime minister 

in the 1953. U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency.
34

backing, Afghanistan could manage a delaying action in the passes of the 

Hindu Kush, which would be a contribution to the success of the armed 

forces of the West.” At a meeting three weeks later, he added that “when 

war came, Afghanistan would of course be overrun and occupied. But the 

Russians would be unable to pacify the country. Afghanistan could and 

would pursue guerrilla tactics for an indefinite period.” 32

The United States continued to deny military aid to Afghanistan 

through the late 1940s and early 1950s as U.S. interests in South Asia 

began to focus on newly created Pakistan as an increasingly important 

ally.33 U.S. diplomat Leon D. Poullada and some others believed that the 

United States had an “Afghan blind-spot” where “Afghanistan was always 

mysteriously overlooked or deliberately ignored.” 34 More likely, however, 

the U.S. foreign policy establishment made pragmatic decisions on U.S.-

Afghan relations based on what it considered to be reasonable geopolitical 

and strategic expectations of the region. At that time, Afghanistan remained 

on the margins of the Cold War, a situation that would change dramatically 

a few decades later.

Postwar Geopolitics and the Origins of the

Pashtunistan Debate

While the United States demonstrated little interest in supplying aid 

to Afghanistan at the end of World War II, Great Britain was more open 

to the idea.35 Under the Lancaster Plan, the British started to provide the 

Afghans with equipment and training and, by 1947, the Afghan army and 

air force had become dependent on British training and supplies. The 

partition of India in that same year, however, quickly altered the political 

landscape of the region.36

Through an act of Parliament in July 1947, Great Britain officially 

partitioned British India into the two independent “dominions” of India 

and Pakistan. Afghanistan immediately abrogated its treaties with 

British India and challenged Pakistani claims to British territory along 

the northwest frontier.37 Afghanistan specifically rejected Pakistan’s 

intention to uphold the Durand Line as the new international border. On 

September 30, 1947, Afghanistan was the only United Nations member 

to vote against the admission of Pakistan. On July 26, 1949, an Afghan 

loya jirga (national council) denounced all Anglo-Afghan frontier accords 

and ceased to recognize the Pakistani-Afghan boundary.38 Thus began a 

prolonged dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the mounting 

question of “Pashtunistan,” the “land of the Pashtuns” that stretches from 

the Hindu Kush to the Indus River.
35

From the British perspective, diplomat Sir William Kerr Fraser-Tytler 

explained, “The British did not solve the problem of the tribes, and when 

in August, 1947, they handed over the control of India’s North-Western 

defences to the untried Government of Pakistan, they handed over likewise 

a fluid, difficult situation, fraught with much danger.”39 When the British 

held a 1947 referendum for the autonomous tribal agencies, including 

Malakand, Khaibar, Kurram, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan, they 

offered two alternatives: annexation to India or to Pakistan. The British 

did not include Afghanistan as a choice since they were aware that the 

tribal areas of the northwest frontier had entered into international limbo 

in August 1947. In legal terms, the tribal areas were part of British India 

rather than India and thus did not become part of either India or Pakistan at 

independence. British officials determined that “Pakistan would not have 

been able to raise any legal objection if the tribes had placed themselves 

under the protection of Afghanistan or if, with the consent of the tribes, the 

tribal areas had been annexed by Afghanistan.”40 In the end, the inhabitants 

of the North-West Frontier Province overwhelmingly chose to remain with 

Pakistan, although many boycotted the referendum.41

Afghanistan disputed Pakistan’s claims to the frontier provinces, but 

Pakistan effectively excluded Afghanistan from frontier discussions 

and responded with a series of partial blockades in 1948 that would last 

intermittently for more than a decade.42 In the most severe cases, open 

conflict arose, as in March 1949 when the Pakistani air force bombed 

Moghulgay in Khost Province as part of a territorial dispute. For its part, 

the Royal Afghan Air Force dropped anti-Pakistani leaflets in border areas. 

In addition, Afghan tribal forces staged unofficial cross-border raids in 

1950 and 1951 that were supported by the Afghan National Army. These 

efforts had little impact other than to antagonize the Pakistani government. 

On the domestic front, Mohammad Daud Khan, as minister for tribal 

affairs, in November 1949 established the Khushal Khan Khattak School 

for Pakistani Pashtuns to study in Kabul.43 During this formative period, 

Daud became the leading advocate for Pashtunistan, and his policies as 

prime minister (1953–63) and president (1973–78) were a major obstacle 

to normalizing relations with Pakistan.

Despite the efforts of Afghan politicians, the United States did not take 

an active role in the Pashtunistan dispute. Prince Mohammad Naim, after 

he left his post as chargé d’affaires in Washington in July 1949, announced 

that he was “deeply disappointed” because he found U.S. policy on 

Pashtunistan and toward Afghanistan in general “one of complete disinterest 

and indifference,” according to State Department cables.44 On the contrary, 

U.S. policy makers were deeply concerned with the strategic implications 
36

of the territorial conflagration. Louis Dreyfus, U.S. ambassador in Kabul 

from 1949 to 1951, feared that the dispute could push Afghans toward the 

Soviets. The official policy as of February 1951 read:

Our interests would be seriously prejudiced by the failure of 

Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach an accord on matters of 

tribal status and treatment. . . . We should continue to encourage 

Afghanistan to settle its differences with Pakistan and to promote the 

regional cooperation which will preclude its excessive commercial 

dependence upon the USSR which has obvious implications for 

Afghan independence.45

Out of public view, U.S. officials tried to broker a deal as they developed 

Pakistan into a strategic ally, but Pakistan would not commit. Meanwhile, 

the Afghan government pursued two public and concurrent diplomatic 

maneuvers. On one hand, Zahir Shah, Prime Minister Daud, and ex-Prime 

Minister Shah Mahmud encouraged support of the Pashtunistan course. 

On the other, Foreign Minister Naim and his deputy Aziz worked with 

the United States and European nations to normalize Pakistani relations.46

Complicating matters further, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Afghanistan, 

John Evarts Horner, wrote that “complete retreat by the Government of 

Afghanistan from its admittedly unreasonable stand on this issue would 

represent dangerous loss of prestige to the Kabul Government.” 47

At the onset of the Cold War, the United States was much more 

interested in pursuing regional security arrangements to check Soviet 

expansionism than it was in resolving border issues between Afghanistan 

and Pakistan. In the Middle East and South Asia, those efforts focused 

on Turkey and Pakistan. As the National Security Council (NSC) framed 

this discussion in 1954, “The best prospect for creating an indigenous 

regional defense arrangement in the Near East lies in the concept of the 

‘northern tier,’ which would include Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. The 

Turkish-Pakistan Pact is the first step in this direction.”48 James S. Lay Jr., 

executive secretary for the NSC, had noted in a coordinating memorandum 

that “in determining to extend aid to Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey, the 

U.S. has chosen states which are most keenly aware of the threat of Soviet 

Russia and which are located geographically in the way of possible Soviet 

aggression.”49 Planners in the United States ignored Afghanistan as part of 

these regional security arrangements due to indefensible northern territories, 

lack of economic and defense infrastructure, and political instability.50

The Pashtunistan question would remain a key issue in Afghanistan’s 

foreign policy during the 1950s and 1960s. Daniel Balland argued that 
37

it “continuously poisoned relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It 

even led to serious tension in 1949–50, 1955, and 1959, each instance leading 

to a partial blockade of the common boundary and a progressive shift of 

Afghan foreign trade to new transit outlets.” 51 Then, from September 3, 

1961, until May 29, 1963, a full-scale Pashtunistan crisis resulted in the 

severing of diplomatic relations and the closure of the Afghan-Pakistani 

frontier to traffic in both directions.52 This action confirmed a pro-Soviet 

shift in Afghanistan, further entrenching trade dependence and forging 

military ties that would constrain Afghanistan’s relationship with the 

United States and Europe until the end of the twentieth century.

Prince Mohammad Naim arriving at the White House in 

1948 to present his credentials. U.S. diplomats saw Naim, 

the king’s cousin and Mohammad Daud Khan’s brother, 

as the most pro-American of the senior Afghan officials.

National Archives.

39

Four

Afghanistan’s Soviet Shift

and the U.S. Response

Afghanistan’s move to closer relations with the Soviet Union was a long 

time coming. Prince Mohammad Naim, then deputy prime minister and 

minister for foreign affairs, argued in 1954 that “the sending of military 

aid from the U.S. to Pakistan had created an immediate Soviet reaction 

and the resulting situation presented one of the chief difficulties faced by 

Afghanistan today.” 1 One of the opening gambits by the Soviets involved 

oil drilling in northern Afghanistan. In August 1952, the Soviet chargé 

d’affaires at Kabul delivered an aide-mémoire to the Afghan government 

stating that the Afghan plan to allow a French firm, under the auspices of 

the United Nations, to pursue oil drilling in northern Afghanistan was a 

violation of the Afghan-Soviet Neutrality and Non-Aggression Treaty of 

1931. The Soviets protested that these explorations by a North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) member would endanger the safety of the 

Soviet-Afghan frontier and undermine friendly relations between the 

Soviet Union and Afghanistan.2

Initially, the Afghan government rejected the protest, but it later 

yielded to Soviet pressure and canceled the French project when it became 

clear that the United States would not increase aid to offset any potential 

impact on Soviet trade. John Evarts Horner, first secretary and consul at 

the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan, voiced timely concerns in October 1952 

that the State Department “seriously underestimates present and future 

potentialities [of Soviet] pressure on this country, and utterly neglects 

regional aspects. Further, no account seems to have been taken of Afghan 

psychology or existence of important elements here willing to come to 

terms with [the Soviets].” 3

As a hedge against Soviet influence in the early 1950s, U.S. officials 

focused on diplomacy and aid projects in Afghanistan.4

 Horner suggested 

a “Kabul-Kandahar Road and assistance to Afghan Air Force towards 

purchase of and facilities for medium transport aircraft which would 

provide regular government air service to [northern Afghanistan from 

Kandahar] and at [the] same time greatly strengthen government military 
40

strength as against subversion and tribal uprising without giving justifiable 

cause for alarm to either Pakistan or Soviets.” 5 While U.S. officials quickly 

moved to fill the British void in southwest Asia and expanded economic 

and military ties with Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, Afghanistan was largely 

left out of that process.6

 The Cold War context here was important; notably, 

the National Intelligence Estimate, “Outlook for Afghanistan,” for October 

1954 indicated that “Soviet economic penetration may well result in a 

gradual shift of Afghanistan toward the Soviet orbit. . . . However, we do 

not believe that the USSR will actually gain control of Afghanistan at least 

within the next few years.” 7

In December 1953, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and his wife, 

Patricia, visited Afghanistan. Upon his return, Nixon asserted, “I feel that 

Afghanistan will stand up against the communists.” He noted that he had 

discussed the Pakistan aid problem with the prime minister and the king, 

“who suggested that it would be a good idea if Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, 

Iran, and Turkey entered into something like an ‘Atlantic alliance,’ with 

aid going to these countries as a group instead of individually where they 

might be a threat to each other.” Not surprisingly, “The Pakistanis had the 

opposite view.” 8

U.S. ambassador Henry A. Byroade later observed that “the cold war, 

as seen from Afghanistan, is only a metamorphosis of an older pattern of 

conflict.” Anglo-Russian competition, which had created a balance of power in 

South Asia, became more complex by the mid-twentieth century with Iranian, 

Pakistani, Soviet, British, and American interests competing for shifting 

sands. Byroade added a further dimension to the question of Afghanistan’s 

development: “Some of the most traditionalist Afghans probably would be 

willing to go on paying the price of underdevelopment in return for a kind of 

cocoon-like independence behind mountainous barriers.” 9

The same National Intelligence Estimate of October 1954 offered a 

sobering account of the increasing Soviet economic pressure on Afghanistan 

caused by the lack of foreign trade and economic development, as well as 

by a desire to counter U.S. strategic gains in South Asia and the Middle 

East. Rather than showing indifference to or ignorance of Afghanistan, the 

U.S. intelligence review anticipated Afghanistan’s lasting quandary:

Afghan leaders will attempt to obtain additional Western economic 

aid to counterbalance that received from the USSR and will probably 

display continuing interest in the idea of participating in Westernbacked military aid programs. However, it is unlikely that the 

Afghans would actually accept membership in a Western-backed area 

defense arrangement since they could almost certainly realize that 
41

no foreseeable arrangement could furnish them sufficiently realistic 

protection against Soviet attack to compensate for the increased 

hostility toward them which would almost certainly ensue.10

A new generation of Afghan leaders came to power while their country 

confronted the emerging Cold War competition and marched slowly toward 

modernization.11 Mohammad Daud Khan replaced Shah Mahmud Khan as 

Vice President Richard M. Nixon (right), who visited Afghanistan in 1953, 

showed Prime Minister Mohammad Daud Khan around Washington in 1958. 

Daud sought aid for his country from the Soviet Union while also continuing 

to try to maintain good relations with the United States. National Archives.
42

prime minister in 1953 and ended the supremacy of Mohammad Zahir 

Shah’s uncles. Daud, a former army general, was well connected with 

the military: he had been commander of the Kabul Army Corps, minister 

of war, minister of the interior, and commander of the Central Forces 

(Quwar-i-Markazi). In addition to his support for rapid modernization and 

economic development, Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and key advocate 

for Pashtunistan.12 As minister of war in the late 1940s, Daud had prepared 

Afghanistan’s request for U.S. arms that had been rejected. Although he 

preferred to work with the Americans, he had no trouble turning to the 

Soviets with a similar appeal in the mid-1950s.

A series of events in March 1955 that came to be known as the “Flag 

Incident” provided the stimulus for deeper Afghan-Soviet ties.13 On March 

27, 1955, Pakistan announced a reorganization of provinces, states, and 

tribal areas of West Pakistan into one unit. Daud denounced the move, 

which undermined the autonomy of the frontier provinces. Three days later, 

an Afghan mob invaded the Pakistan embassy in Kabul and consulates in 

Kandahar and Jalalabad and burned the Pakistani flags. Pakistani groups 

responded on April 1, attacking the Afghan consulates in Peshawar and 

Quetta. The violence forced yet another closure of the border between 

Afghanistan and Pakistan.14

Pakistani leaders ignored any trade implications and used the crisis to 

advocate with U.S. diplomats for the removal of Daud from power.15 The 

United States, however, encouraged Pakistan to open its borders since U.S. 

aid to Afghanistan depended on this access. U.S. officials correctly feared that 

decreased aid and curtailed trade through Pakistan would result in increased 

requests from Afghanistan for Soviet assistance. When Pakistan joined two 

U.S. security alliances—the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) 

in September 1954 and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in 

1955—Daud approached the Soviet Union for military hardware. He 

convened a loya jirga on November 15, 1955, to support self-determination 

in Pashtunistan and to accept Soviet military support.16 Ignoring their own 

contributions to the crisis, Pakistani leaders blamed the United States 

when Afghanistan turned to the Soviet Union.

On December 19, 1955, Nikita S. Khrushchev, first secretary of the 

Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Nikolai A. Bulganin, premier 

of the Soviet Union, concluded a five-day visit to Kabul with the offer of 

a $100 million loan for Afghan development.17 This loan included credits 

for building hydroelectric plants, industrial complexes, irrigation projects, 

modern airports, and a highway system north to the Soviet border. It was 

the Soviet Union’s first major postwar economic agreement and the largest 

loan outside the Warsaw Pact at the time. From Khrushchev’s perspective, 
43

“The amount of money we spent in gratuitous assistance to Afghanistan is 

a drop in the ocean compared with the price we would have had to pay 

in order to counter the threat of an American military base on Afghan 

territory.” 18 The Soviets also renewed the 1931 Soviet-Afghan Treaty of 

Non-Aggression and agreed to supply equipment to the Afghan military.

While the United States focused on agricultural and irrigation projects 

in Afghanistan, the Soviets built long-term strategic infrastructure, including 

hardened all-weather highways, airports, and airstrips, and expanded ports 

along the Amu Darya. Khrushchev later noted that the highways that the 

Soviets built for Afghanistan in the 1950s and 1960s were designed for Soviet 

military transport and supply “in the case of war with Iran or Pakistan.” 19

The Salang Tunnel, along the highway north from Kabul through the Hindu 

Kush to Termez, and Bagram air base north of Kabul were, and continue to 

be, particularly important for strategic and commercial reasons.

Afghanistan was the second nonaligned nation after Egypt to receive 

Soviet arms. From 1955 to 1979, the Soviet Union sent Afghanistan more than 

$1.25 billion in military aid.20 The first arms deal between Afghanistan and 

the Soviet Union, a $3 million sale of Czechoslovak weapons, occurred in 

mid-1955. In August 1956, Daud accepted a further $32.4 million in Soviet 

military aid, repayable in cotton, wool, and oilseed. From October 1956 

The Salang Tunnel, two miles above sea level through the Hindu Kush, connects 

Afghanistan with Central Asia. It was built with the Soviet aid that started in 1955, 

with the tunnel opening in 1964. In this 2002 image of the Baghlan Province entrance, 

an abandoned Soviet IMR combat engineering vehicle can be seen to the left. Photo 

by Sgt. Todd M. Roy, USA. Department of Defense.
44

until the end of 1958, the Afghan military received one Il–14 cargo plane, 

three Il–28 bombers, six MiG–15 and seven MiG–17 fighters, ten Yak–11 

and six Yak–18 trainers, ten An–2 utility aircraft, six Mi–1 helicopters, 

twenty-five T–34 tanks, mobile radios, and small arms.21

Along with the equipment, the Soviet military provided technical 

training and weekly courses in Marxism-Leninism to more than 4,000 

Afghan officers between 1956 and 1978.22 One observer in the 1960s noted 

that the Afghan armed forces had “become almost completely dependent 

upon the Soviets, not only for equipment but also for logistic support.” 23

This support included deliveries of gasoline, ammunition, and spare parts, 

giving the Soviets control over Afghan military operations. The Soviet 

military had particular influence over the Royal Afghan Air Force because 

of its dependence on Soviet-bloc aircraft and advisors. Most Afghan air 

crews also trained in the Soviet Union.24

The military and economic modernization enabled by the Soviets was 

complemented by Soviet support on the controversial Pashtunistan issue. 

Following his 1955 visit, Khrushchev recommended that “the Pushtun 

people should decide by a free plebiscite whether they want to remain 

within the borders of Pakistan, to form a new and independent state, or 

to unite with Afghanistan.”25 A 1956 National Intelligence Estimate stated 

that Daud’s acceptance of extensive Soviet aid “is motivated by his 

desire to strengthen Afghanistan in its controversy with Pakistan over the 

Pushtunistan issue and also to develop Afghanistan economically.” The 

authors continued, “Daud has won effective support for his policies in the 

limited circle of potentially significant Afghans, and he is not likely to be 

ousted in the foreseeable future. So long as he remains in power he will 

probably continue to seek Soviet aid and support.” 26

U.S. Response

The goodwill built between the United States and Afghanistan during 

World War II by Cornelius Van H. Engert was quickly lost during the 

Cold War. In the 1956 National Intelligence Estimate cited above, U.S. 

intelligence analysts identified the need to increase aid to counter the 

growing Soviet presence.27 Ambassador Sheldon T. Mills suggested a 

further corrective in 1958: “During the past two years our economic aid 

policy with respect to Afghanistan has been formulated as [a] reaction 

to Soviet policy. What we are suggesting is that at that crossroads in 

Afghanistan’s history we reach positively, rather than drift and have 

our next major policy decision with respect to Afghanistan come as [a] 

reaction to some Russian move.” 28 Throughout the postwar era, U.S. 
45

officials rejected Afghan requests for military aid and displayed favoritism 

toward pro-western Pakistan and Iran, both of which Afghanistan viewed 

as rivals. While U.S. aid finally arrived in the 1950s, U.S. planners did not 

focus on intrinsic strategic interests in Afghanistan, but rather on limiting 

Soviet efforts there.29

One of the challenges faced by U.S. aid officials in competing with the 

Soviets was their different approach to financing assistance projects. The 

Soviets funded their projects on credits that created long-term economic 

dependence for Afghanistan, and they offered small investments with 

immediate dividends.30 U.S. aid programs, on the other hand, supported 

long-term development in education and the massive Helmand Valley 

project (discussed in chapter 5), which was chronically underfunded and 

slowed by Pakistani blockades. Thus Afghans recognized the new Sovietfunded roads and military hardware more easily than the intangible benefits 

that the U.S.-backed initiatives would offer in the future. Ambassador 

Byroade observed in 1961 that “the delays in some of these projects have 

been such as to cause many an Afghan to question the whole policy of the 

United States toward their country.” Noting the disparity of development 

Capt. Everett W. Wood (left), the Pan American/Ariana instructor, presents pilot 

stripes to Enaam-ul-Haq Gran, the first Afghan to complete training to fly for 

Ariana Airlines. The U.S. signed an agreement in 1956 for Pan Am to provide 

training and assistance, and Pan Am ultimately purchased a significant stake in 

Ariana. National Archives.
46

in areas assisted by the United States and the Soviet Union, Byroade added 

the warning that “Afghanistan is a sort of ‘economic Korea.’” 31

In the first rounds of funding, the U.S. government extended aid 

through the Export-Import Bank of $21 million on November 23, 1949, and 

$18.5 million on May 4, 1954, under President Harry S. Truman’s Mutual 

Security Program.32 This cash infusion supported a variety of programs, 

including Helmand Valley agricultural projects, transportation and road 

projects, language and technical education, and wheat purchases from U.S. 

farmers. Through the end of the 1950s and peaking in the mid-1960s, the 

U.S. government invested heavily in two ventures in southern Afghanistan 

that did not generate returns: one involved civil aviation and the expansion 

of the Kandahar airport, and the other continued funding for an extensive 

hydroelectric and irrigation project in the Helmand Valley.

On June 23, 1956, U.S. ambassador Mills and Afghan foreign minister 

Naim signed an agreement in Kabul for $14.5 million to fund the construction 

of Kandahar International Airport and to formalize an agreement for Pan 

American World Airways to offer training and operational assistance.33

American Jane Williams teaching at the Rabia-e Balkhi Girls High School in Kabul 

around 1960. She was there as part of a U.S. government-sponsored program run by 

Columbia University’s Teachers College, which administered it from 1954 to 1978. The 

school was almost totally destroyed during the civil war period but was rebuilt in the 

2000s. As of this writing, it has nearly 4,000 students. National Archives.
47

Pan American would ultimately purchase 49 percent of the Afghan 

Ariana Airline through this arrangement and participate in goodwill 

exercises that transported Afghan pilgrims during the annual hajj.34 The 

International Cooperation Administration (ICA) allocated these funds “to 

give Afghanistan a fast and economical air transportation system which is 

particularly suitable to the country.” 35 The plan was to curb Afghanistan’s 

aviation dependence on the Soviet Union by expanding domestic air service 

and building new airports to support it. Kandahar International Airport was 

completed in March 1960, but the world-class facility was soon bypassed 

by jet aircraft that could fly directly from Europe to South Asia without a 

stopover.36 In addition to its financial assistance, ICA also helped Ariana 

Airline acquire a DC–6B passenger aircraft, its sixth Douglas aircraft, on 

May 2, 1960. The aircraft flew from Washington, DC, National Airport to 

Newark, New Jersey, and then to Afghanistan in time to support the hajj.37

President Eisenhower’s Visit to Afghanistan

In the late 1950s, Zahir Shah intensified his diplomatic profile in the 

world and promoted his bi-tarafi (literally “without sides,” or nonaligned) 

philosophy.38 As he stated during Afghan Independence Day celebrations in 

1957, “The country’s foreign policy is based on the continued safeguarding 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower received a royal welcome at Bagram air field in December 

1959. Dignitaries included the king, Mohammad Zahir Shah (right of Eisenhower), and 

Prime Minister Mohammad Daud Khan (far left). Photo by Sultan Hamid. Eisenhower 

Presidential Library.
48

and strengthening of good relations with friendly States. Efforts are being 

made to establish and strengthen these ties with all the peoples and nations 

of the world.” 39 He then embarked on a two-year campaign to engage U.S. 

leaders at the highest level of government and demonstrate Afghanistan’s 

political and economic independence from the Soviet Union.40

As part of this initiative, Prime Minister Daud visited the United States 

as an “official guest” of the government from June 24 to 27, 1958.41 During 

one of their meetings, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles expressed that 

he understood the motives that led Afghanistan to accept Soviet assistance, 

mentioning specifically “the fact that Afghanistan is a land-locked country 

and its transit difficulties with Pakistan naturally led Afghanistan to seek 

a route for its commerce to the north.” 42 Meetings focused on affirming 

Afghanistan’s “independence” while seeking additional ways the United 

States could support Afghanistan’s economic development projects.

A little over a year later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower returned the 

favor of a state visit when he landed at Bagram air field and remained in Kabul 

for six hours on December 9, 1959, as part of his “Flight to Peace” goodwill 

tour of eleven nations.43 This trip was the first official use of Air Force One, 

the new VC–137 aircraft, and this stop was the first presidential visit to 

Afghanistan.44 Upon his arrival, Eisenhower addressed the crowd “to convey 

Thousands of Afghans lined the roads to see the motorcade that carried President 

Eisenhower into Kabul. He later wrote that “I was heartened to see such spirit in 

people of whose sympathies we had been doubtful.” Photo by Thomas J. O’Halloran. 

Library of Congress.
49

the warm and friendly greetings of the American people to Afghanistan 

and its people.” 45 During a luncheon at Chilstoon Palace, Eisenhower 

underlined the two countries’ shared values of peace and prosperity, adding 

that “most importantly, we share with the Afghan people a sense of the great 

spiritual values deriving from our respective religious heritages. We are 

drawn together in devotion to the abiding values of religion.” 46 As they had 

during Daud’s visit to the United States, public pleasantries abounded, while 

meetings focused on confirming Afghanistan’s neutrality and finding ways 

to maintain U.S. financial commitment to Afghanistan.47

Of note, Eisenhower recalled his concern when Air Force One was first 

“accompanied by Russian-built MIGs—part of the Afghan Air Force” in 

Afghan air space, adding that “our pleasure in our reception was dampened 

by the presence of MIG aircraft on the field.” 48 Yet the genuine outpouring 

of goodwill from the Afghan people surprised Eisenhower:

[We] experienced for the first time in the tour the excitement of 

a mob bursting out of control. Suddenly, and without warning, 

we found our vehicles unable to move, almost sinking in a 

sea of strange faces. But the faces were friendly in spite of the 

inconvenience and unavoidable delay; I was heartened to see such 

a spirit in people of whose sympathies we had been doubtful.49

Soviet-built Bagram air field during President Eisenhower’s visit, with Soviet-provided 

MiG–15s to the left and Il–28 bombers to the right. Photo by Thomas J. O’Halloran. 

Library of Congress.
50

After his visit to Kabul, Eisenhower privately expressed his 

reservations about Soviet influence in Afghanistan. According to the record 

of a conversation between Eisenhower and Spanish head of state Francisco 

Franco in late December 1959,

The Afghans say that they can remain independent and that their 

purpose is to remain neutral. The President doesn’t see how this 

can be done, for while the royal family may continue to stay on 

in power, the Soviets are gradually bringing roads through and 

around the country and through other construction are also getting 

more and more of a grip on the nation and in time the President 

thought it would be likely to become Soviet dominated.50
51

Five

The Helmand River Valley

Project and the

Pakistan Question

Far and away the most substantial U.S. involvement in Afghanistan from 

the end of World War II until the Soviet invasion in 1979, with a particular 

emphasis in the 1950s, was with various projects intended to develop the 

Helmand River Valley in the southern half of the country. The Helmand 

River is the largest in Afghanistan, providing 40 percent of the country’s 

water resources. The Arghandab River serves as the major tributary to 

the west and continues to the Sistan Basin. Adequate water has never 

been an issue for the Helmand River Valley; however, the inability to 

properly control and distribute the river’s resources has plagued the 

region for centuries.1

In 1910, Afghans began work to reconstruct irrigation canals around 

Seraj, south of Musa Qala, that dated back several centuries. Engineers 

completed the first functional canals by 1914. In the 1930s, Germany and 

Japan provided technical assistance for additional improvements. The 

Japanese built nine miles of new canals at Boghra from 1937 to 1941. During 

the war, Dr. S. W. Shah, a Cornell University-educated Afghan engineer, led 

the expansion to twenty-five miles.2

When the war ended and its German and Japanese partners were gone, 

the Afghan government turned to the United States for assistance. Due to the 

strength of its trade in wool during the war, Afghanistan had accumulated 

a $20 million trade surplus and allocated $17 million to agricultural 

development plans in the Helmand and Arghandab River Valleys.3

In 1945, the Afghan government began negotiations with MorrisonKnudsen, the U.S. construction company that had built the Hoover 

(Boulder) Dam, to build two diversion dams, one on the Helmand River 

and the other on the Arghandab River, and to improve the irrigation 

canals and roads in both areas. They reached an agreement in 1946, 

forming Morrison-Knudsen Afghanistan (MKA), headquartered in San 

Francisco, California. The Morrison-Knudsen dams were the first major 

U.S. development projects in Afghanistan, and the overall Helmand River 

Valley project remains the largest single aid endeavor there to date.4

 Prime 
52

This map from Report on Development of Helmand Valley, Afghanistan (1956) shows the project as it was envisioned; the lower section below Khairobad was never completed. The Kajakai Dam on the Helmand River is in the upper right, and the Arghandab (Dahla) Dam on the Arghandab River is about twenty miles north of Kandahar. From early in the project in the late 1940s, Iran claimed that the development was reducing the amount of water it received via the Helmand River, a dispute that the U.S. mediated for two decades.
53

Minister Shah Mahmud Ghazi Khan wrote in 1946: “America’s attitude is 

our salvation. For the first time in our history, we are free of the threat of 

great powers’ using our mountain passes as pathways to empire. Now we 

can concentrate our talents and resources on bettering the living conditions 

of our own people.” He continued: “I propose to reduce the army in size 

to that of a small but well-trained internal security force charged with 

maintaining order among the nomadic tribesmen. Money once used in 

maintaining a large army will find better use in the already started national 

improvement program.” 5

The Americans initially envisioned the Helmand project as a replica of 

the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for Afghanistan that included farms 

for nomads, agricultural products for export, hydroelectric power, and 

flood mitigation, all generating revenue to pay for the endeavor. President 

Harry S. Truman was an enthusiastic supporter of hydroelectric diplomacy 

in general, advocating for “a TVA in the Yangtze Valley and the Danube.” 6

There were, however, problems with the Afghanistan project from early in 

the process. Ambassador Louis G. Dreyfus Jr. cabled the State Department 

in September 1949 that “present widespread criticism of [MorrisonKnudson] and American efficiency voiced by [Abdul] Majid [Zabuli] 

seriously undermining U.S. prestige. For approximately $20,000,000 spent 

Dahla Dam on the Arghandab River north of Kandahar was completed in 1952 

and originally known as the Arghandab Dam. It was built by Morrison-Knudsen 

Afghanistan, a subsidiary of the American firm that had built the Hoover Dam, among 

other large-scale projects. Photo (2012) by Mark Ray. Department of Defense.
54

[the] only tangible returns Afghanistan has are one short road, one diversion 

dam, and one incomplete canal.” Nevertheless, Dreyfus favored approval 

of a pending Export-Import Bank loan to “avoid reduced U.S. prestige and 

cooling of present cordial Afghan-U.S. relations.”7

On February 11, 1949, the Afghan economic mission to the United States 

had requested $55 million from the Export-Import Bank of the United States 

to finance Helmand Valley development. Minister Abdul Majid Zabuli, a 

successful businessman in Afghanistan, insisted that the development plan 

represented an integrated series of interdependent agricultural and industrial 

projects. The Export-Import Bank, however, approved less than half the 

requested amount—a $21 million loan—in November 1949 to fund only 

MKA’s Arghandab, Kajakai, and Boghra canal projects. MKA responded 

by cutting costs, including ground-water surveys, road paving, and other 

support projects.8

Afghan officials recognized the economic and diplomatic importance 

of the Helmand Valley initiative and made efforts to fortify it. In 1951, the 

Afghan government gave more authority to MKA and created the Helmand 

Valley Authority in December 1952 to oversee the project, elevating 

the authority to cabinet status.9

 Engineers built the Dahla Dam on the 

Arghandab River between June 1950 and January 1952 and completed the 

Kajakai Dam on the Helmand River in April 1953.10 American and Afghan 

officials alike were aware of the growing costs: the Afghan government 

had already spent $95 million by the mid-1950s, with $39.5 million 

financed by the Export-Import Bank.

Publicly, the United States continued to praise the Afghanistan projects. 

A State Department Bulletin noted in July 1952 that “help in overcoming 

effects of ravages during the twelfth and fourteenth centuries by Genghis 

Khan and Tamerlane on vital irrigation works in the Helmand Valley of 

southwest Afghanistan is among provisions” of the Point Four funds.11

Maj. Gen. Glen E. Edgerton, USA (ret.), managing director of the ExportImport Bank, said in 1954, speaking of the overall effort, that “this great 

project constitutes a basic feature of the economic development program 

of Afghanistan and, when completed, will stand as an enduring monument 

to the enterprise of the Afghan people and to the friendship and cooperation 

of Afghanistan and the United States.”12

Out of public view, however, concerns grew. Nearly a year before 

Edgerton’s statement praising the project, a report to the Export-Import 

Bank noted that the effort was underfunded for the scale of the endeavor 

and hindered by Pakistani border politics and low educational levels of 

the Afghans it would employ and eventually benefit. According to the 

report, both locals and U.S. aid groups experienced a cultural disconnect 
55

and could not overcome a lack of appreciation of this “America in Asia” 

project.13

There were also U.S. concerns that “the failure of the project for 

any reason would be a severe blow to American prestige and American 

relations in this part of the world,” as one official put it in 1953.14 Secretary 

of State John Foster Dulles cabled the embassy in Pakistan in 1955 that 

the “Morrison-Knudsen Corporation activities in Afghanistan must be 

discontinued in [the] near future if [Pakistan’s] embargo of their shipments 

continues. This company is one of [the] chief influences which maintains 

Afghan connections with [the] West. Its departure would create [a] vacuum 

which [the] Soviets would be anxious to fill.” 15

In a report published in 1955, economist Peter G. Franck noted that 

although a United Nations preparatory mission had “recommended that 

the UN provide assistance to Helmand Valley projects already started, 

UN headquarters entertained doubts about the economic soundness of the 

projects proposed and the Government’s administrative capacity to complete 

them.” As Louis Dupree observed, “Neither the Afghan government nor the 

American engineering company understood the monumental problems of 

Kajakai Dam, on the Helmand River, is the largest dam in Afghanistan. It was completed 

in 1953 by Morrison-Knudsen Afghanistan. USAID began installing hydroelectric 

power stations in 1975, units that became U.S. bombing targets in 2001. They were 

subsequently restored, and development efforts on and associated with the dam have 

been a major focus in the 2000s. It is shown from the reservoir side in a 2012 image, with 

the spillway to the right. Photo by Mark Ray. Department of Defense.
56

enfolding an entire region in the embrace of a single project.”16 Infrastructure 

and local interest were almost entirely absent. Costs quickly escalated, 

and officials realized how difficult it was to ship U.S. equipment halfway 

around the world, with Pakistan hindering deliveries through transit fees 

and closed borders.

A Tudor Engineering Report that evaluated the Helmand River Valley 

project in 1956 anticipated added income to the Afghan economy from 

the increase in arable land. One State Department official noted that “the 

project is using the waters of the Helmand River to irrigate lands some of 

which have not been extensively cultivated in more than 2,000 years. It 

also includes industry, power, and transportation features.” 17 But hopedfor revenues that would eventually make the project self-sustaining and 

profitable never materialized. Indeed, in a later study, economist Nake M. 

Kamrany found “no signs of its financial liquidity.” 18

In the later 1950s, the Afghan Ministry of Interior funded the development 

of villages around Nad-e Ali in Helmand Province to settle Pashtun, Uzbek, 

and Baluch nomads. But the logistics and impact of resettling the local nomadic 

Mohammad Kabir Ludin, Afghan ambassador to the United States, signs documents 

for an $18.5 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States in May 

1954. Maj. Gen. Glen E. Edgerton, USA (ret.), managing director of the bank, looks 

on. Photo by Joseph O’Donnell. National Archives.
57

population were not well considered. These problems, combined with poor soil 

conditions, led to the new villages being abandoned by 1960.19

There were other issues as the project developed. Geographer Aloys 

A. Michel observed in the late 1950s that “United States interest centers 

on the Helmand Valley and has, wittingly or not, taken the position of 

favoring Kandahar over Kabul as the transportation and commercial center 

of the nation.” He cautioned that this stance “ultimately is untenable, for 

the Durrani Afghans long ago decided, despite their personal attachment 

to the South, that the only way to rule Afghanistan was from Kabul.” 20

In a concluding observation in his 1959 work, Michel stated that 

“at present the ICA [U.S. International Cooperation Administration] 

agricultural program in the Helmand [Valley] has practically collapsed, 

and no amount of United States Government support for the Kandahar 

International Airport or Industrial Center or for Arghandab power can 

offset the damage done to American prestige by the failures in Nad-iAli.” 21 Kamrany later noted that “of the seven major objectives of the 

project, . . . only one objective was successfully accomplished, i.e., the 

project provided protection against floods; but at a very high cost!” 22

The Afghan government released Morrison-Knudsen from its contract 

in 1959, with recriminations on both sides. As Ambassador Henry A. 

Byroade observed: 

I am normally against a proliferation of projects, and feel that a 

few big projects are better in the long run than a scattering of 

effort. This is an unusual situation, however, and if we can double 

our effect here by new things with a bit of flair, then it seems we 

should do so. The new Minister of Agriculture stated we were 

putting too many eggs in one basket in the Helmand Valley and 

that there was a feeling that too many of our subsequent projects 

had been designed simply to make that successful.23

Major U.S. investments in the Helmand and Arghandab River projects 

continued into the 1970s, despite the lack of infrastructure, the diplomatic 

challenges of Pashtunistan, and a growing awareness of opium poppy cultivation 

in the region. “While the concept of the Helmand Valley development is 

basically Afghan,” Ambassador Byroade explained in 1961, “U.S. financing 

and the employment of a U.S. contractor by the Afghans have tended to identify 

the United States closely with it.” Even into the 1960s, American officials 

held onto the idea that the “most effective instrument available to maintain an 

effective U.S. position in Afghanistan is our aid program.” 24 But the ongoing 

struggles and financial burdens of the project imperiled U.S. influence.
58

The Pakistan Question

When the Afghan government accepted massive Soviet funding for 

development projects during the 1950s, Afghan officials cited U.S. support 

of Pakistan as a major factor in its decision.25 The Afghan government was 

so concerned with Pakistan’s growing military strength that it even began 

funding its defense at the expense of agricultural programs, which resulted 

in poor decisions on the Helmand River Valley project and a new reliance 

on U.S. wheat imports to feed its people.26 Despite this assistance, U.S. 

support for Pakistan continued to plague its relationship with Afghanistan.27

U.S. officials were aware that prosperity in Afghanistan relied on a 

partnership with Pakistan. A National Security Council assessment in 1957 

reported that “Afghanistan has already incurred so heavy a burden of debt 

to the Communist bloc as to threaten its future independence,” noting that 

the Afghans were also “willing to accept Western assistance and technical 

advice and hope to have the best of both worlds.” The United States 

wanted to assist “the improvement of communications through Pakistan 

to Afghanistan, to bring about closer and more amicable Afghan-Pakistan 

relations and also give Afghanistan an alternative to its dependence on 

the USSR.” The desire was to “encourage Afghanistan to minimize its 

reliance upon the Communist bloc for military training and equipment, 

and to look to the United States and other free world sources for military 

training and assistance.” 28

The following year, however, Afghan-Pakistani relations further 

deteriorated. While Pakistani president Iskander A. Mirza had presided 

over a détente on the Pashtunistan issue, Gen. Muhammad Ayub Khan 

reignited tension when he seized power in Pakistan in October 1958. 

Ayub Khan, himself an ethnic Pashtun of the Tarin tribe, demanded that 

Afghanistan yield on the Pashtunistan issue. That was not going to happen 

with Mohammad Daud Khan as Afghanistan’s prime minister. As his 

brother the foreign minister, Mohammad Naim Khan, explained to Dwight 

D. Eisenhower during the president’s brief visit in 1959, the Pashtunistan 

dispute “had deep roots in history and in the mentality and emotions of 

the people; anything that went wrong in Pushtun Pakistan reacted strongly 

here, causing bitterness, tenseness and difficulties in their relations.” 29

When Nikita S. Khrushchev, then premier of the Soviet Union, visited 

Afghanistan in early March 1960, he supported Afghanistan’s position on 

Pashtunistan and reiterated the Soviet desire for a plebiscite in Pakistan’s 

tribal regions to determine their future.30 On September 23, 1960, the U.S. 

embassy in Kabul reported a “threatening situation” in Bajaur, Pakistan, 
59

where pro-Afghan and pro-Pakistan groups had escalated hostilities. 

Prime Minister Daud met with Ambassador Byroade and indicated that 

Afghanistan would be forced to protect local tribes if Pakistani troops 

quelled the violence.31 From the Afghan point of view, the Durand Line was 

not an issue since local tribes did not observe the international boundary 

of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead, Daud focused discussion on the fact 

that Afghanistan supported Pashtun tribes irrespective of their location.32 A 

month later, President Eisenhower informed Mohammad Zahir Shah that 

the United States would not mediate and expressed hope that Afghanistan 

and Pakistan would engage in bilateral negotiations to resolve their 

conflicts.33 The Soviets exacerbated the situation again in March 1961 

when Khrushchev publicly declared that “Pushtunistan has always been 

part of Afghanistan.” 34 Tensions continued to mount until September 3, 

1961, when Afghanistan closed its border and Pakistan shut Afghanistan’s 

consulates. The borders remained closed until May 29, 1963.

While U.S. officials hoped to mediate the Afghan-Pakistan dispute, 

they were hindered by their position as Pakistan’s ally.35 Importantly for 

broader U.S. strategic interests, Eisenhower had reached an agreement 

with Pakistani prime minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in 1957 to 

Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev at a meeting of the United Nations General 

Assembly in New York, September 1960. His open support of Afghanistan on the 

Pashtunistan issue created challenges for the United States in its relations with both 

Afghanistan and Pakistan. Photo by Warren K. Leffler. Library of Congress.
60

build a secret base for U–2 aircraft, located at the Peshawar Air Station in 

Badaber, Pakistan.36 The base was also used by the 6937th Communications 

Group, U.S. Air Force Security Service, for a communications link 

between Karamursel, Turkey, and Peshawar, Pakistan.37 Understanding the 

importance of the U–2 base in Peshawar to the United States, Pakistani 

officials leveraged the issue.38 According to one analysis in 1964, “The 

A dixieland combo of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Band’s Ambassadors jazz ensemble 

plays outside the mausoleum of Abdur Rahman Khan in Kabul in 1968. The group 

was in Afghanistan to perform at the Jeshyn Fair, an event celebrating that country’s 

independence. USAF in Europe Band.
61

Pakistani President knows that the strongest card he holds is the U.S. 

communications facilities at Peshawar. . . . He almost certainly calculates 

that closing the facilities would bring a drastic reduction in the U.S. military 

and economic assistance on which Pakistan is so heavily dependent and for 

which there is no alternative in sight.” 39 At the same time, the border closing 

placed increased pressure on U.S. aid programs to Afghanistan. The Afghan 

government requested an alternate transportation route through Iran, but 

the United States preferred the less costly passage through Pakistan and 

decided to wait. U.S. policy makers continued to make their Afghanistan 

policy conditional upon improved relations with Pakistan and hoped for a 

resolution to the differences.

In the end, the solution arose in Afghanistan. The closed borders 

wreaked havoc on the Afghan economy, and mediation to open them 

was slow and arduous. The royal family, fearful of Daud’s pro-Soviet 

policies and autocratic rule, had been moving toward his removal. Zahir 

Shah asked Daud to step down as prime minister, and Daud resigned on 

March 10, 1963. Mohammad Yusuf, a physicist, became the new prime 

minister (1963–65), followed by Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal 

(1965–67). They led Afghanistan toward a more cosmopolitan society and 

a constitutional monarchy. They also improved relations with Pakistan, 

and the Pashtunistan issue was sidelined until the mid-1970s.

Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal of Afghanistan in Washington, DC, in 

1967 at the White House with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto. 

Johnson Presidential Library.
62

* * *

Outwardly, Afghanistan enjoyed a relatively stable period in the 1960s 

and the early 1970s as world leaders focused their Cold War attentions 

elsewhere. When President Lyndon B. Johnson invited Prime Minister 

Maiwandwal to Washington in March 1967, he remarked: “Historically, 

the relations between our countries have been close and cordial. Today 

they are warmer than ever before.” Unquestionably, the Afghan-U.S. 

relationship continued to focus on development aid. Prime Minister 

Maiwandwal specifically noted in his reply Afghanistan’s appreciation 

for American help “in building our infrastructure,” mentioning the KabulKandahar highway and another under construction. He also highlighted 

U.S. help developing “our educational systems, our agriculture, our water 

resources, and our transportation system.”40

From the late 1940s until the late 1970s, Afghan officials balanced 

Cold War competition in Afghanistan.41 As Daud once quipped, “I feel the 

happiest when I can light my American cigarette with Soviet matches.” 42

However, a new and increasingly unstable period began on July 17, 1973, 

when Daud overthrew Zahir Shah in a nearly bloodless coup d’état while 

the king was abroad for medical treatment.43 Daud abolished the monarchy 

and declared himself the first president of Afghanistan. Pakistan, playing 

on fears of Soviet influence in Afghanistan and concerned about a return of 

the Pashtunistan debate, immediately pressed the United States for more 

military aid.44 In fact, following Daud’s return to power, he was much 

more moderate on the Pashtunistan question than he had been during 

his previous rule and more focused on modernization. As Amin Saikal 

explained, Daud’s intentions “were two-fold: to reduce his dependence on 

local communists and the Soviet Union as well as military expenditure, 

and expand economic and trade ties with Pakistan.” 45 By the mid-1970s, 

Afghanistan’s relationships with Pakistan and Iran had greatly improved. 

But Daud gradually lost control of relations with the Soviets, ultimately 

with devastating results.
63

Six

Socialist Afghanistan and

War with the Soviet Union

In the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet scholars developed a concept of a native 

“military intelligentsia” to confront the weakness of socialist revolutionary 

movements in developing nations.1

 In Afghanistan, Soviet planners hoped 

this new military elite would assume leadership positions in future national 

movements. Accordingly, the socialist People’s Democratic Party of 

Afghanistan (PDPA, Hizb-e-Demokratik-e-Khalq-e-Afghanistan) started 

actively recruiting Afghan officers trained in the Soviet Union. By the 

early 1970s, the strategy began to demonstrate success. A communication 

to Washington from the U.S. embassy in 1971 observed that there was 

“no effective organization within the military to counter or even catalog 

the long-term, possibly subversive effects of Soviet training of the many 

military officers who go to the USSR for stints as long as six years.” 2

In 1973, 1978, and 1979, Soviet-trained officers played pivotal roles 

in Afghan political change.3

 Without a popular base supporting the leaders, 

however, the rapid succession of coups led by mid-level officers introduced 

political disarray in Afghanistan. As foreign minister in 1971 and as prime 

minister in 1972, Mohammad Musa Shafiq sought reconciliation with 

Pakistan on the Pashtunistan issue and agreements with Iran on the use 

of the Helmand River. When Afghanistan suffered a drought in 1972, Iran 

offered $2 billion in aid over ten years. Soviet leaders quickly responded 

to the Iranian overture, using their military ties to engineer a coup in 1973 

led by former Prime Minister Mohammad Daud Khan and the military. 

The officers intended Daud to be a figurehead, but he subsequently 

outmaneuvered and demoted many of them.4

After the 1973 coup, the Soviet military increased shipments of 

equipment, including T–54 and T–55 tanks, Il–28 bombers, armed 

personnel carriers, and light and medium field artillery pieces.5

 Despite 

this augmentation in the Afghan military’s inventory of arms and 

equipment, Daud moved to decrease the number of Soviet advisors in 

Afghanistan. In 1976, he reassigned Soviet advisors from the company 

to the battalion level.
64

Daud turned away from the Soviet training monopoly in 1974 when 

he sent military officers abroad to India and Egypt, nations that also used 

Soviet weapon systems. Still, Daud never cut military ties with the Soviets, 

and Afghanistan remained dependent on their hardware and training.6

Daud also included PDPA members in his new government, where 

they continued their strategy of recruiting military officers. At the time, 

the PDPA was divided between two factions, both with military links. 

The first of these, Parcham, was dominated by Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Darispeaking Kabulis. The members of Khalq, its rival, were largely Pashtuns 

from the provinces. Generally, the Soviet Politburo supported both sides, 

establishing ties with whichever group prevailed. But the Soviet military 

apparatus had specific links to each group: Soviet military intelligence 

(GRU) supported Khalq, while the Committee for State Security (KGB) 

supported Parcham.7

 During the 1970s, Khalq increased its influence 

within the Afghan military, asserting that military promotions should 

be based on ability rather than family and tribal connections. Daud, 

however, returned family members to the military elite. By the late 

1970s, despite differences between the two factions, the PDPA became a 

significant political force.

Daud began more openly eschewing the Soviets in 1978. His 

domestic economic reforms had proven unsuccessful, and he pursued 

new support and new regional allies in Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and China. 

His seven-year economic plan, outlined for 1976 through 1983, followed 

Soviet models but was based on massive financial aid from Iran.8

 A new 

reordering of alliances would not take place, however. As Daud was 

organizing the visit of the Shah of Iran to Kabul and his own visit to 

Washington, a series of events led to another coup, his own downfall, 

and the preservation of Soviet ties.

Unrest at the funeral of Parcham activist Mir Akbar Khyber sparked 

massive demonstrations and a confounding series of events in Kabul. 

Shocked by the power of the socialist movement, Daud ordered the arrests 

of PDPA leaders Nur Muhammad Taraki, Hafizullah Amin, and Babrak 

Karmal. On April 27, 1978, Amin, who was merely under house arrest, 

ordered army officers loyal to the Khalq faction to initiate a coup d’état, 

later known as the Saur Revolution.9

 At seven o’clock on the evening of 

April 27, Col. Abdul Qadir Dagarwal, a Soviet-trained pilot, announced 

in Dari and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar in Pashto on Radio Afghanistan 

that a revolutionary council of the armed forces would replace the Daud 

government.10 Only the 7th Division at Rishkor, the 15th Armored Brigade, 

and the Republican Guard remained loyal to Daud.11 Henry Bradsher, a 

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, observed that “whatever the genesis of 
65

the downfall of [Daud], it was accomplished by a small number of military 

men . . . at the air base side of Kabul International Airport. Only some 600 

men, 60 tanks and 20 warplanes were involved in approximately nineteen 

hours of rebel action against the more numerous loyalist forces.” 12 By the 

morning of April 28, Daud and his brother Mohammad Naim Khan were 

dead, and new rulers controlled Kabul.

Examining both Soviet and Afghan sources, Bradsher raised questions 

about the level of direct Soviet involvement in the coup. The Soviet embassy 

in Kabul seemed to be as surprised as other embassies, but Soviet leaders 

acted quickly to publicize their close ties and maintain their record as the first 

capital to recognize the new Afghan government.13 U.S. officials hedged in 

their responses, avoiding terms that would trigger the Foreign Assistance 

Act of 1961, which prohibited assistance to “any Communist country.” 14

From April 27, 1978, until the Soviet invasion on December 24, 1979, 

the new Afghan leaders demonstrated little capacity to govern.15 Rapid 

economic and social changes, the increasing number of Soviet advisors, 

and political infighting among Afghan communists led to instability and 

The Soviets built this control tower at Bagram air field in 1976 as their involvement 

in Afghanistan began to intensify. It was heavily damaged during the civil war, but 

after U.S. troops took control of the base in late 2001, the U.S. Air Force renovated the 

facility and used it until a new tower was completed in 2008. The building remained 

in service, housing Air Force units as part of Camp Cunningham. Photo (2009) by 

Capt. David Faggard, USAF. Department of Defense.
66

greater dependency on the Soviets. On May 1, 1978, Taraki became prime 

minister, and he promptly carried out a purge of Parcham supporters in 

the military and the government.16 Bradsher recorded that “many foreign 

observers felt that the Communist coup was greeted by most Afghans with 

relief. . . . Those hopes were quickly shattered.” 17

Taraki established PDPA offices at each level of the Afghan armed 

forces, and he made Soviet training a requirement for elite units in Kabul. 

Soviet advisors, newly assigned to the platoon level, proliferated. Soviet 

advisors numbered 350 in 1977; 2,000 in May 1978; 7,000 in August 1978; 

and more than 10,000 in December 1979. Soviet advisors could even wear 

Afghan military uniforms and assume combat and leadership roles in the 

Afghan National Army.18

During the summer of 1978, Moscow officials attempted a low profile 

in Afghan relations—despite providing $250 million in Soviet weapons to 

the Afghan army—and focused on developing relations with the PDPA.19

In news conferences, the PDPA deliberately rejected Soviet ties and 

communist nomenclature, asserting nonaligned status.20

When Taraki visited Moscow from December 4 to 7, 1978, he and Soviet 

General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the “Treaty of Friendship, 

Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev (right) with President Gerald R. Ford during a summit 

meeting in Vladivostok, USSR, in November 1974. Brezhnev concluded a treaty with 

Afghan leaders in December 1978 that closely linked Afghanistan with the Soviet 

Union. National Archives.
67

Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation” on December 5. Their ties were 

then undeniable. Article 4 of the treaty underlined the importance of “security, 

independence, and territorial integrity” and reaffirmed the military 

connections between the two countries. Although the Soviets did not 

commit themselves to prevent the downfall of the PDPA, many have 

argued that this treaty effectively established Afghanistan as a Soviet 

satellite. With Soviet support secured, Afghan leaders then embarked 

on a campaign of arrests of secular and religious leaders not aligned 

with the new regime. Prisons grew overcrowded, and there was a 

surge of executions.21

Journalist Edward Girardet described the administrative inexperience 

of the new Afghan cabinet members, observing that “most of them had 

been lower or middle rank civil servants.” He added that “it was even 

worse in the provinces, where those who took control of government 

offices had few if any qualifications whatsoever. Many were quite simply 

ignorant thugs or opportunists who used their newly acquired positions 

to improve their social standing, settle old rivalries, or feather their nests 

through self-bestowed privileges and bribes.” 22

The year 1979 proved pivotal for U.S. interests in Afghanistan. On 

February 14, four armed militants kidnapped the U.S. ambassador, Adolph 

“Spike” Dubs, and demanded the release of imprisoned members of the 

National Oppression Party (Settem-e Melli) in exchange. The Afghan 

government refused negotiations, then organized a rescue attempt by 

Afghan police and Soviet security force advisors that failed and resulted 

in the death of Ambassador Dubs.23

U.S.-Afghan relations quickly deteriorated following the “Dubs 

Affair.” Publicly, Harold H. Saunders, the assistant secretary of state for 

near east affairs, testified to Congress: “For its part, the U.S. Government 

seeks no special position in Afghanistan. We look for a relationship based on 

mutual respect and shared interests in regional stability, the independence 

and territorial integrity of all states in the area, and nonintervention.” 24

President James E. Carter Jr. curtailed aid programs that were impossible 

to fulfill with the growing unrest, withdrew aid workers who could not be 

protected, and began providing radio equipment, medical supplies, and 

money to the Afghan resistance movement.25 President Ronald W. Reagan 

continued and later expanded this assistance after he took office in 1981.26

In the face of unforgiving land reforms and government interference 

in daily life dictated by the new socialist government, popular armed 

resistance burgeoned, starting in Nuristan and Badakhshan. Similar 

revolts followed in Paktia, Paktika, Ningrahar, Kapisa, Uruzgan, Parwan, 

Badghis, Balkh, Ghazni, Farah, and Herat. In March 1979, Capt. Ismail 
68

Khan, later an influential mujahideen and governor of Herat, led a revolt 

of the 17th Infantry Division in Herat against the PDPA and Russian 

advisors based there. This revolt was unique in that power fell entirely 

into the hands of local insurgents.27 According to press reports, mutineers 

went door to door hunting and executing Soviet advisors. Dissidents cut 

telephone communication, blocked the road from Kandahar to Herat, 

closed Shindand air base, and attacked Soviet citizens for ten days until 

armored Afghan military units arrived and Soviet MiGs carried out air 

strikes in Herat.28

Yuri V. Andropov, chairman of the KGB, told a crisis section of 

the Politburo on March 17, “Bearing in mind that we will be labeled as 

an aggressor, but in spite of that, under no circumstances can we lose 

Afghanistan.” 29 The Soviets responded immediately with increased 

military aid: light tanks, armored personnel carriers, and Mi–24 Hinds, 

the most advanced Soviet helicopter gunship at the time.30 In early April 

1979, Gen. Alexei A. Yepishev, chief of the main political directorate 

of the Soviet army and navy, visited Kabul to evaluate the military and 

Tajbeg Palace, on a hillside overlooking Kabul. The Soviets stormed it in December 

1979 and killed Afghan president Hafizullah Amin. The structure became the 

staff headquarters for the Soviet Fortieth Army during the occupation. Also 

known as the Queen’s Palace, it was built in the 1920s for Queen Soraya in 

conjunction with the construction of Darul Aman Palace for Amanullah Khan 

(see p. 21). Like that structure, Tajbeg Palace was heavily damaged during the 

fighting in the late 1980s and 1990s. Photo (2013) by Spc. Andrew Claire Baker, 

USA. Department of Defense.
69

political situation and to express Soviet concerns to Prime Minister Taraki. 

Yepishev had experience putting down political unrest in Soviet satellites, 

having played a key role in the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 

1968. After his visit, Soviet advisors made all major military decisions.31

Soviet pilots routinely patrolled Afghan air space, and a Soviet division 

moved to the Afghan border.32 In the summer of 1979, the Soviet air 

force took over Bagram and Shindand air bases. The Soviet Union also 

increased arms deliveries to Afghanistan, including T–62 tanks, MiG–21 

and MiG–23 fighters, Su–20 bombers, Mi–24 helicopter gunships, and 

Mi–16 helicopter transports.33 Despite increased arms shipments in the 

summer, the Politburo viewed intervention as less advisable, choosing to 

preserve détente and hoping for the best in Afghan stability.34

In August 1979, Gen. Ivan Pavlovskii, deputy minister of defense 

and commander in chief of Soviet ground forces, led a sixty-three-person 

Soviet military delegation, including eleven general officers, to evaluate the 

crisis in Afghanistan. When Pavlovskii returned to Moscow in November, 

he advised against military intervention. Consensus within the Politburo 

to invade was building, however. Taraki and Amin made at least sixteen 

formal requests for Soviet troops between mid-April and mid-December 

1979, reinforcing the push in Moscow for intervention.35 Three key Soviet 

officials in Kabul—the Soviet Ambassador to Afghanistan, Alexander 

The remains of a Soviet aircraft (probably a MiG–21) at Bagram air base outside 

Kabul, February 2002, with U.S. Army UH–60 Black Hawk helicopters in the 

background. The Soviets took control of the air bases at Bagram and Shindand in the 

summer of 1979. National Archives.
70

M. Puzanov, chief of the KGB mission in Afghanistan; Lt. Gen. Boris 

Ivanov; and Lt. Gen. Lev N. Gorelov, the chief Soviet military advisor to 

Afghanistan—argued that “in view of possible stepped-up activity by the 

rebel formations in August and September . . . it is essential to respond 

affirmatively to the request from the Afghan friends and to send a special 

brigade to Kabul in the immediate future.” 36

The state of affairs rapidly disintegrated in September 1979 after Amin 

took control of the government from Taraki. Within the Soviet Politburo, 

leaders began to shift toward intervention, citing Amin’s erratic behavior 

and the strategic importance of Afghanistan.37 The KGB responded by 

launching Operation Zenith in October, dispersing special forces across 

Afghanistan to determine popular reaction to a Soviet intervention. In 

November and December, the Soviet military began to orchestrate it. A 

Soviet special forces battalion of Central Asian airborne troops deployed 

to Afghanistan on November 9. Soviet conventional ground forces moved 

to the Afghan border in late November.

On November 28, Lt. Gen. Viktor S. Paputin, first deputy minister of 

internal affairs, arrived in Kabul on a mission to pressure Amin to step 

down or to invite Soviet troops to assist in stabilizing Afghanistan. Amin 

refused, but the Soviet military continued with its plan. Two more Soviet 

battalions landed at Bagram air base north of Kabul in early December. On 

As the war progressed, the Soviets built training facilities in Afghanistan, such as this 

one north of Kandahar. It later became a Taliban base. It is shown in a 2005 photo 

after U.S. forces captured the camp. Photo by PFC Leslie Angulo, USA. Department 

of Defense/National Archives.
71

December 12, the Politburo met and approved a handwritten resolution, 

“Concerning the Situation in A.” 38 On December 18–19, Soviet troops 

cleared the highway to the Salang Pass. 

By the end of 1979, the entire country was in revolt. Based on 

extensive firsthand contacts, Nake M. Kamrany described a broad-based 

Afghan movement against the Soviets: “It is not one person or one group 

that is resisting the Soviet system in Afghanistan. It is every Afghan in 

every village. And these villages do not have the means to communicate 

with each other. They have no system or means of communication.” He 

continued: “What happens in Afghanistan is that each village has its own 

resistance in its own way. Some of them knock out a Soviet tank, some of 

them just wait and shoot at soldiers, some of them burn down a government 

building. In whatever form, it is a resistance from within.” 39

Louis Dupree observed four key struggles at the time:

l uncoordinated, generalized guerrilla war against the Kabul 

regime;

l competition, mainly in Peshawar, between conservative and 

moderate religious leaders in the Pashtun area to monopolize 

funds from friendly Arabs;

l attempts by mujahideen to establish local bases of power 

(Nuristan, Hazarajat, and Badakhshan) so that any new regime 

in Kabul would have to grant regional autonomy to the various 

ethnolinguistic groups; and

l the internal struggle for power within the Khalq leadership.40

U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew K. Brzezinski warned President 

Carter in March 1980 of Soviet “creeping intervention in Afghanistan.” 41

More recent Russian analysis confirms the thesis that “mission creep” led to 

the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.42

Officially, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began on December 24, 

1979, when tens of thousands of ground troops crossed the Amu Darya 

into Afghanistan and 7,700 more flew to Bagram, Kabul, and Shindand 

air bases. The Soviet military brought exiled Parcham leaders, including 

Babrak Karmal, with them to install as the heads of a new pro-Moscow 

government. On December 27, a combined Soviet special forces group, 

with GRU, KGB, Ministry of Defense, and airborne elements, stormed 

Tajbeg Palace and killed Amin as part of Operation Storm 333.43

Less than two weeks after the incursion, President Carter declared that 

“the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is the greatest threat to peace since 

the Second World War.” Carter added a few weeks later that “the Soviets 
72

have seriously misjudged our own nation’s strength and resolve and unity 

and determination and the condemnation that has accrued to them by the 

world community because of their invasion of Afghanistan.” 44 The United 

States halted grain exports to the Soviet Union and led a boycott of the 

Summer Olympics in Moscow in 1980.45 Brzezinski told the president 

that, with American help to Afghan forces, the Soviets might become 

ensnared in Afghanistan the way the United States had been in Vietnam.46

The Reagan administration expanded this effort. In the early 1980s, 

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William J. Casey developed 

a wide-ranging international coalition to fund and train the mujahideen 

movements.47

Karmal’s new government proved unable to consolidate power with 

Soviet troops on the ground and, increasingly, the PDPA began shunning 

Soviet activities in Afghanistan.48 The Soviet military did little to win 

goodwill, carrying out massive reprisals and forcing hundreds of thousands 

of Afghan refugees into Iran and Pakistan. For its part, the Afghan National 

Army suffered extensive desertions as troops left to join the mujahideen. 

The force, numbering 80,000 men at the beginning of 1979, declined to 

50,000 in December 1979 and 25,000 at the end of 1980.49 Extended age 

limits and service terms stabilized the force at 40,000 by 1986 despite 

the continued difficulties to conscript, organize, and mobilize troops. The 

Soviet Union brought a new generation of young Afghan “volunteers” to 

train, with ever more limited results.50

Abandoned Soviet tanks in Bamyan Province. The Russians left a tremendous amount 

of materiél when they withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, finding it impractical to 

transport it back across the Hindu Kush. Photo (2013) by Sgt. Christopher Bonebrake, 

USA. Department of Defense.
73

Strategically, the Soviet army focused on securing Kabul and the 

Afghan highway system linking Kabul to Kandahar, Herat, and Termez. 

Much of the countryside remained outside government control throughout 

the 1980s.51 Soviet forces in Afghanistan operated under the command 

of the Fortieth Army headquarters in Kabul, with operational control and 

support in Termez. The original rules of engagement permitted Soviet 

soldiers only to return fire or to liberate captured Soviet advisors. After a 

major antigovernment and anti-Soviet demonstration in Kabul on February 

21, 1980, Moscow ordered the Fortieth Army to “begin active operations 

together with the Afghan army to defeat the detachments of the armed 

opposition.” 52 Soviet troops were unprepared for local Afghan resistance 

and the resilient guerrilla force.53

From 1979 until 1989, the Fortieth Army conducted 220 operations 

and 400 combined operations. Increasingly frustrated with the lack of 

long-term success against an elusive insurgent enemy, the Soviets turned 

to using aerial “butterfly” mines, chemical weapons, and even boobytrapped toys.54 Afghan forces were under Soviet operational control 

throughout the war.55

President James E. Carter Jr. and his national security advisor, Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. 

Carter called the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the “greatest threat to peace since the 

Second World War.” Brzezinski speculated that the Soviets might become ensnared 

in Afghanistan the way the U.S. had been in Vietnam. National Archives.
74

The conflict resulted in inestimable damage to Afghanistan’s already 

poor infrastructure and economy. By January 1980, growing unrest had 

driven more than 400,000 Afghan refugees to Pakistan and more than 

30,000 to Iran.56 On “Afghanistan Day,” March 21, 1982, President Reagan 

implored:

The tragedy in Afghanistan must not be allowed to drag on 

endlessly. This conflict imperils the stability of the region. It has 

seriously poisoned the international environment. Afghanistan 

itself is being brutalized. The suffering of the Afghan people is 

immense. I earnestly hope that the Soviet Union will join with us 

in an urgent effort to bring a swift withdrawal of its forces to end 

this needless conflict.57

Two years later, Vice President George H. W. Bush visited a refugee 

camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, and told his audience: “My dear Afghan 

brethren, you and your people have suffered greatly. You have shown 

courage and fortitude beyond the usual measure. You have my heartfelt 

admiration and that of my countrymen. You have earned the admiration 

of free men everywhere.” 58 At the same time, U.S. leaders made a 

concerted effort to thank Pakistan for its support of Afghanistan and 

Afghan refugees.59

President Ronald W. Reagan with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev at a 

summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986. Gorbachev ultimately made 

the decision for the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan, beginning in 1988.

Reagan Presidential Library.
75

Soviet military leaders had advocated withdrawal once Karmal’s new 

government was in place in 1980.60 When the Afghan army proved unable 

to provide the necessary security, however, Soviet political leaders 

wavered and did not make a decision. In general, Soviet leaders lacked 

commitment to resolve the crisis in Afghanistan as they dealt with a host 

of domestic issues from 1981 to 1985. Not until Mikhail S. Gorbachev 

came to power, and following a yearlong attempt at a military solution, 

did the Soviets advocate the National Reconciliation Campaign and put 

a new Afghan leader in place to facilitate a Soviet departure.61 On May 

5, 1986, Karmal resigned and Dr. Mohammad Najibullah, head of the 

paramilitary Government Intelligence Service (Khadamat-e Etela’at-e 

Dawlati, or KHAD), succeeded him. The Soviets gave him two years to 

prepare for their military withdrawal. When the Soviet minister of foreign 

affairs, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, and long-time Soviet ambassador to the 

United States Anatoly F. Dobrynin visited Kabul in December 1986 to 

evaluate the political situation, they observed, “Of friendly feeling toward 

the Soviet people, which had existed in Afghanistan for decades, little 

remains. Many people have died, and not all of them were bandits. . . . The 

state apparatus is functioning poorly. Our advice and help is ineffective. 

. . . Everything that we have done and are doing is incompatible with the 

moral character of our country.” 62

In some instances, the U.S. Air Force flew Afghan rebels to the United States or Europe for 

treatment, such as these arriving at Norton Air Force Bace, California, in 1986. They were 

transported by a 375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing C–9A Nightingale. At left is Col. Marvin 

Ervina, commander of the 63d Military Airlift Wing. Department of Defense.
76

The United States continued to express support for the anti-Soviet 

Afghans. President Reagan told Afghan resistance leader Burhanuddin 

Rabbani during a White House visit in June 1986 that “in your struggle to 

regain your nation’s independence, the American people stand with you. 

This policy has broad and deep bipartisan support; it is an unshakeable 

commitment. Your goal is our goal—the freedom of Afghanistan. We will 

not let you down.” 63

One of the signature details of the U.S. campaign to undermine the 

Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was the CIA effort to supply Stinger 

missiles to the mujahideen.64 “Charlie Wilson’s War,” as it came to be 

known, was a riveting yarn with covert intrigue, but it had little impact 

on the war itself. Rodric Braithwaite observed that “Gorbachev took the 

decision to withdraw from Afghanistan a full year before the first Stinger 

was fired.” 65 There is little doubt that the Stinger missile affected tactics—

night flying, combat landings, high-altitude bombing, and the deployment 

of flares—but it did not undermine Soviet air power. “While the Stinger, 

first introduced in combat in September 1986, did give the mujahideen an 

important antiaircraft tool,” Kalinovsky explained, “it hardly changed the 

course of the war.” 66

On May 15, 1988, Soviet troops began to withdraw, and the 

commander of the Fortieth Army, Gen. Boris V. Gromov, crossed the 

Friendship Bridge into the Soviet Union on February 15, 1989, as the last 

Soviet combatant to leave Afghanistan.67 On the pullout, Soviet journalist 

Alexander Prokhanov wrote, “The departure of our troops is not a defeat. 

The army is in excellent fighting form. The morale of officers and men is 

high. It is an organized departure from a country that we did not intend 

to occupy, did not intend to destroy and subjugate. The troops are leaving 

as the vector of politics changes into reverse, and the army follows that 

vector.” 68 After the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan government maintained 

a weekly 600-truck convoy to the Soviet Union, and the Soviet air force 

continued to airlift supplies.69

Despite their enthusiasm for the success of the mujahideen resistance, 

many U.S. officials held reservations about its viability as a political 

movement. In 1988, Robert B. Oakley, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, 

observed that “the fight against ‘heroin-Kalashnikov culture’ is almost 

as critical to the future of Pakistan’s security as the fight against Soviet 

domination of Afghanistan has been.” 70 It remains an open question why U.S. 

officials invested so little in the so-called moderate mujahideen, particularly 

groups led by Pir Ahmed Gailani and Pir Sibghatullah Mojaddedi.

Instead, U.S. policy makers focused on ousting the Najibullah 

government. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian 
77

Affairs John H. Kelly released a statement in March 1990: “We believe 

that no stable political settlement is achievable as long as the Najibullah 

regime remains in power. The Resistance is both united and passionate 

on this point: a transfer of power away from the present regime and to 

a new government is necessary for this chapter, with all its attendant 

tragedy, to be brought to a close.” 71 In September 1991, U.S. secretary 

of state James A. Baker III and Soviet foreign minister Boris N. Pankin 

released a joint statement agreeing on the cessation of hostilities, support 

for elections during the transition period, the repatriation of refugees, and 

the prompt reconstruction of Afghanistan. Both parties pledged to cut off 

arms supplies by January 1, 1992.72

When the Soviet Union formally dissolved in December 1991, 

however, its military support to Afghanistan vanished. Najibullah’s 

government lasted until April 27, 1992, when mujahideen forces entered 

Kabul and a new civil war commenced.73 As Thomas J. Barfield explained, 

“In retrospect, it was clear that the resistance had been given a task they were 

U.S. Congressman Charles N. “Charlie” Wilson (D-TX), who worked with CIA 

operatives to have Stinger missles provided to the Afghan resistance, is shown in a 

personal photo with mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan. Naval History and Heritage 

Command Photo Archive.
78

incapable of accomplishing. The mujahideen had no previous experience in 

assaulting heavily defended cities, and their forces had never been integrated 

into a common defense structure.”74

As the 1990s progressed, Russia proved disinterested in playing an 

influential role in Kabul.75 Meanwhile, U.S. relations with Pakistan, its 

Afghan partner, frayed as Pakistan sought nuclear armament. Conflict 

in Afghanistan shifted from guerrilla warfare supported by international 

actors to more conventional and territorialized war.76
79

Epilogue

From the Soviet

Withdrawal to 9/11

In his study of the Soviet withdrawal, historian Artemy M. Kalinovsky 

argued that Mohammad Najibullah “found ways to sabotage Soviet-led 

outreach when he felt it suited his interests. After the Soviets withdrew, the 

PDPA took more courageous steps in terms of opening up the government 

and society, establishing links with tribal leaders, and shedding its 

communist image.”1

 Still, challenges existed that continued to undermine 

the already weak Afghan government. Corruption pilfered 85 to 90 percent 

of Soviet aid at the end of the 1980s.2

 Even more ominously, well-funded, 

Pakistani-supported military-political organizations were waiting for the 

collapse of the PDPA to establish their own government in Afghanistan.

On March 18, 1992, mujahideen forces led by Abdul Rashid Dostum, 

with support from Ahmad Shah Massoud, an influential Tajik mujahideen 

leader, captured Mazar-i Sharif without resistance. By April 14, Massoud 

occupied Charikar, Jabal ul-Seraj, and Bagram air base. Najibullah 

unsuccessfully attempted to flee to India but instead took refuge at the 

United Nations offices in Kabul.3

While several military factions descended on the capital, mujahideen 

party leaders met in Peshawar, Pakistan, to devise a political solution. 

The Peshawar Accords, a peace and power-sharing agreement among the 

major Afghan mujahideen parties, created the new Islamic Republic of 

Afghanistan and established an interim government, under the leadership 

of Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, to be followed by general elections.4

Mojaddedi became president on April 28; Pakistan, the European 

Economic Community, and the United States recognized the new state 

on the same day. On April 29, Massoud entered Kabul with his army.5

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party (Hizb-e Islami), however, refused 

to participate and continued its assault on Kabul.

In early May, Dostum, Hekmetyar, and Massoud began to articulate 

their competition for Kabul. Mojaddedi requested an extension to his 

power-sharing agreement but was refused by the other mujahideen leaders. 

On June 29, Mojaddedi stepped down and handed power to Burhanuddin 
80

Rabbani, leader of the Islamic Society of Afghanistan (Jamiat-e Islami). 

Rabbani chose Massoud as his minister of defense. For the next two years, 

Massoud’s forces waged continuous warfare against Hekmatyar and his 

allies, and the conflict regionalized within Afghanistan. Kabul remained 

the epicenter of war throughout this period.6

Since the early 1980s, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had 

supported Afghan parties that shared President Zia ul-Haq’s view of 

Islamizing Pakistani society.7

 With the failure of Pakistan’s primary ally, 

Hekmatyar, to capture Kabul, Pakistani intelligence and military leaders 

invested in a new militant political group of young Afghan refugees and 

veterans of the anti-Soviet jihad, the Taliban. It had initially focused on 

gaining influence in the area around Kandahar and securing transportation 

networks for legal and illegal commerce, but the Taliban soon began a 

campaign to occupy other parts of Afghanistan. Martin K. Ewans described 

the group’s impressive arrival to the civil war: “The Taliban forces that 

proceeded to advance through Afghanistan in the winter of 1994–1995 

were equipped with tanks, APCs, artillery, and even aircraft.” 8

Pakistan’s official supporters were not the only advocates for the 

Taliban. As journalist Gretchen Peters explained, “Mullah Omar’s 

movement—almost from its inception—was highly dependent on and 

intertwined with the opium network spanning the Pakistan-Afghanistan 

border. Drug traffickers and tribes growing poppy were critical to the 

Taliban’s swift and astonishing rise to power.” According to Peters, 

“Fueled by drug money and joined at the hip with al-Qaeda, the Taliban 

turned Afghanistan into the world’s first fully fledged narco-terror state.”9

The Taliban succeeded in providing security to the Afghan people 

where other mujahideen movements failed. Mullah Muhammad Omar 

led the initial Taliban group in southern Kandahar Province as a 

response to local banditry, brutality by local militias, and broad social 

malaise.10 While the two major mujahideen groups, Hizb-e-Islami and 

Jamiat-e Islami, had an antagonistic relationship with young Talibs, 

Omar was associated with the moderate group, Islamic Revolution 

Movement (Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami) that was part of the Peshawar 

Seven, supported by the United States and Pakistan.11 That moderation 

proved to be an illusion. Anthropologist Olivier Roy argued in 1998 that 

“the problem with the Taliban is that they mean what they say. . . . The 

Taliban are not a factor for stabilization in Afghanistan.” 12 Conversely, 

Kalinovsky observed, “The Taliban earned Pakistan’s support because 

they held the promise of restoring order and of being useful to the ISI. 

Similarly, the United States largely turned a blind eye to the Taliban and 

their excesses.” 13 This stabilization was a mirage.
81

Direct Russian support for the Afghan government ended with the rise 

of the Taliban in 1994. After this point, the Russian government engaged 

in complex proxy battles in a new phase of the Afghan civil war alongside 

other regional powers, including Pakistan, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and 

Uzbekistan. Faced with the prospect of Islamic revolution in Central Asia, 

the Russian government began to support militias with anti-Soviet pasts. 

In 1996, Massoud and Dostum, two former rivals, joined to resist the 

growing Taliban threat and formed the United Islamic Front, also known 

as the Northern Alliance. Massoud had played a major role in the resistance 

against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, earning him the distinctions the 

“Lion of Panjshir” and the “Afghan who won the Cold War.” Dostum, 

considered the leader of Afghanistan’s Uzbek community, had fought on 

the Soviet side until the collapse of Najibullah’s government in 1992 and 

shifted alliances on several occasions thereafter. This pair and their forces 

proved little match for the well-equipped Taliban.14

In May 1996, Osama bin Laden, under pressure from the Saudi, Libyan, 

and Egyptian governments, shifted the base of al-Qaeda operations from 

Sudan to Afghanistan. Bin Laden thus returned to his jihadist roots, where 

his leadership during the battles of Jaji was lauded by Arab journalists and 

served as his introduction to the power of the press.15 As Peter L. Bergen 

observed, “The Afghan war changed bin Laden. The humble, young, 

An opium poppy field in the Marja district of Helmand Province. The Taliban, almost 

from its inception, was dependent on the drug trade and built a strong network in this 

region. Photo (2012) by Sgt. Michael P. Snody, USMC. Department of Defense.
82

monosyllabic millionaire with the open checkbook who had first visited 

Pakistan in the early 1980s would, by the middle of the decade, launch 

an ambitious plan to confront the Soviets directly inside Afghanistan 

with a group of Arabs under his command. That cadre of Arabs would 

provide the nucleus of al-Qaeda.”16 While the Saudis had cut off his wealth 

in Sudan, bin Laden benefitted from his return to Afghanistan, forging 

a mutually advantageous relationship that drew upon Arab financial 

contributions to the Taliban in the Afghan civil war and buttressed the 

Taliban’s international reputation.17

From Afghanistan, bin Laden declared war against the United States in 

August 1996, citing the continuing presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia five 

years after the Persian Gulf War and declaring that “the walls of oppression 

and humiliation cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets.” 18 Despite 

multiple international efforts to dislodge him from Afghanistan, bin Laden 

and the Taliban remained codependent: bin Laden supported the Taliban’s 

military and political efforts to consolidate Afghanistan as an “Islamic 

state,” while the Taliban provided protection for bin Laden.19 Ultimately, bin 

Laden’s public vitriol clashed with Mullah Omar’s political interests, and 

the latter “invited” bin Laden to Kandahar in 1997.20

The Taliban had brought much of northern Afghanistan under its rule 

by 1998, buying off rivals, carrying out systematic attacks on civilians, and 

forcing Dostum into exile in Turkey. Only Massoud proved able to defend 

his territory in northeastern Afghanistan from Taliban militias, but that 

success ended with his assassination, at the hands of al-Qaeda members 

posing as journalists, on September 9, 2001.21 Two days later, al-Qaeda 

Northern Alliance troops, who fought with U.S. forces against the Taliban in the early 

stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, at Bagram air base to greet U.S. secretary 

of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, December 16, 2001. Photo by Jim Garamone. 

Department of Defense.
83

terrorists launched an assault on the United States that led to direct U.S. 

military engagement in Afghanistan.

After weeks of unsuccessful negotiations with the Taliban to turn over 

al-Qaeda militants involved in terrorism in the United States, U.S.-led 

coalition forces initiated a campaign on October 7, 2001, to establish air 

superiority, destroy terrorist training camps, kill or capture al-Qaeda leaders, 

and eliminate terrorist activities in Afghanistan. As U.S. forces joined with 

the Northern Alliance and began to capture cities across Afghanistan in 

November and December, U.S. officials observed a complex system of 

strategic interests, challenges, and realities on the ground.

A propaganda poster, found by U.S. troops in 2002, showing al-Qaeda leader 

Osama bin Laden. The architect of the 9/11 attacks was killed in Pakistan in 

2011 by U.S. Special Forces. National Archives.
84

* * *

Reaching back to the history of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 

Kalinovsky made an intriguing comparison, writing in 2011 that “Hamid 

Karzai, who took power after U.S. forces helped to topple the Taliban in 

2001, now seems cast in the role of Babrak Karmal—distrusted by his 

patrons and by his countrymen, isolated and with little influence even 

over his supporters.”22 As U.S. forces continue their own withdrawal from 

Afghanistan, the lessons of the Soviet experience weigh heavily. Yet a 

longer view of the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan reveals a more nuanced 

and patient approach. The United States has long supported Afghanistan 

with economic aid and diplomatic friendship in measured terms and 

hopeful enthusiasm. This pattern will surely persist in the twenty-first 

century.

It is best to remember Winston S. Churchill’s poignant observation 

about the Afghans: “They, when they fight among themselves, bear little 

malice, and the combatants not infrequently make friends over the corpses 

of their comrades or suspend operations for a festival or horse race. At the 

end of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yet so 

full of contractions is their character.” 23

A U.S. Air Force F–15E Strike Eagle from the 332d Air Expeditionary Group takes 

off for a mission over Afghanistan during the early stages of Operation Enduring 

Freedom, November 7, 2001. National Archives.
85

Notes

Introduction

1. Giving the 1907 Romanes Lecture, Lord Curzon had just returned from the position 

as viceroy of India (1899–1905). He was very familiar with Afghanistan, and he had traveled 

extensively in Central and South Asia in the 1880s and 1890s. He had served as undersecretary of state for India (1891–92) and under-secretary of state for foreign affairs (1895–

98). Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Frontiers (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 7, quoted 

in Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: 

Norton, 2009), 277.

2. For Afghanistan’s ethnic groups, see Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and 

Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 66–67; Robert Nichols, A 

History of Pashtun Migration, 1775–2006 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 24–63; 

Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 

1880–1946 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), 46–51; Amin Saikal, Modern 

Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 20–21; 

Larry P. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of 

the Taliban (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 29–30; Louis Dupree, Afghanistan

(1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 57–65.

3. Although “Pashtun” is now conventional, historical references use a variety of terms for 

this same ethnic group, depending on the geographic location of the sources. The British used 

“Pathan,” drawing from the Hindi term. Kandahari and southern Afghans used “Pashtun” 

and “Pushtun.” Northern Afghans, including Tajiks and Uzbeks, as well as groups in the 

Trans-Khyber region, used “Pakhtun” or “Pukhtun.” For this group, see Brian Glyn Williams, 

Afghanistan Declassified: A Guide to America’s Longest War (Philadelphia: University of 

Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 16–27; Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: 

State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 2d ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 2002), 26–29; Olaf K. Caroe, The Pathans: 550 B.C.–A.D. 1957 (New 

York: St. Martin’s, 1958); Akbar S. Ahmed, Pukhtun Economy and Society: Traditional 

Structure and Economic Development in a Tribal Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 

1980); Colin M. Enriquez, The Pathan Borderland: A Consecutive Account of the Country 

and People on and beyond the Indian Frontier from Chitral to Dera Ismail Khan, 2d ed. 

(Calcutta, India: Thacker, Spink, and Co., 1921); Rob Hager, “State, Tribe, and Empire in 

Afghan Inter-Polity Relations,” in Richard Tapper, ed., The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran 

and Afghanistan (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983), 83–118.

4. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War, 25. As Winston S. Churchill put it: “The people 

of one valley fight with those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the 

combats of individuals. Khan assails khan, each supported by his retainers. Every tribesman 
86

has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man’s hand is against the other, and all against the 

stranger.” Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898; reprint, Mineola, NY: 

Dover Publications, 2010), 3. According to a proverb, Pashtuns fight for three reasons: “zar, 

zan, zamin” (gold, women, and land).

5. Barfield, Afghanistan, 19; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 25–51; 

Dupree, Afghanistan, 57–65; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 20–21. For a color rendition of the 

map on p. 3, see http://www.loc.gov/item/92684507.

One

1. Charles Miller, Khyber, British India’s North West Frontier: The Story of an Imperial 

Migraine (New York: Macmillan, 1977), xiv, 11–12.

2. Abdul Hai Habibi, “Paxto Literature at a Glance,” Afghanistan 20, no. 4 (1968): 60, 

quoted in Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 337.

3. Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 2010), 99.

4. Dupree, Afghanistan, 338; Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle 

and Survival (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 28. The Sikh Empire (1799–1849) 

forged a powerful state in northern India until it was conquered by British forces in the midnineteenth century.

5. Dupree, Afghanistan, 334; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 24–27.

6. Barfield, Afghanistan, 48; Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: 

Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880–1946 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 

1969), 98, 104; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 33–34; Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short 

History of Its People and Politics (New York: Perennial, 2002), 37.

7. Malcolm E. Yapp, Strategies of British India: Britain, Iran, and Afghanistan, 1798–

1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 238–39.

8. Capt. Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Light Cavalry, a British intelligence officer, 

coined the term “Great Game” around 1831 to explain the competition between Russia 

and Britain in Asia. Conolly published a two-volume work, Journey to the North of India, 

Overland from England, through Russia, Persia and Affghaunistaun, in 1834 and was 

beheaded in 1842 in Bukhara (in current-day Uzbekistan) on the order of the Afghan amir. 

Rudyard Kipling widely popularized the term “Great Game” in his 1901 novel Kim. Peter 

Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (New York: Kodansha 

America, 1994), 1–2, 123; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 287 n. 43.

9. Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game 

and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), 156.

10. Joseph J. Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National 

Defense University Press, 2011), 17.

11. Sir Percy M. Sykes, A History of Afghanistan, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1940), 

1:401–2; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 75.

12. John William Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan, 2 vols. (London: R. Bentley, 

1851), 1:130.

13. Ben Macintyre, The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan

(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004). See also Josiah Harlan, Central Asia: Personal 

Narrative of General Josiah Harlan, 1823–1841, ed. Frank E. Ross (London: Luzac, 1939); 

Josiah Harlan, A Memoir of India and Avghanistan (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1842).

14. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 139.
87

15. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse 

in the International System, 2d ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 48.

16. Dupree, Afghanistan, 418–19.

17. ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, 2 vols. 

(London: J. Murray, 1900), 2:176–77.

18. Barfield, Afghanistan, 5. Also see the survey of Abdur Rahman’s reign in Saikal, 

Modern Afghanistan, 37–41.

19. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 40–41; Nancy Tapper, “Abd Al-Rahman’s North-West 

Frontier: The Pashtun Colonisation of Afghan Turkistan,” in Richard Tapper, ed., The Conflict 

of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983), 253 (quote). Abdur 

Rahman also embraced the title “light of the nation and religion” (zia-ul-millat-wa-ud din) to 

reflect his broad, interethnic dominance.

20. Tapper, “Al-Rahman’s North-West Frontier,” 233–61. 

21. Abdur Rahman did, however, abolish the samardeh, a tax on non-Pashtuns.

22. Barfield, Afghanistan, 155; Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 90.

23. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 134.

24. Barfield, Afghanistan, 161.

25. al-Rahman Khan, Life of Abdur Rahman, 2:280. Also see Dupree, Afghanistan, 415.

26. al-Rahman Khan, Life of Abdur Rahman, 2:78.

27. Richard F. Nyrop and Donald M. Seekins, eds., Afghanistan: A Country Study, 5th 

ed. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1986), 38, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/aftoc.html. 

For the major sections of the agreement, see Ludwig W. Adamec, Historical Dictionary of 

Afghanistan, 3d ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003), 399–402.

28. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 39.

29. al-Rahman Khan, Life of Abdur Rahman, 2:158, 164.

30. An excellent historical study on the early stages of the frontier debate is Yapp, 

Strategies of British India.

31. al-Rahman Khan, Life of Abdur Rahman, 2:174.

32. Ibid., 2:171–72.

33. Ibid., 2:158, 178.

34. Rüdiger Schöch, “Afghan Refugees in Pakistan during the 1980s: Cold War Politics 

and Registration Practice” (Research Paper No. 157, United Nations High Commission for 

Refugees, Geneva, Switzerland, June 2008), http://www.unhcr.org/4868daad2.html.

Two

1. Clifford Orwin, “Stasis and Plague: Thucydides on the Dissolution of Society,” 

Journal of Politics 4 (November 1988): 834; Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (3.82); 

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Thomas Hobbes (Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1989), 204.

2. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse 

in the International System, 2d ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 52.

3. Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and 

Modernization, 1880–1946 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), 393–94. For an 

overview of Habibullah’s reign, see Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle 

and Survival (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 42–59.

4. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 164; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 45–46.

5. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 166.
88

6. Ibid., 206. For British attempts to undermine Habibullah, see Saikal, Modern 

Afghanistan, 53–55.

7. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 184. Mahmud Sami, a Turkish colonel, 

ran the college after 1907.

8. Leon B. Poullada and Leila D. J. Poullada, The Kingdom of Afghanistan and the United 

States: 1828–1973 (Lincoln, NE: Center for Afghan Studies, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 

and Dageforde Publishing, 1995), 13. See also A. C. Jewett and Marjorie Jewett Bell, An 

American Engineer in Afghanistan: From the Letters and Notes of A. C. Jewett (Minneapolis: 

University of Minnesota Press, 1948). Various Afghans informed Jewett that he was the first 

American to visit their country in decades. One told him that the last American had been there 

in 1840; another said 1880. The Poulladas piece together stories of this and other early AfghanAmerican contact up through the 1930s in the first two chapters of their book.

9. “Convention between Great Britain and Russia Concerning the Interests of Their States 

on the Continent of Asia,” September 24, 1907, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the 

United States, 1907 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1910), 1:552, http://digicoll.

library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&id=FRUS.FRUS1907v01&entity=FRUS.

FRUS1907v01.p0664&q1=552.

10. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 211–12; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 

51–56.

11. For the Turkish-German mission to Habibullah, see Gregorian, Emergence of Modern 

Afghanistan, 220–23; for the entire period of the war, see Ludwig W. Adamec, Afghanistan’s 

Foreign Affairs to the Mid-Twentieth Century: Relations with the USSR, Germany, and Britain

(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), 15–41.

12. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 227–31; Louis Dupree, Afghanistan

(1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 442–43; Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A 

Short History of Its People and Politics (New York: Perennial, 2002), 120–26; Thomas J. Barfield, 

Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 

181–83; Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 46–51; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 63–65.

13. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 230; Ewans, Afghanistan, 122–23.

14. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 62–63.

15. According to Saikal, the wording of the treaty “was so ambiguous as to allow the 

Afghans to read in it British acknowledgement of their full independence; and the British to 

find grounds in it still to make ‘sphere of influence’ claims on the country.” Ibid., 64. See also 

Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 90–98; Sir Percy M. Sykes, A History of Afghanistan, 

2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1940), 2:284, 358–59.

16. Ewans, Afghanistan, 124–25.

17. Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 52–57.

18. Leonid B. Teplinskii, Sovetsko-Afganskie otnosheniia [Soviet-Afghan Relations], 

1919–1960 (Moscow: Izd-vo sotsial’no-ekon. lit-ry, 1961); Sergei B. Panin, Sovetskaia 

Rossiia i Afganistan [Soviet Russia and Afghanistan], 1919–1929 (Irkutsk: Irkutsk State 

Pedagogical University, 1998); Mikhail Volodarskii, Sovety i ikh iuzhnye sosedi, Iran i 

Afganistan [The Soviets and Their Southern Neighbors, Iran and Afghanistan] (1917–1933)

(London: Overseas Publications, 1985).

19. Panin, Sovetskaia Rossiia i Afganistan, 44; Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 56–57.

20. For the Jadid movement in Central Asia, see Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim 

Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); 

Alexandre Bennigsen, “The Soviet Union and Muslim Guerrilla Wars, 1920–1981: Lessons 

for Afghanistan” (Rand Note N–1707/1, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, August 

1981), http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2005/N1707.1.pdf.
89

21. Volodarskii, Iran i Afganistan, 178. See also Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign 

Affairs, 70–71, on Enver Pasha’s leadership of the “Old Bukhara” forces at Termez, Baisun, 

and Shahr-i Sabz.

22. Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 69–72; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 68–74; 

Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 234–39. Saikal observed that “Amanullah’s 

inability to provide active support for the Central Asian Muslims, in particular the Basmachi 

Movement, markedly undermined his credibility. From the start, one of his main pillars of 

legitimacy was a claim to be, above everything else, an Islamic ruler; but when a real test came 

to substantiate this claim in the face of Soviet actions, he could not do so” (p. 74).

23. Ludwig W. Adamec, “Afghan Air Force,” in Adamec, Historical Dictionary of 

Afghanistan, 4th ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012), 38. Also see British intelligence 

reports on the early Afghan air force in Anita L. P. Burdett, ed., Afghanistan Strategic 

Intelligence: British Records, 1919–1970, 4 vols. (London: Archive Editions, 2002), 2:125–37.

24. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 255.

25. Maurice Pernot, L’Inquiétude de l’Orient: En Asie Musulmane (Paris: Hachette, 

1927), 43; Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 108; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern 

Afghanistan, 247.

26. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 73–79; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 

239–54.

27. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 82–88; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 

254–56.

28. See Leon B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919–1929: King 

Amanullah’s Failure to Modernize a Tribal Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

1973), 143–95, for a comprehensive study of Amanullah’s reforms and the rise of tribal power.

29. Senzil K. Nawid, Religious Response to Social Change in Afghanistan, 1919–29: 

King Aman-Allah and the Afghan Ulama (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1999), 138.

30. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 266, 278–79; Grigorii S. Agabekov, 

O.G.P.U.: The Russian Secret Terror (New York: Brentano’s, 1931), 159–60; Grigorii S. Agabekov, 

Ch. K. za rabotoi (Berlin: Strela, 1931), 276–83; Joseph Castagné, “Soviet Imperialism in 

Afghanistan,” Foreign Affairs 13 (July 1935): 698–703.

31. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 280–81.

32. The title “amir” connoted a commander, general, admiral, or prince, while “malik” 

signified a king or chief.

33. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 99; Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 116–18, 

194–95. Shah Mahmud Khan and Shah Wali Khan, along with Mohammad Hashim Khan, would 

play influential roles later as the uncles of both Mohammad Zahir Shah and Mohammad Daud.

34. Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 202–4; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern 

Afghanistan, 321–32.

35. Hazaras are Persian-speaking Shia Muslims in central Afghanistan; Mangals are a 

Pashtun tribe in Paktia and Khost; and Mohmands are Pashtuns in Kunduz, Nangarhar, and 

Kunar. Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 297.

36. Ibid., 297–98.

37. Abdul Khaliq was immediately apprehended and publicly executed. His relatives, 

fellow students, and teachers were executed as well. In Pashtun tribal code, badal (revenge) 

requires retribution for insults or the shedding of blood. The practice serves as a deterrent 

to lawlessness but often results in destructive cycles of violence. See Adamec, Historical 

Dictionary, 10, 71.

38. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 106–8; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 

375–78.
90

39. Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 213–27.

40. Ibid., 216–17; Gregorian, Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 378–92.

41. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 109–10.

42. Ernest F. Fox, Travels in Afghanistan, 1937–1938 (New York: Macmillan, 1943), xvii.

43. Department of State Treaty Information, Bulletin No. 95, August 1937, 5, 33–35; Gregorian, 

Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, 376–78; Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 233–34.

44. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 110, 113–15.

45. American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1977–1980 (Washington, DC: 

Department of State, 1983), 883.

46. Milan L. Hauner, “The Soviet Threat to Afghanistan and India, 1938–1940,” Modern 

Asian Studies 15 (April 1981): 287–309. For a survey of Afghanistan’s balancing act with 

Germany, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, see Hauner, “Afghanistan between the Great 

Powers, 1938–1945,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 14 (November 1982): 481–99.

47. Adamec, Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs, 217–27, 238–43.

Three

1. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 

334–41.

2. Charles Evans Hughes to Warren G. Harding, July 18, 1921, Papers Relating to 

the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of 

State, 1936), 1:258 (hereafter FRUS), http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1921v01&isize=M&page=258. Also see Amin Saikal, Modern 

Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 66.

3. Harding to Amanullah Khan, July 29, 1921, FRUS, 1921, 1:261, http://digicoll.library.

wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1921v01&isize=M&page=261.

4. “Proposal for the Establishment of Diplomatic and Consular Representation between 

the United States and Afghanistan,” FRUS, 1926, 1:557–60, http://images.library.wisc.edu/

FRUS/EFacs/1926v01/reference/frus.frus1926v01.i0007.pdf.

5. Leon B. Poullada and Leila D. J. Poullada, The Kingdom of Afghanistan and the 

United States: 1828–1973 (Lincoln, NE: Center for Afghan Studies, University of Nebraska 

at Omaha, and Dageforde Publishing, 1995), 41–42; Ludwig W. Adamec, Afghanistan, 1900–

1923: A Diplomatic History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 236.

6. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Kermit Roosevelt, East of the Sun and West of the Moon

(New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1926), 9. The brothers set out in May 1925 on an expedition 

for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago to procure a collection of wildlife from 

the Pamir and Tian Shan Mountains, including several specimen of ovis poli, a rare species 

of wild sheep, argali, first described by Marco Polo for European audiences. Theodore 

Roosevelt, “To the Roof of the World,” Boy’s Life, November 1926, 10–11, 61; Peter Collier, 

The Roosevelts: An American Saga (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 302–8. For the 

Roosevelt brothers’ impact on subsequent travel to the region, see William J. Morden, Across 

Asia’s Snows and Deserts (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927).

7. Mohammad Zahir Shah to Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 24, 1934, FRUS, 1934, 

2:748, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.

FRUS1934v02&isize=M&page=748.

8. William Phillips to Roosevelt, August 21, 1934, FRUS, 1934, 2:749, http://digicoll.

library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1934v02.

p0849&id=FRUS.FRUS1934v02&isize=M.
91

9. Roosevelt to Zahir Shah, August 21, 1934, FRUS, 1934, 2:750, http://digicoll.

library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1934v02.

p0850&id=FRUS.FRUS1934v02&isize=M.

10. “Provisional Agreement regarding Friendship, Diplomatic, and Consular Representation 

between the United States and Afghanistan,” March 26, 1936, 49 Stat. 3873, Executive Agreement 

Series 88, in Charles I. Bevans, comp., Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United 

States of America, 1776–1949, Vol. 5: Afghanistan-Burma (Washington, DC: U.S. Department 

of State, 1970), 1–2. See also discussion related to the agreement in FRUS, 1936, 3:1–7, http://

images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1936v03/reference/frus.frus1936v03.i0005.pdf.

11. Leon Poullada also mentioned negotiations between the A. J. Alsdorf Corporation 

of Chicago and the Afghan government for tanks, armored cars, and howitzers. Poullada and 

Poullada, Afghanistan and the United States, 128.

12. See correspondence in FRUS, 1937, 2:597–614, http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/

EFacs/1937v02/reference/frus.frus1937v02.i0024.pdf. This deal, which was three years in the 

making, was finalized in Berlin without the participation, and largely without the knowledge, of 

the U.S. government.

13. Memorandum, Wallace S. Murray to Cordell Hull, May 7, 1938, FRUS, 1938, 

2:752–53, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.

FRUS1938v02&isize=M&page=752.

14. John A. DeNovo, American Interests and Policies in the Middle East, 1900–1939

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), 314–15; Kristen Blake, The U.S.-Soviet 

Confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962: A Case in the Annals of the Cold War (Lanham, MD: 

University Press of America, 2009), 15–16; Stephen L. McFarland, “A Peripheral View of the 

Origins of the Cold War: The Crisis in Iran, 1941–1947,” Diplomatic History 4 (Fall 1980): 

333–51; Olaf K. Caroe, Wells of Power: The Oilfields of South-Western Asia: A Regional and 

Global Study (London: Macmillan, 1951).

15. Wallace S. Murray, “American Diplomatic Representation in Afghanistan,” 

July 27, 1937, FRUS, 1937, 2:610, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1937v02&isize=M&page=610.

16. Louis G. Dreyfus Jr. to Hull, June 27, 1941, FRUS, 1941, 3:259, http://digicoll.library.

wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1941v03&isize=M&page=259.

17. See discussion in FRUS, 1941, 3:255–63, http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/

EFacs/1941v03/reference/frus.frus1941v03.i0008.pdf.

18. Cornelius Van H. Engert, A Report on Afghanistan (Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, 1924). For Engert’s trip and the State Department’s response to his lengthy report 

(225 published pages), see Poullada and Poullada, Afghanistan and the United States, 15–17.

19. Engert to Hull, July 25, 1942, FRUS, 1942, 4:51, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/

cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1942v04&isize=M&page=51.

20. “Reply of the President (Roosevelt) to the Remarks of the Minister of Afghanistan 

(Aziz), July 4, 1943,” in Leland M. Goodrich and Marie J. Carroll, eds., Documents on American 

Foreign Relations, Vol. 5: July 1942–June 1943 (Boston, MA: World Peace Foundation, 1944), 

605. Roosevelt stated: “You will find, I am sure, Mr. Minister, that the love of freedom upon 

which we in the United States so pride ourselves is similar to your own and that there is much 

in the mutual idealism of our two peoples to cement the friendship now being manifest.”

21. Engert to Hull, November 6, 1943, FRUS, 1943, 4:32, http://digicoll.library.wisc.

edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1943v04&isize=M&page=32.

22. Ibid.

23. Engert to Hull, February 14, 1943, FRUS, 1943, 4:21, http://digicoll.library.wisc.

edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1943v04&isize=M&page=21. 
92

For Afghanistan’s balancing of German, Soviet, and British interests, see Ludwig W. Adamec, 

Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs to the Mid-Twentieth Century: Relations with the USSR, Germany, 

and Britain (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), 244–47, 262–63.

24. Engert to Hull, April 29, 1943, FRUS, 1943, 4:23, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/

cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1943v04.p0035&id=FRUS.

FRUS1943v04&isize=M.

25. Hull to Engert, November 23, 1943, FRUS, 1943, 4:34–35, http://digicoll.library.wisc.

edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1943v04&isize=M&page=34.

26. “Karakul Sheep,” Life, July 16, 1945, 65–68; Ali Mohammad, “Karakul as the 

Most Important Article of Afghan Trade,” Afghanistan (Kabul), 4 (December 1949): 48–53.

27. Harold R. Maddux to Wallace S. Murray, “Suggestion by Military Attaché that a U.S. 

Military Mission be Sent to Afghanistan,” June 12, 1944, in Poullada and Poullada, Afghanistan 

and the United States, appendix 4.

28. Engert to Hull, August 7, 1942, FRUS, 1942, 4:54, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/

cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1942v04&isize=M&page=54.

29. Engert to Hull, May 27, 1943, FRUS, 1943, 4:25, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/

cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1943v04&isize=M&page=25.

30. The group included Lt. Gen. Mohammad Daud Khan, Kabul Army Corps; Lt. Gen. 

Muhammad Umar Khan, Afghan army; Col. Muhd Ali Khan, signals officer; Maj. Abdur 

Razak Khan, Afghan air force; Maj. Abdul Ghaffar Khan, cavalry officer; and Maj. Muhd 

Nasim Khan, artillery officer. History of the XX Bomber Command, December 1944, Air 

Force Historical Research Agency, reel A7757, frames 10–12.

31. Jacob C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension (New York: Praeger, 

for Council on Foreign Relations, 1969), 301.

32. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, DC, November 19, 1948, FRUS, 1948, 

5:492 (first quote), http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.

FRUS1948v05p1&isize=M&page=492; Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, DC, December 

8, 1948, FRUS, 1948, 5:493 (second quote), http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1948v05p1&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=493.

33. Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (Durham, NC: Duke University 

Press, 1983), 19.

34. Poullada and Poullada, Afghanistan and the United States, 4.

35. The U.S. military did provide some noncombat equipment at the end of the war. 

The State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee (SANACC), the precursor to the 

National Security Council, argued, “For all practical purposes Afghanistan is almost totally 

dependent on foreign sources for its military requirements. Up to now the Afghan Army 

has obtained from the U.S. only surplus hospital and non-combatant equipment, through the 

purchase for cash of U.S. surplus property in India in 1945.” See SANACC 360/14, “Appraisal 

of U.S. National Interests in South Asia,” April 19, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 6:23, http://digicoll.library.

wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1949v06&isize=M&page=23.

36. Jeffrey J. Roberts, The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan (Westport, CT: Praeger, 

2003), 74–75.

37. Ibid., 120.

38. Daniel Balland, “Boundaries of Afghanistan,” in Ehsan Yarshater, ed., Encyclopedia Iranica

(London: Routledge, 1982), 4:406–15, online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/boundaries-iii.

39. Leon B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919–1929: King Amanullah’s 

Failure to Modernize a Tribal Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973), 29; see also 

William Kerr Fraser-Tytler, Afghanistan: A Study of Political Developments in Central and 

Southern Asia, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).
93

40. Letter from South East Asia Department to Chancery, April 28, 1949, in Ludwig W. 

Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, 3d ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003), 407.

41. For U.S. official sources on the “Pushtunistan Dispute,” see FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1365–

1498, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1

95254v11p2&isize=M&page=1365; FRUS, 1955–57, 8:163–258, http://digicoll.library.wisc.

edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS195557v08&isize=M&page=163. 

For an Afghan official tract, see Rahman Pazhwak, An Article on Pakhtunistan, a New 

State in Central Asia (London: Royal Afghan Embassy, 1960). Also see Saikal, Modern 

Afghanistan, 122–23, 130–34; Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 25–26; Victoria 

Schofield, Afghan Frontier: At the Crossroads of Conflict, rev. ed. (London: Tauris Parke, 

2010), 258–64; Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), 159–76; Rizwan Hussain, Pakistan and 

the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 61–82.

42. On January 1, 1950, Pakistan blockaded fuel trucks destined for Afghanistan. It 

repeated this action in 1953, 1955, and 1961. Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of 

Its People and Politics (New York: Perennial, 2002), 158; Edward Girardet, Afghanistan: The 

Soviet War (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985), 95; Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi, 

“The Forgotten History of Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations,” Yale Journal of International 

Affairs 7 (March 2012): 38–45, http://yalejournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ArticleGartenstein_Ross-and-Vassefi.pdf.

43. Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–89) was a malik, or chief, and warrior-poet who 

advocated for Afghan unity (in this case, Pashto speakers) to overthrow their Mughal rulers. 

Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, 220–21.

44. Poullada and Poullada, Afghanistan and the United States, 99.

45. Department of State Policy Statement, “United States Policy with Respect to 

Afghanistan,” February 21, 1951, FRUS, 1951, 6:2008–9, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/

cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1951v06p2&isize=M&page=2008. 

Diplomat-turned-scholar Leon Poullada much later observed that “the Pushtunistan dispute was 

the loose thread in the fabric of Afghan independence. The Soviets skillfully pulled this thread 

and unraveled Afghan freedom.” Poullada and Poullada, Afghanistan and the United States, 82.

46. Dean G. Acheson to Embassy in Afghanistan, September 29, 1952, FRUS, 1952–

54, 11:1456, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d887; Charles 

Little to Department of State, July 10, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1412–1413, http://history.

state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d856. For more background on U.S.-Pakistan 

relations on these issues, see Haqqani, Pakistan, 162–65; Hussain, Pakistan, 68–72.

47. John E. Horner to Department of State, October 2, 1952, FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1457, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d888. For the Afghan views, 

see Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 123–24; for the Pakistani side, see Hussain, Pakistan, 69–71.

48. National Security Council, “United States Objectives and Policies with Respect to 

the Near East,” July 23, 1954, NSC 5428, FRUS, 1952–54, 9:527, http://history.state.gov/

historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v09p1/d219. This amended the original policies of NSC 

155/1, following developments that included a change of power in Iran, the visit of Vice 

President Richard M. Nixon to the region, and successful Pakistani lobbying for military aid.

49. James S. Lay Jr., “United States Objectives and Policies with Respect to the Near 

East,” Memorandum for the National Security Council, July 6, 1954, p. 23, para. 29 c, 

available through the National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/

NSAEBB78/propaganda%20126.pdf.

50. This sentiment was shared by the British since the mid-nineteenth century. It was 

then reinforced by the British Committee of Imperial Defence at the turn of the twentieth 
94

century. See Christopher M. Wyatt, Afghanistan and the Defence of Empire: Diplomacy and 

Strategy during the Great Game (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 91–101.

51. Balland, “Boundaries of Afghanistan.” The signing of the first transit agreements 

between Afghanistan and the USSR on July 17, 1950, and between Afghanistan and Iran 

on December 3, 1960, coincided with periods of heightened border tension with Pakistan. 

Paul Robinson and Jay Dixon explained that the Soviet treaty “provided for an exchange of 

agricultural products in return for Soviet petroleum, cotton, cloth, sugar and other commodities. 

In addition, the agreement provided for duty-free transit of Afghan goods over Soviet territory,” 

in Aiding Afghanistan: A History of Soviet Assistance to a Developing Country (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2013), 49. 

52. Balland noted that there was an eight-week period from January to March 1962 

when the import of American aid supplies to Afghanistan was permitted. Balland, “Boundaries 

of Afghanistan.”

Four

1. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to John Foster Dulles, October 12, 1954, Foreign Relations 

of the United States, 1952–1954 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1983), 11:1423 

(hereafter FRUS), http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d864.

2. Henry A. Byroade, “Soviet Démarche to Afghanistan,” October 10, 1952, FRUS, 

1952–54, 11:1458–61, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d889.

3. John E. Horner to Department of State, October 2, 1952, FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1456, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d888.

4. See Nake M. Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in Afghanistan: American and Soviet 

Models for Economic Aid (Washington, DC: Communication Service Corporation, 1969), for 

a close read of U.S. and Soviet aid to Afghanistan during the 1950s and 1960s. The Helmand 

River Valley project is discussed in the next chapter.

5. Horner to Department of State, September 23, 1952, FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1453, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d886.

6. Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 120–21.

7. National Intelligence Estimate, “Outlook for Afghanistan,” October 19, 1954, 

FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1482, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/

d905. See also Harry N. Howard, “The Regional Pacts and the Eisenhower Doctrine,” 

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 401 (May 1972): 85–94.

8. Angus I. Ward to Department of State, December 15, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1407, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d85; Richard M. Nixon, Report to 

National Security Council, December 23, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 11:1407n, http://history.state.

gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d852.

9. Henry A. Byroade, “The Changing Position of Afghanistan in Asia,” Department 

of State Bulletin, January 23, 1961, 125, 127 (hereafter DOS Bulletin; full archive online 

at http://www.bpl.org/govinfo/online-collections/federal-executive-branch/department-of-statebulletin-1939-1989/).

10. National Intelligence Estimate, “Outlook for Afghanistan,” October 19, 1954, FRUS, 

1952–54, 11:1481–97 (quote p. 1483), http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-

54v11p2/d905. This analysis ultimately proved accurate. See Nake M. Kamrany, The Six Stages 

in the Sovietization of Afghanistan (Boulder, CO: Economic Institute for Research and Education, 

1983), 3–9, on the systematic Soviet economic and cultural penetration of Afghanistan.
95

11. See R. K. Ramazani, “Afghanistan and the USSR,” Middle East Journal 12 (Spring 

1958): 144–52.

12. Mohammad Daud was ultimately an expansionist and sought the return of Pashtun 

lands to the east and Baluch lands to the south. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 115–16, 181.

13. See “Pushtunistan Dispute,” FRUS, 1955–57, 8:163–258 (http://history.state.gov/

historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v08/ch4), for extensive materials on a range of topics, including 

mob confrontation of two Americans in Kabul and on the impact of this conflict between 

Afghanistan and Pakistan.

14. Leon B. Poullada and Leila D. J. Poullada, The Kingdom of Afghanistan and the 

United States: 1828–1973 (Lincoln, NE: Center for Afghan Studies, University of Nebraska 

at Omaha, and Dageforde Publishing, 1995), 104; Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi, 

“The Forgotten History of Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations,” Yale Journal of International 

Affairs 7 (March 2012): 41–42, http://yalejournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ArticleGartenstein_Ross-and-Vassefi.pdf.

15. Horace A. Hildreth to Department of State, May 6, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 8:182–

83, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v08/d89.

16. Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics (New York: 

Perennial, 2002), 154–56.

17. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

1997), 508; Ewans, Afghanistan, 156; Jacob C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics: The Military 

Dimension (New York: Praeger, for Council on Foreign Relations, 1969), 301. Khrushchev 

declared that “we trade less for economic than for political reasons.” Paul Robinson and Jay 

Dixon, Aiding Afghanistan: A History of Soviet Assistance to a Developing Country (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 51.

18. Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, trans. and ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston, 

MA: Little, Brown, 1970), 508. See also Ewans, Afghanistan, 157; Robinson and Dixon, 

Aiding Afghanistan, 51.

19. Alam Payind, “Soviet-Afghan Relations from Cooperation to Occupation,” International 

Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (February 1989): 113.

20. Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (Durham, NC: Duke University 

Press, 1983), 24.

21. Eva Grenbäck, Arms Trade Registers: The Arms Trade with the Third World

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975), 32; Wynfred Joshua and Stephen P. Gibert, Arms for 

the Third World: Soviet Military Aid Diplomacy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 1969), 56–57.

22. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 126; Payind, “Soviet-Afghan Relations,” 112.

23. Harvey H. Smith, Area Handbook for Afghanistan (Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, 1969), 378.

24. Patrick J. Garrity, “The Soviet Military Stake in Afghanistan, 1956–1979,” Journal 

of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies 125 (September 1980): 31–36; 

Kamrany, Six Stages, 9–10.

25. Donald N. Wilber, ed., Afghanistan (New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files, 

1956), 185.

26. National Intelligence Estimate, “Probable Developments in Afghanistan’s International 

Position,” January 10 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 8:218, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/

frus1955-57v08/d111.

27. Ibid., 8:217–19, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v08/d111.

28. Sheldon T. Mills to Department of State, January 3, 1958, FRUS, 1958–60, 15:216, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d100.
96

29. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 28–31; Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 130.

30. For the Soviet preference for credits to minimize corruption, see Robinson and Dixon, 

Aiding Afghanistan, 128–29.

31. Byroade, “Changing Position of Afghanistan in Asia,” 133; Dupree, Afghanistan, 

526–30. On the other hand, Kamrany noted coexistence and even unintentional cooperation 

between Americans and Soviets on the ground in Afghanistan during the 1950s and 1960s. 

From a U.S. policy perspective, however, competition with the Soviets in Afghanistan was a 

concern, and aid projects were a political tool. Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in Afghanistan, 

17, 58, 86–89, 104.

32. “Export-Import Bank Loan to Afghanistan,” DOS Bulletin, May 31, 1954, 836. 

The $21 million in 1949 equates to $206 million in 2013 dollars, while the $18.5 million 

from 1954 would be approximately $160 million. See also Kamrany, Peaceful Competition 

in Afghanistan, 23.

33. Memorandum on Afghanistan, Allen W. Dulles to John Foster Dulles, August 6, 

1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 8:242, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v08/

d121. The U.S. government initially pledged $14.8 million to develop air transport facilities to 

reduce dependence on Soviet air routes. American Foreign Policy Current Documents, 1956

(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1959), 1303 (hereafter AFP Current Docs).

34. In a related move to generate public support, the International Cooperation 

Administration (ICA) announced that it had contracted an aircraft from Pan American to 

make fifteen to twenty round-trip flights from Kandahar to Jeddah over a sixty-day period to 

help Ariana, the Afghan airline, transport pilgrims performing hajj. “U.S. Will Help Transport 

Afghan Pilgrims to Mecca,” DOS Bulletin, July 2, 1956, 25.

35. “ICA Aid to South Asia in Fiscal Year 1956,” DOS Bulletin, September 24, 1956, 494.

36. “March 1960” Report, March 31, 1960, Reports, Program Reports, ICA/MorrisonKnudsen Contracts, Project Files Relating to Transportation, 1954–1961, Records of U.S. 

Foreign Assistance Agencies, 1942–1963, Record Group 469, National Archives. See 

also Yuri V. Bossin, “The Afghan Experience with International Assistance,” in John D. 

Montgomery and Dennis A. Rondinelli, eds., Beyond Reconstruction in Afghanistan: Lessons 

from Development Experience (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 83. 

37. “U.S. Helps Afghan Airline Acquire Plane for Fleet,” DOS Bulletin, May 23, 

1960, 831. Also, Robert M. Snyder of the U.S. Operations Mission in Afghanistan gave a 

speech in Kabul on October 29, 1958, that outlined ICA technical and economic assistance in 

agriculture, mining, education, and road and air transportation. Snyder, “What ICA is Doing 

in Afghanistan,” Department of State Publication 6671 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, 1959).

38. Ewans, Afghanistan, 159.

39. Mohammad Ali, Afghanistan, The Mohammedzai Period: A Political History of the 

Country since the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century with Emphasis on its Foreign Relations

(Kabul: Kabul University Press, 1959), 201–2.

40. Ambassador Sheldon T. Mills reported that “Afghanistan’s foreign policy as it 

relates to position in struggle between free world and Communist bloc is no longer fixed in 

pattern of close collaboration with Soviet which was evidence of Khrushchev-Bulganin visit, 

December 1955, but now is in state of flux.” Mills to Department of State, January 3, 1958, 

FRUS, 1958–60, 15:215, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d100.

41. Joint statement by Eisenhower and Daud, Washington, DC, June 27, 1958, AFP Current 

Docs, 1958, 1067–68.

42. Memorandum of Conversation, Department of State, Washington, DC, June 24, 1958, 

FRUS, 1958–60, 15:227, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d108.
97

43. Eisenhower described the trip in his memoir, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 

1956–1961 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), 497–99. He spent relatively little time in 

Afghanistan compared with stops in India (five days) and Pakistan (three days).

44. Memorandum of Conversation, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 9, 1959, FRUS, 

1958–60, 15:321–25, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d151.

45. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks Upon Arrival at Bagram Airport, Kabul,” 

December 9, 1959, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 

1959 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), 821, http://quod.lib.umich.

edu/p/ppotpus/4728423.1959.001/867?rgn=full+text;view=image.

46. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Toast of the President at a Luncheon Given in His Honor 

by King Mohammad Zahir,” Kabul, Afghanistan, December 9, 1959, ibid., 822–23, http://

quod.lib.umich.edu/p/ppotpus/4728423.1959.001/868?rgn=full+text;view=image.

47. The business elements of the trip were expressed in a joint statement: “President 

Eisenhower gave assurances of the American desire to continue to assist Afghanistan in 

its task of strengthening its economic and social structure.” “Joint Communique, Kabul, 

December 9,” DOS Bulletin, December 28, 1959, 934.

48. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, 497.

49. Ibid., 498.

50. Memorandum of Conversation, Madrid, Spain, December 22, 1959, FRUS, 1958–60, 

15:327, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d153.

Five

1. There are several extensive online collections that include documents related to 

development efforts in the Helmand River Valley covered in this section: Kabul University/

University of Arizona Afghanistan Digital Collections (http://www.afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/

handle/azu/1); Oregon State University Middle East Water Collection (http://oregondigital.

org/digcol/mewaters/); Oregon State University Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database 

(http://ocid.nacse.org/tfdd/); and a collection posted by a retired analyst from the U.S. Agency 

for International Development (http://scottshelmandvalleyarchives.org/).

2. Lloyd Baron, “Sector Analysis: Helmand-Arghandab Valley Region,” U.S. Agency 

for International Development, February 1973, typescript, Library of Congress, 7, http://

www.afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/azu/531/azu_acku_pamphlet_hd2065_6_

b37_1973_w.pdf; Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

1997), 482.

3. Report on Development of Helmand Valley, Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Tudor 

Engineering Company, 1956), http://www.afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/azu/524/

azu_acku_pamphlet_hd1698_a3_r4_1956_w.pdf.

4. For an overview and key context connecting these efforts to the later developments that led 

to the attacks of September 11, 2001, see Nick Cullather, “Damming Afghanistan: Modernization 

in a Buffer State,” Journal of American History 89 (September 2002): 512–37; for the full scope of 

U.S. aid to the project, which continued until 1979, see Cynthia Clapp-Wincek and Emily Baldwin, 

The Helmand Valley Project in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: U.S. Agency for International 

Development, 1983), http://scottshelmandvalleyarchives.org/docs/evl-83-02.pdf.

5. New York Times, August 9, 1946, 5.

6. Nake M. Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in Afghanistan: American and Soviet 

Models for Economic Aid (Washington, DC: Communication Service Corporation, 1969), 31, 

34; Cullather, “Damning Afghanistan,” 520–27 (quote p. 524).
98

7. Louis G. Dreyfus Jr. to Dean G. Acheson, September 19, 1949, Foreign Relations of the 

United States, 1949 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1977), 6:1778 (hereafter FRUS), 

http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1949v06/reference/frus.frus1949v06.i0016.pdf.

8. Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 109; Dupree, Afghanistan, 484. Zabuli founded the Afghan 

national bank and played a significant role in Afghan economic development from the 1930s 

through the 1950s. For background on Zabuli’s political and commercial significance, see 

Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 109, 163; for details on Zabuli’s larger economic plan, see 

Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in Afghanistan, 24.

9. It was expanded and renamed the Helmand-Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) in 1965.

10. Daniel Balland, “Arghandab River,” in Ehsan Yarshater, ed., Encyclopedia Iranica

(London: Routledge, 1982), 2:398–400, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/argandab-river. 

The Dahla Dam was originally known as the Arghandab Dam.

11. “Four Point Programs—Afghanistan,” Department of State Bulletin, July 14, 

1952, 62 (hereafter DOS Bulletin; full archive online at http://www.bpl.org/govinfo/onlinecollections/federal-executive-branch/department-of-state-bulletin-1939-1989/). Kamrany, Peaceful 

Competition in Afghanistan, 25–26, provides some context on the Point Four Program in 

Afghanistan, signed with Kabul on February 7, 1951.

12. “Export-Import Bank Loan to Afghanistan,” DOS Bulletin, May 31, 1954, 836.

13. N. H. Kirk, “Status of the Eximbank Loan to Afghanistan,” August 11, 1953, FRUS, 

1952–54, 11:1466–70, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d895. 

Recent experiences of NATO Provincial Reconstruction Teams indicate how important these 

local relationships can be to a project’s success.

14. N. H. Kirk, “Status of the Eximbank Loan to Afghanistan,” August 11, 1953, FRUS, 

1952–54, 11:1469, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v11p2/d895.

15. John Foster Dulles to Horace A. Hildreth, July 12, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 8:189, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v08/d93. Cullather argued that “to the 

Eisenhower administration, Morrison Knudsen’s outpost in Kandahar was the scientific frontier 

of American power in Central Asia.” Cullather, “Damning Afghanistan,” 528.

16. Peter G. Franck, “Technical Assistance through the United Nations: The U.N. 

Mission in Afghanistan, 1950–1963,” in Howard M. Teaf and Peter G. Franck, Hands Across 

Frontiers: Case Studies in International Cooperation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

1955), 13–61 (quote p. 36); Dupree, Afghanistan, 483.

17. Report on Development of Helmand Valley, Afghanistan, i, 5, 189–93; “Afghanistan 

Reclamation Project Expected to Produce Added Income,” DOS Bulletin, August 19, 1957, 315–16.

18. Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in Afghanistan, 31, 34.

19. See Cullather, “Damning Afghanistan,” 529–30, for the ethnic and political 

implications; see also Dupree, Afghanistan, 503–4. The villages were ultimately abandoned 

by 1960 due to poor soil conditions, but during the early years of the project, there was 

palpable enthusiasm for it within the U.S. government. Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in 

Afghanistan, 36, mentions that 1,330 families moved as part of this project.

20. Aloys Arthur Michel, The Kabul, Kunduz, and Helmand Valleys and the National 

Economy of Afghanistan: A Study of Regional Resources and the Comparative Advantages of 

Development (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1959), 425.

21. Ibid.

22. Kamrany, Peaceful Competition in Afghanistan, 32. The seven objectives were: 

1) to provide new farms for nomads and landless villagers; 2) to raise the standard of living 

of peoples in the valley; 3) to produce agricultural and manufactured products for export; 

4) to develop electric power; 5) to create government income to eventually pay off the 
99

investment; 6) to provide protection against floods; and 7) to provide early uses of all waters 

of the Helmand River except that portion to which Iran was entitled. Kamrany, Peaceful 

Competition in Afghanistan, 29.

23. Henry A. Byroade to Department of State, April 14, 1959, FRUS, 1958–60, 15:266, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d126.

24. Henry A. Byroade, “The Changing Position of Afghanistan in Asia,” DOS Bulletin, 

January 23, 1961, 130 (first quote); Dean Rusk to Embassy in Afghanistan, January 25, 

1963, FRUS, 1961–63, 19:483 (second quote), http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/

frus1961-63v19/d246. For continuing U.S. aid, see Clapp-Wincek and Baldwin, Helmand 

Valley Project in Afghanistan.

25. Samuel M. Burke and Lawrence Ziring, eds., Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: An Historical 

Analysis, 2d ed. (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1990), 147–73; Farooq N. Bajwa, Pakistan 

and the West: The First Decade, 1947–1957 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996), 55–95; 

Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within (Karachi: Oxford 

University Press, 2008), 92–121.

26. The latter was striking since Afghanistan had always been an agricultural exporter 

before the 1950s.

27. Ambassador Chester B. Bowles wrote to Dulles on December 30, 1953: “I believe 

we will isolate Pakistan, draw the Soviet Union certainly into Afghanistan and probably 

into India, eliminate the possibility of Pakistan-Indian or Pakistan-Afghan rapprochement, 

further jeopardize the outlook for the Indian Five Year Plan, increase the dangerous wave 

of anti-Americanism throughout India and other South Asian countries, open up explosive 

new opportunities for the Soviet Union, gravely weaken the hopes for stable democratic 

government in India, and add nothing whatsoever to our military strength in the area.” Quoted 

from Bowles’s personal papers in Robert J. McMahon, The Cold War on the Periphery: The 

United States, India, and Pakistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 174.

28. National Security Council, “Statement of Policy on U.S. Policy Toward South Asia,” 

January 10, 1957, FRUS, 1955–57, 8:33–34, 37, 42, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/

frus1955-57v08/d5.

29. Memorandum of Conversation, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 9, 1959, FRUS, 1958–

60, 15:324, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d151. This comment was 

repeated during Naim’s visit with Eisenhower eight months later. Memorandum of Conversation, 

New York, NY, September 23, 1960, ibid., 15:356, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/

frus1958-60v15/d171.

30. Richard Gott, ed., Documents on International Affairs, 1960 (London: Oxford 

University Press, 1964), 483–86.

31. Editorial Note, FRUS, 1958–60, 15:359, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/

frus1958-60v15/d172.

32. Byroade to Department of State, September 29, 1960, ibid., 15:360–62, http://

history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d173.

33. Dwight D. Eisenhower to Mohammad Zahir Shah, October 21, 1960, ibid., 15:366, 

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v15/d177.

34. Nikita S. Khrushchev, speech, March 6, 1960, Moscow, USSR, American Foreign 

Policy Current Documents, 1960 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1964), 501–2 

(hereafter AFP Current Docs). Khrushchev viewed the Pashtunistan conflict as a means 

to pressure Pakistan for its ties to Washington. See Roby C. Barrett, The Greater Middle 

East and the Cold War: U.S. Foreign Policy under Eisenhower and Kennedy (London: I. B. 

Tauris, 2007), 403.

35. White House press release, October 17, 1961, and notes, AFP Current Docs, 1961, 692.
100

36. McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery, 267; Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 185–87; Burke 

and Ziring, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, 195–97.

37. Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 185. Peshawar Air Station in Badaber was later used as 

a training camp for Afghan mujahideen as part of Operation Cyclone, the CIA program to 

fund the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war. Peter L. Bergen argues convincingly of 

the limited contact between CIA officers and Afghan and Arab mujahideen, as operational 

activities and training were ceded to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Bergen, Holy 

War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: Free Press, 2001), 65–66.

38. McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery, 320; Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 186–87. The 

base in Peshawar was the departure point of Francis Gary Powers’s ill-fated U–2 mission on 

May 1, 1960.

39. Quoted in McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery, 320.

40. “Prime Minister of Afghanistan Visits the United States,” DOS Bulletin, April 17, 

1967, 627–31.

41. Jacob C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension (New York: Praeger, 

for Council on Foreign Relations, 1969), 303.

42. There is no established source for this frequently cited remark.

43. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 174; Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of 

Its People and Politics (New York: Perennial, 2002), 179; M. Hassan Kakar, “The Fall of 

the Afghan Monarchy in 1973,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (May 1978): 

195–214.

44. Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 350–51; Burke and Ziring, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, 432–34.

45. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 181.

Six

1. Muhammad R. Azmi, “Soviet Politico-Military Penetration in Afghanistan, 1955 

to 1979,” Armed Forces & Society 12 (Spring 1986): 329–49; Vladimir Shlapentokh, 

Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: The Post-Stalin Era (London: I. B. Tauris, 1990), 

147–48. Earlier tradition is evident in John L. H. Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and 

Society in Russia, 1462–1874 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 231–72.

2. Quoted in Henry S. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (Durham, NC: 

Duke University Press, 1983), 27.

3. An examination of the biographies of the leaders of the three effective coups reveals 

this. According to Alam Payind, the Soviet military trained 4,000 Afghan officers between 1956 

and 1978. Payind, “Soviet-Afghan Relations from Cooperation to Occupation,” International 

Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (February 1989): 112.

4. Military officers and coup leaders with direct Soviet ties included Pacha Gul 

Wafadar, Faiz Muhammad, Mohammad Rafi, Abdul Qadir Dagarwal, Abdul Hamid Muhtat, 

Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, Sherjan Mazdoryar, and Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoi. For 

discussion of the coup leaders, see Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People 

and Politics (New York: Perennial, 2002), 179–80; Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: A 

History of Struggle and Survival (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 175; Bradsher, 

Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 56–57; Fred Halliday, “Revolution in Afghanistan,” 

New Left Review, November–December 1978, 3–44.

5. See The Military Balance, 1973–1974 (London: International Institute for Strategic 

Studies, 1973), 49; The Military Balance, 1975–1976 (London: International Institute for 

Strategic Studies, 1975), 52; The Military Balance, 1977–1978 (London: International Institute 
101

for Strategic Studies, 1977), 55–56; The Military Balance, 1979–1980 (London: International 

Institute for Strategic Studies, 1979), 62–63. This was the third time in a decade that the Soviets 

conferred military aid to Afghanistan: November 14, 1966; September 4, 1969; and May 22, 

1973. See Vasilii S. Khristoforov, Afganistan: Praviashchaia partiia i armiia (1978–1989)

[Afghanistan: The Ruling Party and the Army] (Moscow: Granitsa, 2009), 16.

6. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 178–84.

7. See Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan’s Two-Party Communism: Parcham and Khalq

(Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1983).

8. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 59–66.

9. See ibid., 74–109, for an overview of the Saur Revolution.

10. Ibid., 77. This announcement was premature since the palace had not yet been captured.

11. Ewans, Afghanistan, 187.

12. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 76.

13. Ibid., 82–85.

14. Afghanistan Task Force, “Afghanistan: Soviet Invasion and U.S. Response” (Issue 

Brief IB80006, Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC, May 2, 1980), 3, http://

digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs8151/m1/1/high_res_d/IB80006_1980May02.pdf. 

15. Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 2010), 225–33.

16. On May 1, 1978, the PDPA announced the names of the twenty-one cabinet members 

of the new government. There were eleven Khalqi and ten Parcham party members. Four had 

received training in the Soviet Union and spoke Russian, yet almost all spoke English. There 

were nine Pashtuns, eight Tajiks, two Hazaras, and two Uzbeks. See Louis Dupree, “The 

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, 1979: Rhetoric, Repression, Reforms, and Revolts” 

(Report No. 32, American Universities Field Staff, Hanover, NH, 1979), 2.

17. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 89.

18. Rosanne Klass, “Afghanistan: The Accords,” Foreign Affairs 66 (Summer 1988): 934.

19. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 96.

20. Arnold, Afghanistan’s Two-Party Communism, 61. U.S. Afghanistan expert Louis 

Dupree supported this argument in “A Communist Label is Unjustified,” New York Times, 

May 20, 1978, 18.

21. Barnett R. Rubin, “Political Elites in Afghanistan: Rentier State Building, Rentier 

State Wrecking,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (February 1992): 77–99.

22. Edward Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985), 105.

23. “The Kidnapping and Death of Ambassador Adolph Dubs, February 14, 1979, 

Kabul, Afghanistan” (Office of Security, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, 1980).

24. Harold H. Saunders, statement before subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, House 

Foreign Relations Committee, September 26, 1979, American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 

1977–1980 (Washington: U.S. Department of State, 1983), 809 (hereafter AFP Basic Docs).

25. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, 

from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004), 42–46; Bradsher, 

Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 99.

26. Christian Friedrich Ostermann, “New Evidence on the War in Afghanistan,” Cold War 

International History Project Bulletin 14/15 (Winter 2003–Spring 2004): 139–40.

27. Gilles Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2005), 98–104.

28. Patrick J. Garrity, “The Soviet Military Stake in Afghanistan, 1956–1979,” Journal of 

the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies 125 (September 1980): 34; Washington 

Post, May 10, 1979.
102

29. Quoted in Coll, Ghost Wars, 40.

30. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 102; Khristoforov, Afganistan, 27–28.

31. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 150–51.

32. Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–89 (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2011), 55.

33. George Jacobs, “Afghanistan Forces: How Many Soviets Are There?” Jane’s Defence 

Weekly, June 22, 1985, 1228–33. Military Balance, 1979–80, 106, noted that twenty-two Mi–8s, 

twenty PT–78s, and twelve Mi–24s were granted in March and April 1979. 

34. Artemy M. Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 19.

35. Taraki and Amin had considerable misgivings about Soviet intentions. See M. Hassan 

Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982 (Berkeley: University 

of California Press, 1995), 40–45.

36. Quoted in Robert F. Baumann, Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, 

Central Asia, and Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1993), 133.

37. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 20–21; Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 110–25.

38. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 21; Odd Arne Westad, “Concerning the Situation in ‘A’: 

New Russian Evidence on the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan,” Cold War International 

History Project Bulletin 8–9 (Winter 1996–97): 128–32, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/

default/files/e-dossier_4.pdf.

39. Nake M. Kamrany, The Six Stages in the Sovietization of Afghanistan (Boulder, CO: 

Economic Institute for Research and Education, 1983), 14. On mujahideen ideology, see Robert 

Johnson, The Afghan Way of War: How and Why They Fight (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2011), 205–47.

40. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (1973; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 776–77. 

41. Saikal, Modern Afghanistan, 198.

42. Vladimir Snegirev and Valery Samunin, The Dead End: The Road to Afghanistan, ed. 

Svetlana Savranskaya and Malcolm Byrne (Washington, DC: National Security Archive, 2012), 

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB396/Full%20Text%20Virus%20A.pdf.

43. Braithwaite, Afgantsy, 89–94; Peter Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic 

Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers (New York: Public Affairs, 

2011), 171–78. Also see Aleksander A. Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest’ Afgana [The Tragedy 

and Valor of the Afghan] (Moscow: GPI Iskona, 1995), 144–51; Khristoforov, Afganistan, 

37–38; Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 169–88.

44. “Remarks at a White House Briefing for Members of Congress,” January 8, 1980 (first 

quote); Meet the Press, January 20, 1980 (second quote), Public Papers of the Presidents of the 

United States, 1980–1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), 1:40, 111. For 

an overview of the U.S. response, see Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 189–204.

45. “Budget Message,” Public Papers of the Presidents, 1980–81, 1:230; Bradsher, 

Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 190. For the Olympic boycott, see Nicholas E. Sarantakes, 

Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War (New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 2011); Stephanie W. McConnell, “Jimmy Carter, Afghanistan, 

and the Olympic Boycott: The Last Crisis of the Cold War?” (PhD diss., Bowling Green State 

University, 2001).

46. Brzezinski has given slightly different variations to this story in interviews over the years, 

particularly in relation to covert U.S. aid that began in July 1979. For a parsing of his statements, 

see John B. White Jr., “The Strategic Mind of Zbigniew Brzezinski: How a Native Pole Used 

Afghanistan to Protect His Homeland” (master’s thesis, Louisiana State University, 2012), 82–90, 

97, http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04252012-175722/unrestricted/WHITE_THESIS.pdf.
103

47. Coll, Ghost Wars, 89–106. Operation Cyclone was the code name of the CIA program 

to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen. See also Thomas T. Hammond, Red Flag over 

Afghanistan: The Communist Coup, the Soviet Invasion, and the Consequences (Boulder, CO: 

Westview Press, 1984), 120–21.

48. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 227–37; Kakar, Afghanistan, 66–69; 

Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest’ Afgana, 151–55.

49. Military Balance, 1977–78, 55–56; Military Balance, 1979–80, 62–63.

50. Braithwaite, Afgantsy, 136–39; Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest’ Afgana, 178–80.

51. Lester W. Grau, trans. and ed., The Bear Went over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics 

in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996), offers Soviet views on 

tactics and operations in Afghanistan.

52. Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest’ Afgana, 450; Khristoforov, Afganistan, 41–42; 

Braithwaite, Afgantsy, 140. This was the first of four major phases of the Soviet war in 

Afghanistan: phase one (December 1979–February 1980); phase two (March 1980–April 1985); 

phase three (April 1985–January 1987); and phase four (January 1987–February 1989). See 

Russian General Staff, The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost, trans. and 

ed. Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 12–14, 

for descriptions of each phase.

53. Scott R. McMichael, “The Soviet Army, Counterinsurgency, and the Afghan War,” 

Parameters 19 (December 1989): 21–35, http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/

Articles/1989/1989%20mcmichael.pdf. As an example, Liakhovskii described his variable 

relationship and intermittent conflict with Ahmad Shah Massoud. Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest’ 

Afgana, 494–525.

54. “Chemical Warfare in Afghanistan,” Department of State report for Congress, 

March 22, 1982, American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1982 (Washington, DC: 

Department of State, 1985), 909–12 (hereafter AFP Current Docs); “An Update on Chemical 

Warfare in Afghanistan,” Department of State report for United Nations, November 1982, 

ibid., 919–20.

55. Russian General Staff, Soviet-Afghan War, 48–52.

56. The number increased to 750,000 by May 1980. Afghanistan Task Force, “Afghanistan,” 

4, 6. According to Kathleen Newland and Erin Patrick, more than six million Afghans became 

refugees during the 1980s. Newland and Patrick, “A Nation Displaced: The World’s Largest 

Refugee Population,” WorldView 14 (Fall 2001): 51–53, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/

displaced.php.

57. Ronald W. Reagan, “Appeal to Soviet President Brezhnev for Peace in Afghanistan,” 

March 20, 1982, AFP Current Docs, 907.

58. George H. W. Bush, speech, May 17, 1984, Peshawar, Pakistan, AFP Current Docs, 

1984, 614.

59. Ibid., 614–15; Howard B. Schaffer, “Working Toward a Political Settlement while 

Continuing Our Support for the Resistance,” statement before subcommittee on Asian and Pacific 

Affairs, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, June 14, 1989, AFP Current Docs, 1989, 466–67.

60. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 16–44.

61. Ibid., 93–121.

62. Ibid., 113–14.

63. Ronald W. Reagan, statement by the president, June 16, 1986, AFP Current Docs, 

1986, 472.

64. George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert 

Operation in History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).

65. Braithwaite, Afgantsy, 205.
104

66. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 43. Edward B. Westermann, “The Limits of Soviet 

Airpower: The Failure of Military Coercion in Afghanistan, 1979–1989,” Journal of Conflict 

Studies 19 (Fall 1989): 39–71, underlined the psychological importance of the Stinger missile 

since “accuracy and effectiveness of subsequent air operations suffered even more.”

67. This was a complex, heavily debated, and extended process for Soviet leaders. See 

Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 147–77; Igor Tsybul’skii, Boris Gromov (Moscow: Molodaia 

gvardiia, 2008), 218–27.

68. Quoted in Baumann, Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars, 148.

69. Lester W. Grau, “Breaking Contact Without Leaving Chaos: The Soviet Withdrawal 

from Afghanistan,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 20 (April 2007): 235–61.

70. Quoted in Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs, and Crime are 

Reshaping the Afghan Wars (New York: Picador, 2010), 56.

71. John H. Kelly, “Policy Toward Afghanistan,” March 7, 1990, AFP Currents Docs, 

1990, 643.

72. “Joint Statement and Commentary issued by Secretary of State Baker and Soviet 

Foreign Minister Pankin,” September 13, 1991, Moscow, USSR, AFP Current Docs, 1991, 650.

73. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 206–8; Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending, 237–40.

74. Barfield, Afghanistan, 241.

75. Gen. Boris Gromov even wrote in a major Moscow newspaper in December 1999 that 

the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a huge political mistake. See Tsybul’skii, Gromov, 227.

76. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 209; Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending, 235–37; Johnson, 

Afghan Way of War, 249–54.

Epilogue

1. Artemy M. Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 107.

2. Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 2010), 248.

3. Gilles Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2005), 237–38. Najibullah lived in the United Nations headquarters 

in Kabul until September 27, 1996, when Taliban soldiers took him to his torture and death.

4. The text of the accords is in Amera Saeed, “Afghanistan, Peshawar, and After,” Regional 

Studies (Islamabad) 11, no. 2 (1993): 103–58.

5. Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending, 239.

6. Ibid., 240–50; Aleksandr A. Liakhovskii and Viacheslav Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, 

Politik, Voin: Pamiati Akhmad Shakha Masuda [Citizen, Politician, Warrior: In Memory 

of Ahmad Sheikh Massoud] (Moscow: n.p., 2007), 233–53; Peter Tomsen, The Wars of 

Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers (New 

York: Public Affairs, 2011), 486–96.

7. Neamatollah Nojumi, “The Rise and Fall of the Taliban,” in Robert D. Crews and Amin 

Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 

Press, 2008), 91.

8. Martin K. Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics (New York: 

Perennial, 2002), 255.

9. Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs, and Crime are Reshaping the 

Afghan Wars (New York: Picador, 2010), 74–75. See also Vanda Felbab-Brown, Shooting Up: 

Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010), ch. 5.
105

10. Nojumi, “Rise and Fall of the Taliban,” 101; Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending, 

246; Robert Johnson, The Afghan Way of War: How and Why They Fight (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2011), 254–56.

11. Larry P. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and 

the Rise of the Taliban (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 108; Ahmed Rashid, 

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 2000), 18–19, 84.

12. Olivier Roy, “Has Islamism a Future in Afghanistan?” in William Maley, ed., 

Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (New York: New York University Press, 

1998), 211.

13. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 211.

14. Brian Glyn Williams, The Last Warlord: The Life and Legend of Dostum, the Afghan 

Warrior who led U.S. Special Forces to Topple the Taliban Regime (Chicago, IL: Chicago 

Review Press, 2013), 161–207.

15. His battles with Soviet special forces took place in the spring of 1987. Ali H. Soufan 

with Daniel Freedman, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against alQaeda (New York: Norton, 2011), 63; Peter L. Bergen, The Longest War: The Enduring 

Conflict between America and al-Qaeda (New York: Free Press, 2011), 16.

16. Bergen, Longest War, 15.

17. For an overview of bin Laden’s relationship with the Taliban, see Soufan, Black 

Banners, 52, 56–72; Bergen, Longest War, 11–35; Bruce O. Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda: 

Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 

37–60; Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: 

Knopf, 2006); Anonymous [Michael Scheuer], Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin 

Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002), 151–

93; The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist 

Attacks Upon the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 

63–70; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes: 9/11 and the U.S. Air Force (Washington, 

DC: U.S. Air Force History and Museums Program, 2011), 46–51.

18. Rashid, Taliban, 133.

19. In April 1998, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations William B. Richardson visited 

Afghanistan and requested that the Taliban expel bin Laden. He was the highest-ranking U.S. official 

to visit Afghanistan in decades. 9/11 Commission Report, 111.

20. 9/11 Commission Report, 65; Rashid, Taliban, 133.

21. John F. Burns, “Threats and Responses: Assassination; Afghans, Too, Mark a Day 

of Disaster: A Hero Was Lost,” New York Times, September 9, 2002, http://www.nytimes.

com/2002/09/09/world/threats-responses-assassination-afghans-too-mark-day-disasterhero-was-lost.html.

22. Kalinovsky, Long Goodbye, 224–25.

23. Winston S. Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898; reprint, Mineola, 

NY: Dover Publications, 2010), 6.
Michael R. Rouland is a historian with the Naval History and 

Heritage Command, Washington, D.C. Before accepting this 

position in 2013, he worked for the U.S. Air Force Historical 

Studies Office in Washington, where he wrote this manuscript. 

He holds a doctorate in history from Georgetown University.