Originally published on August 1, 2022 (Episode 274)
Introduction
On December 24, 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, entering a country already fractured by civil war. Figuratively, Afghans had been engaged in a struggle over their identity and direction for nearly a century. By 1978, dissension had erupted into political violence as competing factions sought to impose their preferred model of statehood.
As Elisabeth Leake argues, Afghanistan’s fate was never determined solely by the Cold War or by policymakers in Moscow and Washington. It was also the crucible of regional ambitions—and above all, Afghan desires, plans, and dreams. “This failure of Afghan politics,” she writes, “was not preordained and was a messy, protracted affair.”
About the Guest
Elisabeth Leake is Associate Professor at The Fletcher School of Tufts University where she holds the Lee E. Dirks Professorship in Diplomatic History. She is the author of The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands in the Era of Decolonization, 1936–65 and, most recently, Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2022).
For Further Investigation
Elisabeth Leake, Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2022)
Elisabeth Leake, The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands in the Era of Decolonization, 1936–65 (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
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💬 Listen & Discuss
How does reframing Afghanistan’s history through Afghan agency change our understanding of the Cold War? Share your thoughts in the comments—and consider forwarding this episode to someone who thinks they already know the “Afghan story.”
