between either known adversaries, or parties with sharply diver-
gent interests. While the Soviet–Afghan War was not strictly an
interstate war, it shared several of these characteristics. With hind-
sight, many signs in the 1970s pointed to looming trouble in
Afghanistan and its neighbourhood. However, Afghanistan had for
nearly half a century been one of the most stable countries in Asia
- something often overlooked – and perhaps as a result, the
warning bells were overlooked as well.
The aim of this chapter is modest: to set the scene for the dis-
cussion which makes up the core of the book. First, I offer a
brief overview of Afghan society and politics. Second, I examine
the evolution of Soviet–Afghan relations over the quarter of a
century before the April 1978 Afghan coup. Third, I trace the
sequence of events which led from the coup to the Soviet inva-
sion. The Soviet–Afghan War was in no sense inevitable: it came
about as a result of gross misunderstandings of Afghan society on
the part both of Afghan communists and their Soviet backers,
political structures which subjected neither of these groups to
checks and balances, and a configuration of international rela-
tions which provided few incentives for caution on Moscow’s
part.
THE AFGHAN CONTEXT
Afghanistan as a territorial unit
Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Southwest Asia. A vast moun-
tain range, the Hindu Kush, runs from the northeast to the southwest,
but fertile valleys between and adjacent to mountain peaks provide
some relief from the austerity of the mountains, the surfaces of which
lie largely above the treeline. The staggering physical beauty of even
its more inhospitable spaces has long fascinated visitors, and
spawned a rich body of travel literature. Through the writings of trav-
ellers such as Freya Stark and Ella Maillart, Afghanistan became a
metaphor for exotic isolation, and for detachment from the pressures
of the wider world, which had largely passed it by.
6 The Afghanistan Wars