The Search for Peace in Afghanistan : From Buffer State to Failed State

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The sequel to Barnett S. Rubin's The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, this volume relates the more recent history of a country that has been ruined in a proxy Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, then summarily abandoned to a violent anarchy fueled by outside money and weapons. Rubin, who worked as a human rights monitor in the region, details how Afghanistan moved from being a nonaligned buffer state between the superpowers, to being the meat in their sandwich. His perceptive analysis is essential background for anyone concerned with pursuing peace in Afghanistan.


The New York Times Book Review, Karl E. Meyer
Mr. Rubin remarks that if the United States and its allies won the cold war, no ally paid more for this goal than the people of Afghanistan.


Book Description
This important book discusses how changing patterns of superpower strategic conflict and cooperation have affected international negotiations over Afghanistan from the period of the civil war to the present. Along with Rubin`s earlier book, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, it provides an integrated view of the interaction among various levels of political organization-from village leaders to the U.N. Secretariat-in one of the century`s most violent conflicts.


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Afghanistan's fourteen-year-long civil war erupted in 1978 and ended in the disintegration of a state that was first hyperarmed by the superpowers and then abandoned by them. This book analyzes the part played by international politics in this debacle, discussing how changing patterns of strategic conflict and cooperation have affected international negotiations over Afghanistan from the period of the civil war to the present.


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