The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System - Softcover

Rubin, Professor Barnett R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300059639 ISBN 13: 9780300059632

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Afghanistan has long been a country in turmoil. For decades, imperial powers, Islamic fundamentalists, tribal warriors, and communists have struggled for control of a nation that is geographically and ethnically fragmented. Their conflict reached a peak in the fourteen-year-long civil war that erupted in 1978, a war that resulted in the disintegration of Afghanistan as a state.
This fascinating book is a complete analysis of the Afghan civil war, from the 1978 communist coup to the fall of Najibullah, the last Soviet-installed president, in 1992. Drawing on interviews and unpublished private and government documents, Barnett Rubin shows how both the communist regime and the mujahidin (Islamic resistance) recruited leaders and mobilized resources for the conflict, and how international changes - from the election of Ronald Reagan to the collapse of the Soviet Union - affected the Afghan state. Rubin argues that the origins, conduct, and resolution of the war were a function of Afghanistan's connections to the international community, for Afghanistan was incorporated into a state system not of its own making, and foreign financial and military assistance transformed both tribalism and fundamentalism to the point that they are as much creations of international conflict as the resurgence of local traditions. Using theories of state formation and breakdown and of revolution, Rubin provides a comparative framework that makes it possible to integrate this investigation with other studies of Cold War regional conflict and post-Cold War state breakdown.

About this title

Review

The tortured history of Afghanistan is illuminatingly outlined by Barnett S. Rubin, an American academic and human rights monitor in the region. In the 19th century, the country successfully resisted colonial rule, becoming a buffer between the imperial superpowers, Britain and Russia. That dangerous position resulted in an isolation that held back modernization and the emergence of a modern central government. In this century, the Soviet Union and the United States maintained the status quo up until the early seventies, when a communist coup heralded massive outside intervention. The country was ripe for a disastrous fragmentation. This scholarly study is complemented by a sequel: The Search for Peace in Afghanistan.

From the Back Cover

Praise for the earlier edition: "This study is theoretically informed, empirically grounded, and gracefully written. Anyone who wants to understand Afghanistan's troubled history and the reasons for its present distress should read this book."—Foreign Affairs "This is the book on Afghanistan for the educated public."—Political Science Quarterly

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0300059639
• ISBN 13: 9780300059632
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400