Afghanistan

de National Security Archive (U.S.)

The Afghanistan document collection provides a contemporary record of many of the political and military developments that caused an isolated, Third World country situated at the rugged cross-roads of Asia to become the battleground for the bloodiest and costliest superpower proxy war of the 1980s. The collection consists of 2,326 documents totaling approximately 15,000 pages. While the bulk of the documentation was produced between 1979 and 1988--the period of the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan--the collection also encompasses events leading up to the 1979 Soviet invasion and includes the Soviet withdrawal during 1988-1989. Collectively, the documents cover most aspects of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan from 1973 to 1990.