After decades of providing economic aid to Afghanistan, following the 1978 April Revolution and its December 1979 invasion of the country, the Soviet Union sought to remake the Afghan state economy, and society. The experience of the advisors who participated in these operations suggests that even the best attempts at development in Afghanistan will falter sans a new deal for the country’s ethno-confessional politics and a comprehensive trade and transit agreement with Pakistan and India. Our developmental interventions must be married to a promotion of more Afghan federalism as well as inter-regional trade as a foundation for peace.
Timothy Nunan, of the University of Oxford, was a 2012-2013 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) [8] fellow.
