Afghanistan: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1973–1990 Afghanistan: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1973–1990 Access information. Access on and off campus. Description. The Afghanistan collection provides a contemporaneous record of the political and military developments that caused an isolated country at the rugged crossroads of Asia to become the battleground for the bloodiest and costliest superpower proxy war of the 1980s. The collection consists of 2,326 documents and about 15,000 pages. The bulk is from 1979-1988 – the period of the Soviet military occupation – but the collection also encompasses events leading up to the 1979 invasion and the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1988-1989. Collectively, the documents cover all key aspects of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan from 1973 to 1990 – and bring to light fascinating parallels to the United States’ complex involvement in the country three decades later. Coverage: 1973-1990. This article was published on 2024-08-21
