Afghanistan has long been a crossroads of world cultures, economies, politics, and militaries. RAND's early research on Afghanistan examined the 1980s Soviet military campaign and the subsequent fundamentalist Islamic regime. Since Operation Enduring Freedom, the 2001 U.S. military effort to rout the Taliban and find Osama bin Ladin's Al Qaeda network, RAND has engaged the new Afghan government, military, and people to support reconstruction, counterinsurgency, and nation-building efforts.
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The Afghan fundamentalist (Islamist) movement, which has been active in Afghan politics since the late 1960s, has been powerfully reinforced by the Soviet invasion and, subsequently, by the mujahidin's sensational victory over the Red Army.
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By 1987, the prospects that the Soviet army would ever be able to leave Afghanistan in the hands of a secure client communist regime were becoming more and more remote. But the costs of withdrawal seemed too great to contemplate.
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This paper, based on material that appeared in the winter, 1987, issue of Global Affairs, examines the origins and evolution of U.S. policies and attitudes toward the Afghan-Soviet war and their implications for the outcome of the war on the Afghan people
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Historical analogy that explains, to a large degree, the apparent inability of the Soviet-backed Afghan regimes to defeat the Afghan resistance movements and to govern the population in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in Dec 1979.
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An examination of the presence and function of Soviet Central Asian soldiers in the Soviet forces invading Afghanistan.
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International Policy Analyst
M.A. in national security affairs, Naval Postgraduate School; M.A. in strategic intelligence, American Military University; B.A. in political science, University of Colorado-Boulder
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Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center, RAND National Defense Research Institute
B.S. in international affairs, Georgetown School of Foreign Service
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Senior Project Associate
M.A. in journalism, University of Texas, Austin; M.P.H., Eastern Virginia Medical School
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Editor-in-Chief, RAND Review; Communications Analyst
M.P.P. in public policy, administration, and analysis, Harvard University; M.J. in journalism, University of California, Berkeley; B.A. in American Studies, Georgetown University
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Project Associate
M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University; B.A. in international studies, Johns Hopkins University
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Senior Political Scientist
Ph.D. and M.A. in political science, University of Chicago; A.B., Bowdoin College
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Senior Operations Researcher; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Ph.D. in mathematics, M.S. in computer and systems engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; M.A. in strategic studies, U.S. Army War College; B.S., United States Military Academy, West Point
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Project Associate
M.I.A. in political development, Middle East and Central Asia, Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs; B.A. in political science, University of California, Berkeley
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Senior Political Scientist
J.D., The University of Chicago Law School; A.B. in international affairs, Princeton University
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Senior Political Scientist
Ph.D. in history, M.A. in anthropology, Stanford University; A.B.D. in anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles; B.A. in history and Spanish literature, Loyola Marymount University
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Director, International & Security Policy Department; Associate Director, International Security & Defense Policy Center; Senior International Policy Analyst
M.P.P., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; B.A. in international studies, Emory University
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Adjunct Staff
Ph. in modern history, Rupprecht-Karl University, Heidelberg, Germany; M.A. in international relations, Boston University; B.A. in humanities, Princeton University
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Assistant Policy Analyst
M.Phil. in policy analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School; M.A. in international policy analysis, Stanford University; B.Sc. in chemical engineering, Balkh University
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Political Scientist
Ph.D., M.Phil, and M.A. in modern European history, Yale University; B.A. in history, Stanford University
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