Humanitarian Invasion

Humanitarian Invasion is the first book of its kind: a ground-level inside account of what development and humanitarianism meant for Afghanistan a country touched by international aid like no other. Relying on Soviet Western and NGO archives interviews with Soviet advisers and NGO workers and Afghan sources Timothy Nunan forges a vivid account of the impact of development on a country on the front lines of the Cold War. Nunan argues that Afghanistan functioned as a laboratory for the future of the Third World nation-state. If in the 1960s Soviets Americans and Germans sought to make a territorial national economy for Afghanistan later under military occupation Soviet nation-builders French and Swedish humanitarians and Pakistani-supported guerrillas fought a transnational civil war over Afghan statehood. Covering the entire period from the Cold War to Taliban rule Humanitarian Invasion signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of international history.