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Honorable Mention, 2025 Charles H. Norchi Prize, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
Long before the 1979 Soviet invasion, the United States was closely concerned with Afghanistan. For much of the twentieth century, American diplomats, policy makers, businesspeople, and experts took part in the Afghan struggle to modernize, delivered vital aid, and involved themselves in Kabul’s conflicts with its neighbors. For their own part, many Afghans embraced the potential benefits of political and commercial ties with the United States. Yet these relationships ultimately helped make the country a Cold War battleground.
Robert B. Rakove sheds new light on the little-known and often surprising history of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan from the 1920s to the Soviet invasion, tracing its evolution and exploring its lasting consequences. Days of Opportunity chronicles the battle for influence in Kabul, as Americans contended with vigorous communist bloc competition and the independent ambitions of successive Afghan governments. Rakove examines the phases of peaceful Cold War competition, including development assistance, cultural diplomacy, and disaster relief. He demonstrates that Americans feared the “loss” of Afghanistan to Soviet influence—and were never simply bystanders, playing pivotal roles in the country’s political life. The ensuing collision of U.S., Soviet, and Afghan ambitions transformed the country—and ultimately led it, and the world, toward calamity.
Harnessing extensive research in U.S. and international archives, Days of Opportunity unveils the remarkable and tragic history of American involvement in Afghanistan.
— Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences
In a narrative built on rich detail about individual diplomatic actors and their alliances, rivalries, and networks, Rakove offers tremendous insight on the extent, complexities, and contingencies of the Afghan-American bilateral relationship during the interwar and Cold War eras.
— Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, author of Connecting Histories in Afghanistan
In Days of Opportunity, Rakove uncovers the largely overlooked history of U.S.-Afghanistan relations across the twentieth century. Through expert storytelling and meticulous archival research, he details the two countries’ long, promising, yet frustrating relationship during the decades preceding the Soviet invasion. Rakove gives Afghanistan the attention it deserves as a critical player in twentieth-century international politics.
— Elisabeth Leake, author of Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan
This outstanding study offers the most comprehensive exposition and analysis to date of the Afghan-American relationship through the end of the 1970s. Based on extensive archival research, it provides essential context for anyone who seeks to understand the complex historical roots of America's failures in Afghanistan.
— Robert McMahon, author of Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order
The definitive account of US-Afghan relations prior to 1979...Days of Opportunity should be essential reading for historians of Afghanistan, historians of the Cold War, and readers interested in how the United States may exert influence in settings where it is a runner-up to rival powers.
— Timothy Nunan
This volume is an important contribution to our scholarly understanding of US engagement of Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion of the same.
— C. Christine Fair, Georgetown University
Notes for the Reader
Introduction: “A Day of Opportunity”
1. A Game of Hide-and-Seek: The Afghan Pursuit of Diplomatic Relations, 1921–1938
2. “We Have a Rare Opportunity”: U.S.-Afghan Relations Amid the World Crisis, 1938–1945
3. Preeminence and Peril: The American Influx and the Coming of the Afghan Cold War, 1945–1952
4. “We Might Be Willing to Take a Chance”: The Choice to Contest Afghanistan, 1953–1956
5. Anxious Coexistence: The Aid Contest, 1956–1959
6. The Crisis Era, 1959–1963
7. Reform and Retrenchment, 1963–1968
8. The Fall of the Monarchy, 1968–1973
9. Return to Engagement, 1973–1976
10. The End of Diplomacy, 1977–1979
Conclusion: “Into the Jaws of Catastrophe”
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
List of Archives
Index