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United States-Afghanistan Diplomatic Relations, September-December 1979: Hafizullah Amin's Struggle For Survival, Shaista Wahab

Student Work

During the 19th and early 20th centuries Afghanistan remained a buffer zone between Czarist Russia and British India. The struggle between these two powers to control the region or at least to deny such a control to their rival was called "The Great Game." When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan on December 27, 1979, the U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Kabul wrote in a telegram addressed to Washington "...the Great Game is over." The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the most recent Russian ambitious act to extend their control beyond their southern border. The Soviet control over Afghanistan lasted for more than …