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Rob Rakove Profile picture
Rob Rakove
@RobRakove
Historian of U.S. foreign relations at Stanford University | author of "Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World" | 80s enthusiast and Chicago Cubs fan.
Oct 31, 2021 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
"Graveyard of Empires": A Thread Not Ultimately about Afghanistan

(looking at the prehistory of 🇦🇫's worst cliché) Everyone writing anything about Afghanistan has to contend with the notion that it is the historical "graveyard of empires." Afghans and scholars find it tiresome, reductive, and insulting.
Sep 3, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The figure was, in fact, $695,000. Carter did not have a spare half-billion in petty cash to throw around. In contemporary terms, adjusted for inflation and at the present exchange rate, that's somewhat less than the asking price for this handsome Bayswater flat.
rightmove.co.uk/properties/109…
Sep 15, 2019 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
On September 15, 1979, the cover of the Kabul Times depicted General Secretary Nur Mohammed Taraki's earlier appearance at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit in Havana. By the time the papers reached the public, Taraki had been ousted and imprisoned.
#Afghanistan1979 The coup within the Khalq, which proved disastrous for Afghanistan, had its roots in growing tensions within the governing faction, as well as between the Soviets and Hafizullah Amin. As we've seen, the Soviets largely blamed Amin for the regime's brutality and incompetence.