The complexity of the Afghan war is created by the intricacy of all the factors we have discussed in the previous chapters: qawm, tribes and ethnic affiliations, combined with ideological and political divisions and exacerbated by the influence of the three neighbouring countries (Pakistan, USSR, Iran), each of them playing both ideological and ethnic cards, in the context of a decade of East-West competition through the numerous “regional conflicts”, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua.

From the international point of view, the Afghan war has embodied different levels of conflicts which are inextricably intertwined: an East- West issue, a regional conflict and an ideological confrontation between Islam and Marxism.

The East-West issue

It is the Soviet invasion which turned a local civil war into an East-West issue. For the first time since 1946, Soviet troops invaded a country which was not a member of the Warsaw Pact. Whatever the main reason for the invasion, it was perceived by Washington as a drastic change in the balance of power between East and West, coming after a general setback of the West in the seventies (Ethiopia, Iran, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.). Hence Carter's firmness, followed by Reagan's will to obtain some success in the “roll-back” policy, which consisted of helping “freedom fighters” to topple the recently established pro-Soviet regimes. But in fact, until 1987, most of the American analysts were pessimistic about a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and thus reluctant to feed a military escalation that could trigger a spill-over into Pakistan.