ABSTRACT
This chapter advances three arguments on the relationship between foreign intervention and warfare over the period of 1980 to 1992 in the Afghan Civil War; first, that between 1980 and 1988, the poverty trap was the defining feature in the balance of capabilities; and second, that increasing the foreign resources to both sides in the conflict acted not to overcome, but to reinforce, the poverty trap. That is, the stalemate continued, but at higher absolute levels. Finally, after 1988, the disengagement of the Soviet Union and the United States radically reduced the military power of the belligerents and projected the warfare towards a militia style. The poverty trap operates primarily within the concentration of capabilities, and only indirectly in the average military power. The change in the pattern of foreign intervention had a predictable impact on the balance of capabilities.
