Afghanistan I: America's Great Game

Welcome back to SNAFUBAR. This week's episode marks the start of a three part series focusing on Afghanistan from a historical and cultural perspective, both as a region and later, as a country. And of course, as is the theme of our podcast, we will be discussing in detail the history of war and the role of outside players, namely Britain, Russia and the United States. This series is also the first of our "Close Look" groupings where we delve deep into one subject matter over the course of multiple episodes. SNAFUBAR is hosted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sara Hart⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, who teaches Religious Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeff Crane ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠who is an Environmental Historian and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt. Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle EastBergen, The Longest War Carter, “Energy and the National Goals - A Crisis of Confidence”Crosby, “The Real White Man’s Burden”Coll, Ghost WarsDeudney, “Sphere of Influence”Goodman and Coll, “Ghost Wars: How Reagan Armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan”Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden”Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live ByNSA Archive, “Excerpt from Record of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker, February 9, 1990”Research and writing for the show is done by Liam Salcuni and Roman Sotomayor SNAFUBAR is produced by Abigail Smithson and brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt.