Années 1990

The 1990s are presented as a decade in which armed conflicts, state repression, and strategic interests crossed regional boundaries. The book links the movement of Islamist fighters beyond Afghanistan to U.S. military relationships with governments accused of abuses, and places these developments within a longer history of imperial violence and policy continuity. In its account, the decade is not a self-contained episode but a hinge between earlier interventions and the post-September 11 expansion of American military reach.

Fighters and the aftermath of the Afghan war

After the war in Afghanistan ended, fighters described collectively as Afghans—many of whom, including Osama bin Laden, were not Afghan—turned their attention to other causes. The account names Chechnya and Bosnia among their destinations, where they received at least tacit U.S. support and were welcomed by regional governments. In Bosnia, many Islamic volunteers obtained citizenship in recognition of their military service. This movement illustrates how the networks associated with the Afghan war persisted beyond the conflict that had first drawn them together.

The book also places the 1990s within a broader chronology of political violence. In discussing comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam, Noam Chomsky argues that the Vietnam War began with a U.S. attack on South Vietnam and ended with the destruction of almost all Indochina. The costs to the United States, he contends, were far smaller than the consequences for Indochina; similarly, the Soviet Union’s costs in Afghanistan do not displace the central importance of the invasion’s harm. This comparison challenges accounts that foreground the burden borne by the intervening power over the consequences for the invaded region.

Arms, repression, and displacement

The book gives particular attention to U.S. military support for Turkey during its 1990s counteroffensive against Kurds in the country’s southeast. It states that the United States supplied 80 percent of the weapons used. The campaign killed tens of thousands of people, displaced between two and three million, and destroyed 3,500 villages—seven times the number the book attributes to Kosovo under NATO bombing. The scale of these consequences is used to place U.S. arms transfers alongside the repression they enabled.

The account traces a sharp increase in arms deliveries beginning in 1984, when Turkey launched its attacks, and says deliveries did not return to their earlier level until 1999, after the Turkish government had achieved its stated aims. That year Turkey lost its position as the leading U.S. arms customer, apart from Israel and Egypt; Colombia replaced it. The book identifies Colombia as the country with the gravest human-rights record in its region during the 1990s and as the largest recipient of U.S. arms and military training there. The sequence supports its argument that military aid followed a recurring pattern rather than an isolated exception.

Policy continuity and the uses of crisis

The decade also supplies a backdrop for the book’s account of political continuity into the post-September 11 period. Chomsky characterizes the Bush administration’s use of the attacks to advance military expansion, weaken social programs, redirect public concern, and transfer more wealth toward a small number of people as an acceleration of existing tendencies. He connects this agenda to the concentration of influence among powerful domestic interests, while noting that popular opinion remains one influence on government even in highly authoritarian societies.

A similar continuity appears in the discussion of unilateral power. In 1993, Bill Clinton told the United Nations that the United States intended to act “multilaterally if possible, but unilaterally if necessary.” Madeleine Albright reiterated that position, and in 1999 Defense Secretary William Cohen described reliance on the unilateral use of military power to defend U.S. vital interests, including access to markets, energy, and strategic resources. The book treats George W. Bush’s approach as a more pronounced version of familiar practice: the later need to assemble a coalition might soften official language without changing policy, with coalition partners expected to support U.S. action rather than share in its decisions.

Strategic geography and the decade’s legacy

The book’s account of Afghanistan after September 11 links military basing to the strategic geography of the 1990s and its aftermath. It identifies the Persian Gulf as the location of the world’s principal energy reserves and Central Asia as another significant source. Afghanistan itself is described as a comparatively minor piece on that strategic board, but a possible route for pipelines that could assist U.S. efforts to influence Central Asian resources. The discussion also notes instability north of Afghanistan, including Uzbekistan’s conflict with an Islamist rebellion and Tajikistan’s role in drug trafficking toward Europe.

The ensuing establishment of major U.S. bases in Central Asia is presented as a significant consequence of the Afghanistan war. In Chomsky’s analysis, these bases could help secure access to regional resources and extend a military network directed toward the Persian Gulf, previously anchored most securely at Diego Garcia. He further interprets the bombings of Afghanistan and Serbia as demonstrations of American power and alliance credibility, while explicitly framing the purpose attributed to the Afghanistan campaign as an inference rather than a claim based on confidential documents. Across these arguments, the 1990s matter both for the violence and military relationships they contain and for the policy patterns the book sees continuing beyond them.