For most people, it was the Soviet invasion over Christmas 1979 that put Afghanistan on the political map when, in the very last days of the 1970s, the Soviet leadership made the central Asian country the arena of the hottest conflict in the last part of the Cold War. As a result, the internationalised Afghanistan conflict, currently in its 33rd year, has been explained mainly through a Cold War perspective. AAN’s new Occasional Report ‘How It All Began: A Short Look at the Pre-1979 Origins of Afghanistan’s Conflict’ by Thomas Ruttig looks further back.