The Earth Transformed: An Untold History

by Peter Frankopan

It was a similar story in Afghanistan, a country that had positioned itself well during the first half of the twentieth century and ended the Second World War with $100 million in reserves. Nevertheless, Afghanistan was ‘a backward country’, said the prime minister, Mohammed Daoud. ‘We must do something about it or die as a nation.’ He was particularly keen on building a dam. The resultant scheme in the Helmand valley was a disaster. Rather than crystallising Afghan dreams, it turned into a nightmare. As well as the water table being raised too high, salination quickly became a big problem. Vast sums were spent on construction salaries as well as on the wages of technicians during construction; costs were passed on to farmers, who were also subject to inefficient tax collection designed to repay a US loan for the project. Perhaps worse, it encouraged competition from the Soviet Union, which was keen not to lose influence in the region; this led to the construction of the Jalalabad dam and major development of the Amu Darya River, funded by a loan worth three times that of the US, and on terms that had little chance of being met. This all helped undermine the credibility of the king and the government – setting the scene for turbulence later in the twentieth century which has continued to the present day.[66]