The Gun (96 page)

For a near decade after going to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001, the United States has become a busy distributor of the assault rifles of the former Eastern bloc. Here, a swiftly formed unit of the Afghan National Auxiliary Police in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, 2007, armed with a fresh batch of Kalashnikovs. These units were later disbanded, often without recovering the weapons, the whereabouts of which are unknown. (
Photo by Tyler Hicks / The New York Times
)

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’S RIFLE

Since their inception, Kalashnikov assault rifles have displayed remarkable durability in harsh conditions. Above, an original Soviet AK-47, manufactured in Izhevsk in 1954. The rifle was still in service in Afghanistan, now in the hands of an Afghan soldier, in 2008. (
Photo by C. J. Chivers
)

The Kalashnikov, centerpiece of the former Eastern bloc’s suite of small arms, remains the predominant infantry rifle in use today worldwide. Here, an Afghan patrol in 2007 with arms provided by the United States, approaching a village on a raid with a platoon of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. There is little reason not to expect the Kalashnikov line, and the consequences of its wide distribuition, to persist for many decades more. (
Photo by Tyler Hicks / The New York Times
)