This article (re)examines Afghan youth within the post-Taliban nation-building process through a close review of the growing academic literature on the nexus of development and conflict, as well as the author's personal, in-country interactions with Afghans over the past decade. It argues that when people believe in development, they view inequalities as a particular stage that they must pass through to emerge on the other side. Yet, when a country's people lose faith in the promise of development, they begin to view inequalities without the hope that reaching the other side is simply a matter of time and patience. When this ‘loss of faith’ occurs one option is to try to exit to a better place. The second option is violence—to break through to the ‘other side’ through force. This article argues that with the decade long failure of development in Afghanistan such trends are increasingly visible among Afghan youth, and suggests the need for a critical paradigm shift in the way that we view the country and the context of development there.