Afghanistan War (1978–1992)

The Afghanistan War (1978-92) was a civil war in Afghanistan that matched the Soviet Union and its Afghan allies against a coalition of anti-Communist groups, supported from the outside by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and France. The war ended the détente period of the Cold War, and ended in a humiliating defeat for the Soviets, who pulled out in 1989, and for their clients who were overthrown in 1992.

Origins

The world was stunned in 1979 when the Soviets sent their army into Afghanistan, which had always been neutral and uninvolved.

The old monarchy was replaced by democratization and the rise of the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The Afghanistan crisis began in April 1978 with a coup d'etat by Afghan Communists called "the Saur Revolution". They tried to impose scientific socialism on a country that did not want to be modernized-- indeed, which was heading in the opposite direction under the lure of Muslim fundamentalism of the sort that had topped the Shah in next-door Iran. Disobeying orders from Moscow, the coup leaders systematically executed the leadership of the large Parcham clan, thus guaranteeing a civil war among the country's many feuding ethnic groups. In addition the Communists in Afghanistan were themselves bitterly divided between the Khalq and Parcham factions. Moscow confronted a quandary. Afghanistan had been neutralized for sixty years, and had never been part of the Cold War system. Now it appeared that radical fundamentalist Muslims, supported by Pakistan and Iran, and probably by China and the United States, were about to seize power. The Communist regime in Kabul had no popular support; its 100,000-man army had fallen apart and was worthless. Only the Soviet army could possibly quell the growing rebellion by Parcham, the fundamentalist "Mujahedin", and allied tribes.

The Kremlin fully realized the dangers involved. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko warned the Politburo in March 1979 that Soviet intervention in an Afghan civil war would violate international law and would be sharply condemned worldwide. According to Leninist principles, Afghanistan was not ready for revolution in the first place. Furthermore intervention would destroy detente with the United States and Western Europe. On the other hand, Gomyko insisted, "We cannot surrender Afghanistan to the enemy." Despite urgent calls from Kabul, the Kremlin hesitated. But factions within the Afghan People's Democratic Party (Communist) government that were hostile to Soviet interests gained ascendancy and raised the specter of an independently minded Communist state located on the southern border that might cause future trouble inside the Moslem parts of the USSR. At this point Moscow decided not to send troops but instead stepped up shipments of military equipment such as artillery, armored personnel carriers and 48,000 machine guns; they also sent 100,000 tons of wheat (ironically, the latter was purchased from the U.S.) Washington followed events closely, worried about Soviet expansion plans and a possible breakthrough to the south.

Moscow's man in Kabul was prime minister Mohammed Taraki, who was murdered and replaced by his deputy Hafizullah Amin in September 1979. Although Amin called himself a loyal Communist, and begged for more Soviet military intervention, Moscow thought Amin was planning to double-cross them and switch over to China and the US. They therefore double crossed him first. Moscow had Amin officially invite the Soviet Army to enter Afghanistan; it did so in December 1979, and immediately executed Amin and installed a Soviet puppet. Pressure for intervention seems to have come primarily from the KGB (secret police), whose efforts to assassinate Amin had failed, and from the Soviet Army, which perhaps was worried about the danger of a mutiny on the part of its many Moslem soldiers. The Muslim Soviet soldiers indeed proved unreliable, and were soon replaces by Slavs.

World reaction

In July, 1979, before the Soviet invasion, President Jimmy Carter for the first time authorized the CIA to start assisting the Mujahedin rebels with money and non-military supplies sent via Pakistan. As soon as the Societs invaded in December, 1979, Carter, disgusted at the collapse of detente and alarmed at the rapid Soviet gains, terminated progress on arms limitations, slapped a grain embargo on Russia, withdrew from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and (with near-unanimous support in Congress) sent the CIA in to arm, train and finance the Afghan "Mujahidin" rebels. The boycott of the Olympics humiliated the Soviets, who had hoped the games would validate their claim to moral equality in the world of nations; instead they were pariahs again.

Soviet troubles

Brezhnev by 1980 was sick, incompetent, corrupt and surrounded by satraps and yes-men. Politburo meetings were pro-forma. The critical decision to move militarily into Afghanistan in 1979 had been strongly opposed by most military and diplomatic planners, but their advice may not have reached Brezhnev. The decision to invade Afghanistan was made by Yuri Andopov (head of the KGB), and the Soviet Defense Minister (who overruled his generals). They were maneuvering to succeed the ailing Brezhnev, and apparently discounted the risk of failure. The Soviet Union had never lost a war, and they never dreamed that Afghanistan would be as disastrous for them as Vietnam had been for the US.

War operations

During the war anti-Soviet Islamists received American aid through Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence Agency, which cooperated with the CIA.

The Soviet military presence in Afghanistan was greatly hampered by disease and poor field sanitation. Over the eight-year occupation, 67% of the total Soviet force was hospitalized due to serious illness. Problems included lack of sufficient clean drinking water, poor field sanitation practices, infestations of lice and rodents, and poor diet. These difficulties were compounded by the lack of a professional noncommissioned officer corps.

Rollback

Taking office in early 1981, President Ronald Reagan began a rollback strategy of supporting insurgencies in Nicaragua, Cambodia, Angola, and, above all, in Afghanistan. The goal was to bleed Moscow white--to create a Vietnam for them which would suck their military dry. "We control Kabul and the provincial centers, but on occupied territory we cannot establish authority," the Defense Minister explained to the Politburo in 1986. "We have lost the battle for the Afghan people." Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and immediately realized the severe drain caused by trying to hold his empire together, especially as the U.S. was escalating military spending, threatening to build Star Wars, and the Soviet economy was faltering badly as revenues plunged from oil exports. It took him several years to get enough Politburu support, all the time the poor performance and prolonged presence of the Soviet military in Afghanistan created domestic financial and political problems. Finally in 1988 to save the heart of the Communist system in Russia he admitted defeat and cut his losses in Afghanistan.

Aftermath

The last Soviet troops left in February 1989, but Soviet military aid continued until the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991. The Najibullah regime lasted another three years, until a military offensive by the Mujahadeen captured Kabul with little fighting in April 1992. In the end, Afghanistan contributed significantly, perhaps decisively, to the collective loss of confidence that brought the Soviet Union to self-destruction. The lost war discredited the Soviet army, which had been the single most important institution holding the union together, eroded the legitimacy of the Soviet system in the eyes of non-Russian nationalities, and accelerated glasnost.

After 1989 the United States provided relief and economic aid aid but stayed neutral in the ongoing tribal conflicts. After 1990 a new organization arose, the Taliban, a militantly anti-modern group that was both anti-American and anti-Soviet. Primarily a youth group, it never received any aide from the US. The Taliban militia took control of the Kabul in 1996, and installed a very harsh Islamist regime. Later it invited in Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group, which established its base in Afghanistan.

Bibliography

• Amstutz, J. B. Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation. (1986)
• Arnold, Anthony. The Fateful Pebble: Afghanistan's Role in the Fall of the Soviet Empire (1993)
• Bradsher, Henry. Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention (2nd ed 2001)
• Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004) excerpt and text search
• Cordovez, Diego, and Selig S. Harrison. Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (1995) excerpt and text search
• Cordsman, Anthony H., and A. R. Wagner. The Lessons of Modern War. Vol. 3, The Afghan and Falkland Conflicts. (1991).
• Galeotti, Mark. Afghanistan, The Soviet Union's Last War (1995), highly negative impact in Russia
• Gibbs, David N. "Reassessing Soviet Motives for Invading Afghanistan: a Declassified History." Critical Asian Studies 2006 38(2): 239-263. Issn: 1467-2715 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Grasselli, Gabriella. British and American Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (1996)
• Grau, Lester W. "Breaking Contact Without Leaving Chaos: the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan." Journal of Slavic Military Studies 2007 20(2): 235-261. Issn: 1351-8046
• Grau, Lester W. "The Soviet-Afghan War: a Superpower Mired in the Mountains." Journal of Slavic Military Studies 2004 17(1): 129-151. Issn: 1351-8046 overall synthesis focused on Soviet military
• Grau, Lester W. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (1998)
• Halliday, Fred, and Zahir Tanin. "The Communist Regime in Afghanistan 1978-1992: Institutions and Conflicts." Europe-Asia Studies 1998 50(8): pp1357-1380. Comparative perspective. in Jstor
• Hilali, A. Z. US-Pakistan Relationship: Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan (US Foreign Policy and Conflict in the Islamic World) (2005) excerpt and text search
• Kakar, M. Hassan. Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 (1997) complete edition online
• Klass, R., ed. Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited. (1987).
• McMichael, Scott R. Stumbling Bear : Soviet Military Performance in Afghanistan (1991), stresses the poor performance of the Soviet army
• Overby. Paul. Holy Blood: An Inside View of the Afghan War (1993) emphasizes resistance to modernization.
• Rubin, Barnett R. Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse n the International System (2nd ed. 2002) excerpt and text search
• Saikal, A., and W. Miley, eds. The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan. (1989).
• Wolf, Matt W. "Stumbling Towards War: the Soviet Decision to Invade Afghanistan." Past Imperfect 2006 12. Issn: 1192-1315 online edition

Primary Sources

• Gates, Robert M. From the Shadows (1996), explains the CIA role
• Russian General Staff. The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost (2002), edited by Lester W. Grau, and Michail A. Gress; perspective of Soviet high command excerpt and text search
• Ostermann, Christian Friedrich, ed. "Gorbachev and Afghanistan." Cold War International History Project Bulletin 2003-2004 (14-15): 139-192. Issn: 1071-9652 " online edition
• Jalali, Ali Ahmad, and Lester W. Grau, eds. The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War (1996), Mujahideen perspective
• Westad, Odd Arne, ed. "Concering the Situation in 'A': New Russian Evidence on the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan," CWIHP Bulletin (Winter 1996/97) issue 8-9, pp128-33, with documents on pp 133-184 online edition

See also

• Afghanistan
• Cold War
• Ronald Reagan