The Cold War brought with it many smaller wars in which each side of the larger conflict sought to influence a nation into siding with their particular ideology. One of the most prominent of those cases was the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union had long desired a warm water port for its fleet and the obvious choice seemed to be gaining access through the Middle East. Prior to 1978, Afghanistan had been ruled by the heavy-handed King Massoud, but with the Communist Revolution and coup of that year, things became more complicated for the Russian government. Assassinations and attempted assassinations by government insiders and KGB agents marked the next couple of years for the Afghan people. With internal tension rising between the government and the nations major tribal leaders, the Soviets sought to intervene and help stabilize its communist neighbors regime. The end result was the catastrophic defeat of the morale and strength of the Soviet Union, and eventually the crisis helped contribute to its fall. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the difficulties they faced in trying to stabilize the power of the government in Kabul.
Afghanistan has long had a history of war and invasion that some historians date back to as early as 3000 B.C.E. Although the country has only existed as a nation state since 1918, it has never been effectively absorbed into a greater empire or been successfully unified. One of the reasons for these failures is expressed clearly by Larry P. Goodson in Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban when he writes:
“Since the advent of Islam, Afghanistan has epitomized the classic
“inward-looking” peasant society. Its terrain and wide ethnic diversity combine
to reinforce a powerful sense of isolation and “separateness” of often small
and discrete groups. Strict tribal mores, the competition for limited resources,
and efforts at power projection also lead to clashes.”
Even with this knowledge, and the historical defeat of the British at two different times during the eighteenth century, the Soviets were undeterred. With the perceived threat, after the fall of the Shah in Iran, of the United State seeking another ally in the region Russia was determined to prop up the feeble Afghan government.
The Soviets were not alone in their desire to keep the government in Kabul functioning as a socialist ally. As the internal turmoil began to threaten the Taraki government, the President was forced to ask the Soviets for assistance to put down the rebellion. Gregory Feifer in The Great Gamble: The Soviet War In Afghanistan quotes the Afghan President as saying to the Soviet leader Kosygin, “If you launch a decisive attack on Herat now, it will be possible to save the revolution.” Kosygin and the other members of the Politburo were not ready to take such a huge risk that was sure to invite international criticism. That opinion was soon to change.
After the successful coup attempt on the Taraki government, and the ‘nomination’ of Taraki’s rival Amin as President, the Politburo felt forced to take action. Amin continued to remain loyal to the Soviet Union, but that proved to be not enough. According to Gregory Feifer, “In any case, December 27 was picked as the day for “Storm-333”: a new operation to kill Amin.” The Soviets had already made two unsuccessful attempts on the life of Amin and now they knew they had to make a decisive move. They had their handpicked replacement Karmal waiting in Moscow as soon as the deadly deed was completed.
To this day, there is no evidence that details who ordered the actual invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, but on December 25 “Advance divisions of the invading force, under the Fortieth Army, first entered Afghanistan…”. What was initially portrayed as an international peacekeeping force by the Soviet government was in actuality there to take control of that same government. After cleverly requesting that Amin move to Darulaman Palace, on the premise that it was more easily defended, the Russians made their move. According to Anthony Arnold in Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective on December 27 at 7:15 P.M.:
“The Soviet troops that had been airlifted into Kabul made a coordinated
attack on key government installations. Simultaneously two or three
battalions, spearheaded by light tanks, struck at Darulaman Palace.
Hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, Amin and his guard nevertheless
put up staunch resistance and were only overcome shortly before midnight.”
With this single act of aggression the Soviet invasion had begun.
With a far superior military force and a foe that was ‘disorganized’ and tribal in nature the Soviets thought the insurrection would be easily put down. Arnold gives a clear example of this when he states the Soviets goals as follows, “elimination of the mujahideen (holy warrior) resistance via intimidation or, if necessary, massive military blows…”. Russia, as Britain before, made the mistake of approaching the invasion as if they were facing another first world military power with a single military command structure. In reality they were facing five major tribal factions that would be fighting each other if not the Soviet Union. They also made the mistake of gauging the resolve of their opponent. According to General Oleg Sarin and Colonel Lev Dvoretsky in Alien Wars: The Soviet Union’s Aggressions Against the Word, 1919 to 1989, “It was obvious that the only profitable way was to treat the Afghans justly and respect their sovereignty. Any other approach would just not work because of the love of the Afghan people for freedom.” These misjudgments would characterize the rest of the war for the Soviet Union.
The Russians initial plan was to aid the Afghan army in its own efforts to put down the insurrection, but the invasion changed all of that. The Afghan army had been suffering mass desertions ever since the Saur Revolution and once the Soviets showed up in force the rate of desertion actually increased. Shaista Wahab and Barry Youngerman in A Brief History of Afghanistan state, “When it became clear that the Afghan army was not up to the task, the Soviets soon found that their heavily armored forces, trained for set-piece battles in China or the North European Plain, were not ideally suited to fight local militias on difficult terrain.” Once again this did not deter the invaders as they amassed an initial force of 85,000 troops in 1979 to quell the violence.
At first the overwhelming firepower and heavily armored vehicles of the Soviet forces gained several decisive defeats over the rebels, but that changed as the insurgents realized that they lacked sufficient weaponry to face their foes head-to-head. The new strategy of the mujahideen is stated clearly by Gregory Feifer when he states, “Realizing they couldn’t win battles by directly engaging Red Army forces, the vastly outgunned mujahideen soon began forming highly mobile units composed of ten to thirty men.” These highly mobile units were still just a bothersome presence to the Russians as most of the insurgents carried World War II or older model rifles. Weapons such as these were unable to reach aircraft or pierce the heavily armored ground units.
The Afghan rebels sought to find a better way to thwart their foe with the weapons they had at the time, and the ambush was found to be the most effective practice. Examples of this occurred regularly in the Panjshir Valley. The mujahideen fighters had learned the art of making the I.E.D. or Improvised Explosive Device and littered the valley floor with these deadly weapons. The Soviets had already learned earlier that their cumbersome BTR-60 troop transports had insufficient armor to withstand these explosives so they had carefully swept the valley prior to their attack. With Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters flying overhead for support the Russians felt confident that they would be able to take the Panjshir Valley with ease. But according to Feifer what transpired was as follows:
“After several minutes under fire, he and several of his men realized
the mujahideen would eventually pick them off from above. Their only
hope would be to clamber up the rocky mountainside to attack the rebels
targeting them. They slowly scrambled up-and found nothing: the Afghans
had avoided them by the simple means of leaving for higher ground…The
sun rose to expose those who’d remained in the valley: some twenty-five
men, now all dead.”
This caused a great amount of anxiety among the Soviet troops as they began to fear that the enemy was behind every rock or building. Also, the fact that the mujahideen were dressed as a common villager led to the inability to discern who the real enemy was.
This fact and the atrocious way in which the Afghan insurgents treated their enemy captives led to many massacres on the part of the Soviets. One of the gruesome practices of the mujahideen was according to Feifer, “…their favorite tortures was skinning Soviet soldiers alive by slitting them around the waist, pulling their skin above their heads, and tying it there, leaving the doomed to suffer excruciating deaths.” The Soviets upon seeing their comrades left in such a state would on many occasions kill anyone in sight; including women and children. This only helped to solidify the resistance to the perceived invaders.
In response to the I.E.D.’s and ambush attacks the Soviets brought in the more heavily armored BTR-70s and BMP-2 infantry-fighting vehicle. Even though the safer BTR-70s offered more protection, many troops opted to ride on the top risking being taken out by sniper fire rather then ride inside. The thought was that by riding on top you had more of a chance of surviving a mine blast then by remaining inside. These measures had a small impact, but with the increased assistance from the United States and Saudi Arabia in weaponry and financial aid, it soon offset any advantage they had gained.
The United States took a stand verbally against the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, but were not ready to outright help the Afghan’s after their recent failures in Vietnam. $30 million was all the Carter administration was willing to commit to the rebel forces and that had to be done through third parties so as not to overtly alert the Soviets to their aid. When Reagan was elected in 1980 he sought to restore the United States presence overseas and according to Wahab and Youngerman he ordered, “…the CIA to do what it could. During his first administration, direct aid remained at fairly modest levels, rising to around $250 million in 1984.” Although direct aid to the mujahideen was at ‘modest’ levels, the United States was also funding the Zia government in Pakistan with a $3.2 billion package of aid, which included the possible sale of F-16 fighter jets.# It was very important for the United States and the mujahideen to shore up the Pakistani government because it was through this nation that most of the arms were shipped into Afghanistan.
Disguising where the arms came from was a problem that was solved fairly easily. The Soviet Union had backed Egypt and Syria in their war against Israel and after their defeat and subsequently becoming allies of the United States it was easy to supply the rebels with Soviet made weapons. This along with the steady flow of blankets, food, and other necessities was helping to turn the tide of the war. The Soviets scorched earth policy against the locals was also beginning to turn against them. The main reason for this was according to Wahab and Youngerman, “Perhaps the most important, in the summer of 1986, the United States made the decision to supply the mujahideen with shoulder-fired, heat-seeking Stinger anti-aircraft rockets (and British blowpipe missiles).” These new weapons not only made the war more costly for the Russian government, but it also dealt a great blow to the already demoralized Soviet troops.
No longer able to dominate the Afghanistan skies with impunity the Soviets began to suffer heavy losses in most of their campaigns. The Afghan War was costing the Soviet Union between $7-$12 billion a year and with the military only being able to gain control of the major cities (and that only being during the daytime) international sentiment began to turn against their effort. By the end of the war the losses for the Russians were according to Feifer:
“Some 620,000 Soviets served in Afghanistan. Officially, 13,833 died-
although that number is still the subject of debate between various
Russian government agencies…Among the equipment lost were 118 jets,
333 helicopters, 147 tanks, 1,314 APCs, 433 artillery pieces and mortars,
1,138 communications vehicles, 510 engineering vehicles, and 11,369 trucks.”
Although the Soviet losses seem rather significant, when compared to what happened to the Afghan people, they pale.
The Afghans may be a fiercely independent country which will fight to the end, but that didn’t stop them from taking the brunt of the blows in this war. According to Sarin and Dvoretsky, “The Afghans were able to defend their independence at a tremendously high cost: a million casualties, expenditure of huge sums, and the ravaging of a land that still remains in ruins. The “holy war” against the infidels has developed into a civil war with brothers and previous allies fighting each other.”# The end result of the post-soviet era in Afghanistan was the rise of the Taliban and the extreme Sharia law.
With Soviet troop morale at an all-time low, and international sentiment turning against the Politburo, the Gorbachev government agreed to the Geneva agreements to the withdrawal of their forces. The agreement stated that the Soviet Union would have all of their forces out of Afghanistan within nine months beginning May 15, 1988. Once again Sarin and Dvoretsky state:
“There were two routes of the Soviet withdrawal: via Kushka and via
Termez. The transportation sequence was strictly observed. Between
May 15 and August 1988, about 50,200 Soviet troops returned to Soviet
territory from garrison in Jalalabad, Ghazni, Gardez, Faizabad,
Kunduz, Lashkargah, and Kandahar.”
Although there were quite a few troops left behind after these initials pull outs, their main objective was to train and supply the remaining Afghan army. Even as the final troops attempted to leave peacefully from the Afghan countryside they came under constant attack from the mujahideen. Once safely out of Afghanistan many troops returned to a life that mirrored closely that of a Vietnam veteran.
The Soviet Union and the United States were constantly at each other’s proverbial throats during the last half of the twentieth century. Afghanistan was just one instance of this in the Cold War that led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Empire. The Politburo failed to learn from history what happened to invaders attempting conquer and subdue the Afghan people. With their superior technology and highly trained troops they made the mistake of underestimating the heart of the people and their desire for freedom and independence. The Soviet troops on the one hand went in with the pride of the Soviet Union beefing up their confidence, but the Afghan’s had something different to inspire them, and that was the protection of their families and homes. Once the horrible life of living in a battle zone with low quality or no food at all the Soviets morale quickly declined. This coupled with the virtual elimination of Soviet military power by the guerilla warfare tactics of the mujahideen, and American supplied artillery and modern automatic weapons, proved to be too great of an economic cost for the communist regime in Moscow to handle. The end result was the ‘agreed’ withdrawal of Soviet troops and the eventual rise of the Taliban. It remains to be seen whether the current United States incursion into Afghanistan will lead to a similar fate for its forces.
