Download Afghanistan, Soviet Invation of

Afghanistan, Soviet Invation of
International Military and Defense Encyclopedia, 1993
From World History in Context
The December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan marked a development unparalleled in Soviet
international behavior outside the Warsaw Pact since the end of World War II. The invasion signaled a
dramatic and dangerous change in the Soviet approach to resolving international problems. Many
countries viewed the invasion as inherent proof of an expansionist tendency in Soviet foreign policy. It
shocked the West, especially the United States, which felt a sense of betrayal in light of the sustained
efforts of the Carter administration to maintain a policy of detente with the USSR.
The invasion alarmed China, which perceived the Soviet action as part of an elaborate plan to encircle
it, especially in light of the Soviet­backed Vietnamese 1978 invasion of Kampuchea (Cambodia). Many
developing nations viewed the Soviet use of military force as an atheist assault on their wider religious
interests. For the main regional actors (Pakistan, Iran, and India), the Soviet invasion seriously
changed the regional balance of power, placing them in the position of having to respond to this action
and to cope with its consequences. Pakistan chose to pursue active opposition to the invasion; Iran,
although condemning Soviet actions, took a much lower profile. India made no public condemnation of
the invasion.
This article provides a historical summary of Soviet­Afghan relations, examines some of the events
leading up to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, presents some of the most important features of the
invasion, and discusses Soviet military strategy. It concludes with comments regarding the significance
of the Soviets' withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Historical Summary: Soviet­Afghan Relations
Soviet­Afghan relations followed fairly closely the phases of Soviet policy toward developing nations.
Stalin avoided direct involvement and was satisfied with Afghan neutrality. Khrushchev took advantage
of mutual hostility toward Pakistan to foster cooperation with the Afghan government during
Mohammad Daoud's premiership and in 1955 began providing military aid to Afghanistan. It was not
until Brezhnev's phase of activism in developing countries in the early­to­mid­1970s that substantial
Soviet involvement in Afghanistan's internal affairs began. The seizure of power by the Marxist­Leninist
People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan in April 1978 was the culmination of the increasing Soviet
influence in Afghan political and military life.
Prelude to Invasion
April 1978 marks the start of a series of events that led the Soviets, in fewer than twenty months, from
providing assistance to Afghanistan to mounting an invasion. Three of these events stand out: the
assassination of Mir Akbar Khyber, the kidnapping and death of the U.S. ambassador Adolph ("Spike")
Dubs, and the Herat Massacre.
On 17 April 1978, Mir Akbar Khyber, a former police official and a Parcham ideologue, was
assassinated by unknown assailants. (Afghanistan has one political party­­the People's Democratic
Party of Afghanistan, or PDPA. The PDPA has two factions: the Parchami faction, which has been in
power since December 1979; and members of the deposed Khalqi faction, which continues to hold
some important posts in the military and the ministry of interior.) Shortly thereafter, a massive
demonstration by approximately 15,000 people occurred in Kabul. On 26 April the Afghan government
began to arrest Khalq and Parcham leaders. Early the next morning Afghan armed forces, some
supporting the PDPA and others loyal to Prime Minister Daoud, began fighting. Approximately 1,000
people died including Daoud, his brother Naim, most of their families, and about half of the 2,000­man
Republican Guard who defended the presidential palace. By 28 April, PDPA forces had captured the
palace, the Kabul airport, Radio Kabul, and the central jail. Two days later, Nur Mohammed Taraki was
named head of the Military Revolutionary Command (MRC) and prime minister. His two deputy prime
ministers, who would assume prominence in the following months, were Hafizullah Amin and Babrak
Karmal. That same day the Soviet Union recognized the new People's Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan (PDRA).
The New Government
In Taraki's initial cabinet, the Khalqi faction had eleven seats, the Parchami faction ten. The new
government repeatedly denied that the PDRA was a communist party. Between April and August 1978
the government issued a series of decrees that abolished the MRC, abrogated the 1977 constitution,
declared racial and ethnic equality, eliminated all pre­1973 debts and diminished payments on
subsequent loans (which disrupted the rural economy of the country), and declared a land reform that
met with widespread resistance from both landowners and peasants.
On 5 December 1978 the Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a Treaty of Friendship, Good­
Neighborliness, and Cooperation, which was to run for a term of twenty years. Although there were few
specifics in the treaty, Article 4 contained an implicit security commitment that would be used in
December 1979 to justify the Soviet invasion.
The United States was hesitant to classify the Taraki regime as communist. Thus, it followed a
constructive­engagement policy toward the Taraki government until 6 May 1978, at which time the
United States recognized the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). Beginning in midsummer,
other more pressing foreign policy problems confronted the United States: On 29 July 1978, riots in
thirteen Iranian cities drew U.S. attention to the problems of the Pahlavi dynasty. The following month,
the Camp David meetings began. During the first six months of the Taraki regime, the NATO long­term
defense program, the final outline of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) II agreement, and the
normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China were all negotiated or finalized. Up until
February 1979, the United States continued to watch the situation in Kabul closely while continuing to
provide Afghanistan with economic assistance.
Ambassador Dubs' Death
On 14 February 1979, the same day the U.S. embassy was temporarily seized in Teheran and a few
days before the Sino­Vietnamese war began, U.S. Ambassador Dubs was kidnapped off the streets of
Kabul and taken to a hotel. He and the kidnappers were subsequently killed when the Afghan police, in
the presence of several Soviet advisers, stormed the hotel room where Dubs was being held.
As a result of this incident, the United States announced on 22 February that it was terminating further
aid to Afghanistan and that, henceforth, U.S. interests in Kabul would be handled by a chargé
d'affaires. In addition, the Peace Corps ended its twenty­year program in Afghanistan, and U.S.
dependents and most of the embassy staff left the country.
The Herat Massacre
In March, the Afghan Islam resistance forces (the mujaheddin) who opposed the PDPA attacked the
city of Herat. The attack, coupled with a local army mutiny, resulted in the capture of Herat and the
massacre of the local Soviet advisory group, which included approximately fifty Soviet soldiers and their
dependents. In reprisal, an Afghan army unit with Soviet advisers sacked the town of Kerala and killed
640 of its male inhabitants. In April 1979 the United States began a modest program to aid the
mujaheddin. During that summer the Soviets provided an increase in military aid and advisers to the
Afghan government.
Shortly after the Herat massacre, Amin engineered his own appointment as prime minister. Although
the media continued to pay homage to Taraki, increasing power came to rest with Amin. In the following
months, however, personal relations between Amin and the Soviet staff in Kabul became increasingly
strained.
From September to December 1979 the military situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate,
prompting the Soviets to decide to: (1) unseat Amin; (2) install Karmal as the leader of a new Khalq­
Parcham coalition; and (3) use Soviet troops to gain time for the new regime to restore order and
rebuild the Afghan army.
Invasion
The Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan was modeled after their 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Both
operations featured elaborate deception, subversion of an "unreliable" communist government, the
introduction of airborne troops to seize key objectives in the capital, the movement of motorized rifle
troops to link up with airlanded elements, and the replacement of a government with more "reliable"
comrades.
On Christmas Eve 1979 the Soviets began landing elements of an airborne division and a spetsnaz
(commando unit) at the Kabul airport. On 27 December a few hundred spetsnaz troops deployed to the
Darulaman Palace outside Kabul and killed President Amin and his bodyguards. Also on the 27th,
Soviet troops blew up the main telephone exchange, seized Radio Kabul, and captured most of the
central government facilities in Kabul. Serious fighting in the city ended by dawn of 28 December.
Karmal was proclaimed president of the Revolutionary Council, general secretary of the PDPA, and
prime minister. In the following months the Karmal regime was beset with internal conflict; rather than
becoming a puppet, it became a virtual Soviet prisoner with nearly every ministry openly under Soviet
control. In May 1986, Karmal­­a despised and ineffectual figure­­was removed from office and replaced
by Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the Afghan secret police, who had better relations with
Moscow.
By the end of the first week of January 1980, Soviet troops in Afghanistan totaled 50,000. This number
increased to approximately 85,000 by the end of March, equivalent to six Soviet divisions.
International Reaction to the Invasion
In January 1980 the United Nations General Assembly voted 104 to 18 (with 30 absences or
abstentions) to "deplore the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan." And in May, although not
mentioning the Soviet Union by name, the General Assembly called for "the immediate, unconditional
and total withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan."
The significance of the General Assembly vote was that more than two­thirds of the nonaligned nations
voted against the USSR. Even some socialist states or fraternal parties either voted against
(Yugoslavia) or criticized (Romania) the Soviet Union. China added the removal of Soviet troops from
Afghanistan to its demands required prior to a renormalization of Sino­Soviet relations.
The U.S. reaction to the invasion was one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States in
response to a specific Soviet act. Claiming that the implications of the Soviet invasion "could pose the
most serious threat to peace since the Second World War," President Carter announced six measures
that affected the Soviet Union: (1) blocking the U.S. export of 17 million metric tons of grain; (2)
stopping the sale of U.S. computers and high­technology equipment; (3) reducing the allowable catch
of the Soviet fishing fleet in U.S. waters from 350,000 tons to 75,000 tons; (4) delaying the opening of
the new Soviet consulate in New York; (5) postponing a renegotiation of the U.S.­Soviet Union cultural
agreement that was under consideration; and (6) boycotting U.S. participation in the Moscow Olympics,
an action later joined by 55 other countries.
The Soviets were surprised by the severity of the international reaction. They attempted through
diplomatic measures to shift blame for the conflict to the United States and China and to reassure
nations in the area that the USSR had no designs on their territory, resources, or interests. Soviet
efforts to develop a favorable peace agreement began in February 1980, but the USSR was
unsuccessful in its search for regional allies and its initial efforts to gain a favorable peace were
unsuccessful.
Military Occupation and Withdrawal
Over the next nine years, Soviet troops became increasingly bogged down in a bloody occupation of
Afghanistan. Soviet strategy was to hold the major centers of communication, limit infiltration, and
destroy local strongholds with the minimum risk to its own forces. The use of helicopters, chemical
weapons, and terror tactics, key instruments in the Soviet strategy, resulted in hundreds of thousands
of Afghan casualties and forced one­third of the population into exile. According to conservative
estimates, approximately 1 million of Afghanistan's 12.5 million people had been killed by the time the
last Soviet troops left Afghanistan (15 February 1989) and about 5 million had fled as refugees to
neighboring Pakistan or Iran. Another million had been displaced from their homes within the country.
Most of the deaths were civilians; however, close to 100,000 resistance fighters were also among the
dead. The Soviet emphasis on attacking the civilian population from which the mujaheddin drew
support eventually led to the deployment of expensive Soviet weapon systems such as the Mi­24
(Hind) helicopter gunship to Afghanistan.
In April 1986, President Reagan ordered the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to provide the Afghan
resistance forces with Stinger antiaircraft missiles­­a decision that would dramatically affect the course
of the war. With these weapons, the mujaheddin were able to destroy Hind gunships, disrupt Soviet air
resupply operations, and reduce the close air support provided by Soviet and Afghan air forces to
Soviet ground forces. The Soviet leadership, faced with either increasing its military forces or seeing
their effectiveness decline further, decided to withdraw Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
On 8 February 1988, President Gorbachev announced that Soviet troops would begin withdrawing
from Afghanistan on 15 May; the withdrawal was completed on 15 February 1989.
The Geneva Accords on Afghanistan of 14 April 1988, concluded under the auspices of the United
Nations between the PDPA and the government of Pakistan and jointly guaranteed by the Soviet Union
and the United States, provided the overall framework for the Soviet withdrawal. Although the accords
met with widespread international approval and were a diplomatic triumph for the United Nations, they
did not provide for the transition to a legitimate government in Afghanistan based on the claims of
Afghans to determine their own future free of outside interference. They did, however, prompt Soviet
leadership to commence direct talks with the mujaheddin.
Conclusion
The war in Afghanistan was never popular with the post­Brezhnev Soviet leadership, and the growing
number of Soviet dead played a significant role in shaping the Soviet public's attitude toward the war.
The official Soviet Defense Ministry figure for Soviet military deaths was 13,831, justifying Gorbachev's
description of Afghanistan as a "bleeding wound." This figure includes only those killed in action; a
more comprehensive estimate of Soviet war deaths from all causes is 36,000.
The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was one of the most important of the Gorbachev era. It was
consistent with the overall thrust of Gorbachev's leadership as embodied in the proceedings of the
27th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party­­specifically, reducing East­West tensions and
eliminating unsuccessful Soviet commitments in the developing world. Indications are that the Soviets'
withdrawal was a turning point in Moscow's foreign policy. These indications have been reinforced by
the priority that the Soviet leadership later placed on domestic reform under the rubric of perestroika
and glasnost.
Further Readings
Collins, J. J. 1986. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: A study in the use of force in Soviet foreign
policy. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath.
Hammond, T. T. 1984. Red flag over Afghanistan: The communist coup, the Soviet invasion, and the
consequences. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Oberdorfer, D. 1991. The turn: From the cold war to a new era. New York: Poseidon Press.
Saikal, A., and W, Maley, eds. 1989. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. New York: Cambridge
Univ. Press.
Source Citation
"Afghanistan, Soviet Invation of." International Military and Defense Encyclopedia. Ed.
Trevor N. Dupuy. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 1993. World History in
Context. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
URL
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/whic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?
failOverType=&query=&prodId=WHIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&dis
play­
query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disable
Highlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=WHIC%3
AUHIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CBT23422
00007&source=Bookmark&u=slsa_2014&jsid=cd956e6e6d52341323da27b615d4
62c0
Gale Document Number: GALE|BT2342200007