The Soviet Afghanistan War - Research Paper Example

? The Soviet Afghanistan War [Institute’s The Soviet Afghanistan War In the late 20th Century, the political landscape of the world shifted drastically, and much of this shift is owed to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. This war was one that had little to do with Afghanistan, although it was fought there, but more to do with the other countries involved, namely, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America. The international involvement in the war prepared an unsophisticated and unorganized guerilla force for sustained combat operations that lasted over 9 years and demoralized one of the world’s largest superpowers, consequently paving the way for its downfall (Arnold, 1985). Afghanistan enjoyed a healthy relationship with the Soviet Union during most of the 20th Century. Ever since the Russian Revolution in 1919, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had taken an active role in the military and economic functioning of Afghanistan. In fact, it was widely acknowledged that USSR and Afghanistan were very close allies and this often worried other political strongholds such as the United States of America and China. This relationship became official in the early 1950s when USSR sent billions in economic and military aid to Afghanistan. In 1978, the Afghan Army, which favored the PDPA (the voice of the masses of Afghanistan), caused overthrew and murdered Mohammed Daoud Khan, the ruler. Soon after, Nur Muhammad Taraki, Secretary General of PDPA became President and Prime Minister as well. Once again, PDPA was divided internally into factions, Khalq (the masses) lead by Taraki and Hafizullah Amin and Parcham (flag) by Babrak Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah (Arnold, 1985). These conflicts resulted in violence, kidnappings and executions of many Parcham members and further deteriorating relations between the two factions. The problems that Afghanistan faced regarding ethnic and sectarian friction and violence deteriorated in the PDPA regime. Ever since the 1970s, Daoud Khan had neglected and angered the Pashtun populace of Afghanistan. Furthermore, Afghanistan had cemented problems with Pakistan as well after Daoud had urged his hardline Pashtunistan policies to Pakistan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan president at the time reacted by training the Jamiat-e-Islami militants against Daoud’s secular regime. Although these rebels were unsuccessful in overthrowing the government, the roots of an organized Islamic Rebellion had been put in place and their power would be seen in the years to come. During the first two years of his time in office, Taraki employed a liberal approach to governance by modernizing reforms. Many of these changes were seen by the masses as being anti-Islamic, something that greatly inflamed many. For example, the changes put forth by Taraki regarding land reforms and marriage rules were seen as going against the tradition in which this Islamic country was so deeply immersed. So infuriated was the populace that soon rebellions broke out in the country in mid 1978 with people attacking public buildings and military strongholds. Soon civil war had spread throughout the country. So dire was the situation that in September 1979, President Taraki was killed after a palace shootout; Hafizullah Amin took power. The Taraki and Amin governments were similar in practice; both employed Soviet-style governance, establishing reforms that hurt property owners and Islamic sentiment. Inevitably, there was great opposition to these reforms and major unrest through the country which was dealt violently by the government. Large parts of the country went into open revolt against the government. By 1979, 24 of the 28 provinces of the country had surges of violence and instability. The situation was worsened when an American Ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, was kidnapped and killed by militants with the help of the Soviet Union communists. Afterwards, the United States officially expressed its disapproval to the Soviet Union putting strain on U.S.-U.S.S.R relations. The Afghan Government, which now faced massive revolt from the whole country, used the terms of their treaty with the Soviet Union to call for help. They repeatedly asked for troops and specialists to help contain the revolt in Afghanistan. They requested security and assistance in fighting the Mujahedeen rebels that had sprouted up from across the country because their army was simply not capable or sophisticated enough, especially since many had started deserting the army and turning against the government. The Soviet Union responded to these please by first sending small crews to Afghanistan containing small arms and specialists to help train the Afghan Army. Later, their assistance grew in that they started deploying major tanks, BMPS and crews to safeguard the government in Kabul and protect and secure the airspaces. The Afghani government requested even greater assistance - something the Soviets were not very keen in doing. Instead, the Soviets decided to inspect the situation in Afghanistan more closely by deploying a commission of specialists to supervise ongoing in Afghanistan. Through this special commission, it was reported that Amin was in effect fraternizing with China and Pakistan, Afghanistan’s neighbors, and that his loyalty to the Soviet Union was not apparent. What was especially worrying to the Soviets is that there were the secret meetings which Amin had engaged with the American charge d’affaires although they never amounted to much. Because of the inconsistencies in Amin’s alliance with the Soviets, they decided to dispose of him and they did so when Soviet troops dressed in Afghan attire occupied major government buildings including the Palace. Within hours of the inception of the operation, Amin was dead, and the Soviets had successfully occupied the Presidential Quarters. Having killed their president, the Soviets told the Afghan people that they had been ‘liberated’ from the oppressive regime of Hafizullah Amin and that Babrak Karmal would be given immediate control of the country’s affairs. Furthermore, they said that in compliance with the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Soviet troops would stay on in Afghanistan to secure it as the new government had requested Soviet military assistance. On December 27, 1979, deployment of the Soviet forces was underway, and this marked the start of a war that would go on to last a decade and whose effects are being felt in the world, especially Afghanistan, till this day especially since Soviet occupation did not have the effect of ‘pacifying’ the public of Afghanistan. In addition, their presence in Afghanistan elicited a nationalistic sentiment, causing the revolt to expand further. The Afghan government blamed the Soviets for this uprising and forced them to quell it, making the Soviet troops engage in battle with Afghan rebels and Mujahedeen (Amstutz, 1994). This intervention had elicited very negative reactions from the global community. Foreign ministers from Muslim countries condemned the invasion and demanded immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops. In fact, so opposed was the intervention that the U.N. General Assembly officially protested it by a vote of 104-18. Possibly, because Afghanistan was close to important ports of oil or because many felt that democracy was in danger due to the totalitarian Soviet regime, many countries undertook responsibility and intervened in the war as well. The Mujahedeens (also known as those against the government and Soviet presence in Afghanistan) were given major support and funding by many nations, namely the United States and Saudi Arabia. It was interesting that these countries of such opposing ideologies had come together for a common cause, but this was because the U.S. was threatened by Soviet proximity to oil and Saudi Arabia felt the threat to Islamic values. Whatever the motivations were, the 1980s saw a major deployment of forces, funds and arms to the Mujahedeen to aid them in their fight against the trained sophisticated Soviet army. The war became years of predictable fighting: the Soviets were seen to be employing a trained and executed strategy of occupying main strongholds of the country and axes of communication whereas the Mujahedeen employed a more haphazard and unsophisticated method of fighting, namely guerrilla warfare. Soviet forces were positioned in many places, occasionally undertaking multi-divisional attacks on Mujahedeen-plagued areas. Soviet troops would usually crush the Mujahedeen, but as soon as the coast was clear, the Mujahedeen would return and occupy their posts. As the fighting went on, and the Soviet involvement grew, more and more Afghans joined the Mujahedeen cause, and more and more support and funding from the rest of the world came in. China supplied guerrilla arms, America supplied aircrafts, Pakistan supplied a base where the Mujahedeen could collect and plan. Soon, tables turned and the Afghan Army that controlled by the Soviets became ineffective; many did not support the Soviet cause and sympathized with the Mujahedeen. As a result, there were thousands deserting and mutinying the army, and hundreds more simply acting as spies for the major Mujahedeen tribes (Isby, 1986). Soon the Soviets realized that the war was getting out of their hands, and they stopped being defensive and employed a more offensive strategy. They started by intimidating the revolutionaries using airborne attacks as well as heavily-armored ground attacks to destroy small towns, villages and farms. Locals were forced to flee their homes or face brutal deaths. Then the Soviets went on by planting spies in Mujahedeen camps that reported toe the Soviets and bribing local guerilla leaders to cease operations. Finally, the invaders used military power to root out the guerillas or limit their options, namely, weeding out the insurgency. Because the Mujahedeen were such an unorganized force, the Soviets were successful in turning them against each other by deploying spies to spread lies and bribing leaders to engage in internal conflicts to distract them from continuing their operations to hurt the government. Slowly the number of Soviet Forces was increasing as their need and distress in Afghanistan increased progressively. The more Soviet forces were deployed, the more the condemnation from the rest of the world began, and the Mujahedeen, backed by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Egypt and China and others had caused heavy injuries to the Kremlin. Firstly, Moscow’s military costs had risen exponentially, and many of their own public had grown resentful of their money being spent in fighting ‘another’s war.” (Galeotti, 1995.) Furthermore, the U.S.S.R’s relations with the rest of the world had been strained; it was something very unfavorable to them since they were one of the world’s greatest superpowers. Soon, as the Mujahedeen gained more support from the rest of the world, their fighting became more organized. Thanks to American specialists and Chinese arms, these guerilla warriors had become more than just that; they had formed some sort of an organization with distinct leaders and commanders to better engage and achieve their common aim: overthrowing the Soviet regime and getting them out of the country. The seven major guerilla groups formed the Seven Party Mujahedeen Alliance to organize their operations. These groups were so greatly equipped and active in the mid-80s that soon they engaged in airborne warfare. Soon, because of their mass support, both inside and outside Afghanistan, they instilled heavy casualties in the Soviet camp. The Soviets realized this and announced that they would start withdrawing their troops, and so the ‘war’ was seen to be ending (Grau & Gress, 2002). The Soviets selected Sibghatullah Mojaddedi as the head of the Interim Islamic State of Afghanistan in an attempt to make it seem their efforts had not been in vain and that they had achieved exactly what they had set out to do. Soon after Mojaddedi met George H. W. Bush who was the major supporter of the Afghan resistance. This meeting symbolized the diplomatic victory for the Mujahedeen who had successfully got rid of the Soviets. During the next 2 years, the Soviets gradually withdrew their forces as per a treaty designed by the Afghans, and the war officially came to and end, but the consequences of one of the most controversial occupations in world history live on. This decade of costs and losses is seen as the major reason for the degradation of Soviet relations with the rest of the world and is, in fact, considered the beginning of the end for this major superpower that split 3 years after the end of the war (Hauner, 1991). Many other countries have also been greatly affected by this war. Pakistan and Iran have become heaven for the many Afghans who fled the country causing heavy crime rates in these respective countries. Moreover, Afghanistan unfortunately continues to be an unstable region with militants and extremists occupying many parts of the country. Ironically, the United States, a prominent critic of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, continues to occupy the country itself, practicing the many reforms the U.S.S.R so unsuccessfully tried to do 2 decades earlier. What is sadder, the fact that the Islamic Revolutionaries that were spawned by America and the CIA have turned on the West incurring major terrorist attacks throughout the world. In retrospect, many historians argue that Soviet intervention was never necessary as it only caused bloodshed and the establishment of groups, such as Al-Qaeda (Feifer, 2009). As was seen, the dissent of the Afghans against their government was enough to take care of the non-Democratic situation in the country. It cannot be answered whether that is strictly true, but no one can deny the many lives were lost in this terrible war which has its impact on the rest of the world and the people of this suffering country (Roy, 1991). References Amstutz, J. B. (1994). Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation. DIANE Publishing. Arnold, A. (1985). Afghanistan, the Soviet Invasion in Perspective. Hoover Press. Feifer, G. (2009). The great gamble: the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Harper. Galeotti, M. (1995). Afghanistan: the Soviet Union’s Last War. Routledge. Grau, L. W., & Gress, M. A. (2002). The Soviet-Afghan War: how a superpower fought and lost. University Press of Kansas. Hauner, M. (1991). The Soviet war in Afghanistan: patterns of Russian imperialism. University Press of America. Isby, D. (1986). Russia’s War in Afghanistan. Osprey Publishing. Roy, O. (1991). The lessons of the Soviet/Afghan war. Brassey’s for the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Read More