"Save the last bullet for yourself and blow your brains out in the dust of Afghanistan."

-Rudyard Kipling

Afghanistan, the rugged mountainous and high desert region between the Indus Valley and the Himalayan Plateau, has been characterized since the days of Alexander the Great as a cruel and forbidding land populated by a nomadic, warlike people. It has ground up foreign invaders one after another, beginning before the time of Christ and continuing through the Soviet debacle of 1979-89.

The British fought two wars in Afghanistan and were routed both times. The most infamous episode of these occurred during the first Anglo-Afghan War in 1842. Having been defeated and forced to retreat back to Imperial India, the entire Kabul garrison of 16,500 British troops was steadily decimated along the way as they withdrew along the Afghan roads and through the passes. Only one soldier made it to Jalalabad alive-spared to be able to tell the story of the demise of the force through guerilla raids, ambushes, sickness and a host of other fates.

Afghan history has been a series of power struggles amid the absence of a strong centralized government. Tribal issues between the majority Pashtuns and the ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks have also kept the country from being able to unite under a single ruler for long. Periods of stability have followed the Loya Jirga, when the tribal leaders meet and agree on a new government, but regional infighting usually undermines this soonafter. It was into this maelstrom that the Soviet Union stumbled in 1979.

Why Afghanistan?

The Soviet Union has always had its eye on Afghanistan because it is one step closer to the Indian Ocean and, most importantly, a warm water port. The ports in Northern Russia are ice bound for half the year except for Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. But Vladivostok is too far removed from the industrial centers of Western Russia to effectively serve those regions. Russia's Black Sea ports are indeed ice-free year round but they require going through the narrow Bosporus Strait and are at Turkey's mercy. Expanding into southern Asia with an eye for eventually developing a warm water port on the Indian Ocean has been a long-term strategic goal of Russian expansion for hundreds of years. The Afghan invasion was a first step of the latest round of that game. There was also the party line view that the invasion was to save the people of Afghanistan from imperialist encroachment of the Western powers who had been supporting Pakistan and the Shah of Iran for years. Finally, there was the anti-Muslim feeling, an ingrained Russian trait fostered over hundreds of years of having the Muslim republics on Russia's southern tier consistently foiling the Tsar's expansionist policies.

Afghan History.

King Zahir Shah was the last ruler before the Soviet invasion to rule over a relatively cohesive Afghanistan. He ascended the throne in 1933 and implemented many modern advancements, most notably befriending the Soviets to take advantage of their generous aid program to Afghanistan from the 1950's onward. But while on a holiday in Italy in 1973, he was deposed by his cousin Prince Daud in a coup. The monarchy was abolished and a Republic was proclaimed. Soon, a non-aggression treaty was signed and trade agreements extended the ties between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. But the Daud-led Republic was not making enough progress on land redistribution for the agrarian population. It also began forming ties with Iran and other Middle East countries which began to worry the Soviets. The Soviets backed a coup in 1978 that installed Muhammed Taraki as Prime Minister in the hopes that he would be able to more effectively bring Socialist ideas to the Afghans.

Land reforms moved ahead at great speed but the legitimacy of the new government was questioned when it began to suppress the religious beliefs of the population. Soviet reforms fell apart as political infighting spread and distrust of the government grew in intensity. With the situation falling apart in Afghanistan, Brezhnev and his Politburo allies knew they couldn't let the socialist government fall. Worse, the Western nations might try to take advantage of the situation and the Soviets could lose all the influence they'd been working so hard to gain there.

Taraki was unpopular with the majority of Afghans, who completely distrusted the non-Muslim Soviet stooge. Violence broke out all over the country and soon Taraki held only the capital city of Kabul with his Soviet-trained National Army troops. The countryside slid into an armed camp as the mujahedin groups gradually formed and gained strength. Afghan government troops began fighting battles with them and were clearly losing their hold on the country. Frantic calls went out to Moscow to reinforce Kabul or risk losing the entire country to the rebels.

In December 1979, Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan to save the country from itself. In response, the mujahedin groups began organizing for ther long guerilla war ahead while the U.S. began funnelling money and arms to them through Pakistan. The Soviets sent in more troops. In many ways, it was similar to the U.S. experience in South Vietnam in 1964.

Tactics.

Soviet military tactics were based on a major land war in Europe, not a protracted guerrilla uprising amid the steep valleys and mountains of Afghanistan. The strict command and control structure of the Soviet army permitted little initiative to be taken by lower echelon commanders at the front, which prevented effective decision making during fluid battle situations. Also, many of the officers were drunks and by the end of the war, strung out on drugs as well. The typical Soviet military doctrine was based on the concept of attaining and overcoming fixed objectives, ideally fortified towns or easily identifiable defensive positions. Before attacking, they would begin with a massive artillery preparation, followed by large bombing raids, then the massed formations of tanks and men would move forward and eliminate any remaining resistance.

This strategy could not have had a worse theatre to operate in than Afghanistan. While the Soviets succeeded in razing many villages and mountainsides through the endless artillery barrages, they rarely were able to corner the mujahedin in strength and force them to fight a battle. Classic guerrilla warriors, they simply melted into the hills and deprived the Soviets of any targets. When the massive Soviet armored columns slowly retreated down the narrow valleys, they were cut to pieces by mujahedin ambushes. In the Panjshir Valley, a major locus of mujahedin activity throughout the war, the Soviets conducted three major assaults between 1981 and 1986. Each time they expended thousands of shells, flew hundreds of air sorties and still failed to engage the mujahedin in any big battles. They also took tremendous casualties.

As the war ground on, the Soviets gradually adjusted their tactics and were learning how to be more effective at cornering the mujahedin. Much of this was due to increased use of the helicopter gunships, much like the U.S. experience in Viet Nam. But by 1986 the U.S. was arming the mujahedin with "Stinger" missiles, a devastatingly effective anti aircraft munition. A shoulder-fired weapon relatively easy to use, the mujahedin brought down large numbers of the fearsome Soviet gunships. The high losses of Soviet aircrews prevented their unrestricted use of the helicopter gunship weapon throughout the rest of the war. Electronic countermeasures were adopted that helped the Hind-A gunships be more successful in evading the Stinger missiles but it soon became clear that the Stinger had effectively countered the Soviet Union's best battlefield innovation in the conflict thus far.

Home Front.

As the U.S. experienced in Viet Nam, a significant force emerged back home in Russia that had the effect of undermining the war effort. It was increasingly difficult for the Soviets to justify a costly war that didn't seem to be saving the Afghans from the deadly imperialist forces of the West. It seemed that the war was being waged against the Afghan people themselves, not against some dire anti-communist threat from abroad. Soviet soldiers returning home talked of their experience and sometimes demonstrated against the war. For the first time in its history, the Soviet society saw a sizable anti war movement develop. At the same time Gorbachev was trying to pursue his Glasnost policies and increase ties to the West. The expensive and needless war in Afghanistan was not helping this at all.

Withdrawal.

Bowing to the obvious, in 1988 the Soviets began a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan. By the spring of 1989 all major elements of Soviet military forces had been withdrawn and by summer there were no more Soviet soldiers left in Afghanistan. Bereft of the support provided by the troops, the Afghan government barely held on to the country for two more years before it descended into a civil war free for all between feuding mujahedin groups. Out of this chaos the Taliban emerged, a fundamentalist group of Islamic scholars and clerics from the Kandahar region. A strict interpretation of Islam was placed over the whole country.

In the final analysis, the war was an unmitigated disaster for both countries. Its high cost helped speed the breakup of the Soviet Union and the social effects of creating a generation of "Afghantsi": disaffected and psychologically-scarred veterans, has yet to be felt in full. For Afghanistan, the aftermath of the war plunged the country into a period of lawlessness and vicious tribal infighting that was only salvaged by the emergence of one of the most repressive and backward regimes imaginable. Recent events have brought hope back to the country, but the lingering effects of the Soviet war will haunt the populace and policy making in the region for years to come.

"We did not simply leave, we left with the war wrapped around the tracks of our tanks and the wheels of our vehicles, taking it home, and it flared up on our soil."

-Russian Security Council Chief Alexander Lebed

Soviet soldiers on their way home during the withdrawal in 1988.