I. Introduction:
A. In 1979, 115,000 Soviet soldiers were airlifted into Afghanistan to take control of the country.They represented one of the world's greatest superpowers and were well armed and well-equipped.
B. On the other side were people who had few weapons, no aircraft, and not very many motorized vehicles. They moved on foot or on horseback and dressed in rags.Yet, ten years later, they had defeated one of the world's largest armies.
C. Today's questions:
1) Why did the USSR invade Afghanistan
2) How were they defeated?
3) What lessons does the Soviet experience have for the US today, as it seeks to fight terrorism?
D. Outline of today's lecture
1) Pre-1979 Afghanistan
2) The Brezhnev Doctrine and the War on Islam
3) Unintended Consequences
II. Pre-1979 Afghanistan
A. Monarchy under Mohammed Zahir Shah
B. Cold War organization of space
1. 1st and 2nd worlds fighting over 3rd.
2. US allies w/Pakistan
3. Afghanistan opens relations with USSR.
C. 1973: Zahir Shah is overthrown by his cousin, Daoud Shah. Daoud allies himself with Marxist Leninist party to stage coup.
1. Daoud tries to distance himself from USSR in 1978. Overthrown by Marxist Leninist party in 1978.
2. 1979: 115,000 Soviet troops arrive to secure the country and Soviet puppet government under Babrak Kamal is installed.
III. The Brezhnev Doctrine and the War on Islam
A. Why invade?
B. Geopolitical necessity: The USSR is a flat rolling plain in many places (the steppe) and is relatively easy to invade. Controlling "buffer states" gives the USSR more security.
C. Brezhnev Doctrine of 1968: Once a country is a Soviet satellite, it can never leave the Bloc. USSR will invade to keep this from happening.
D. Fears of invasion from Islamic countries and threats to Central Asian satellites.
1) Iran had just had a Muslim fundamentalist uprising that deposed the Shah. USSR feared that a Muslim fundamentalism in Soviet Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc.) could lead those countries to break away.
2) Afghanistan as a buffer zone.
IV. A Proxy War
A. Resistance is made up of a loose coalition of Uzbek, Tajik, and Pashtun Muslim fighters.
1. Motivated by the cruelty and stupidity of the USSR and the Marxist governemtn, which had tried to reform agriculture and ended up causing famine, and which had ignored traditional power structures.
2.. Helped by other fundamentalist Muslims coming from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
a) Including our friend, Osama bin Laden, who came to train foreign recruits by setting up safe houses in Pakistan and training camps in Afghanistan.
2. Where were arms coming from? CIA smuggling them in through Pakistan
a) "Outside Peshawar the mountain passes came alive with men. The mujahideen were loading their caravans with AK-47s, mortars, grenades, and mines to return to Afghanistan. Mules and ponies strained under the weight of wooden crates strapped onto their backs. There were no identifying markings on the crates, nor were there any on the contents, but everything was pan of what would become Washington's largest covert-action program since Vietnam -- equipping fighters on the last battlefield of the Cold War. " (Mary Anne Weaver, the Atlantic).
b. Sent over $3 billion in weapons up into the high mountains, over Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan.
3. The plan was highly effective. A loosely organized rebel force that knew the mountains intimately and which was armed with American weapons was so fast, and so flexible, that it took down the Soviet Army.
a) Soviets have particular problems with military equipment like tanks, which were not designed to operate in mountainous terrain
b) Soviet army has no anti-guerrilla training
4. The USSR was stunned by its losses:
a) The USSR's Vietnam-15,000 soldiers killed
b) Extremely costly- at one point,
1) Soviet economy is collapsing- simply can't AFFORD this war.
c) Glasnost means people can criticize - and they do (e.g. Sakarov). Undermine legitimacy of the Party.
V. Unintended Consequences
A. Civil War
1. When the USSR left, the US also left---very abruptly. Afghanistan was ruined: few standing buildings, fields were torn up, villages barely standing, few paved roads. No commitment to helping Afghanistan recover, because we had no interests there. No commitment to nation-building (e.g., helping them build a democratic system).
2.Result was a power vacuum---the mujaheddin broke up into factions, largely along ethnic lines. Many Pashtuns became members of the Taliban, a group of Islamic fundamentalists who had studied in the madrasas of Pakistan.
3. Widespread support for Taliban, because they promise ORDER.
B. Basing Al Quaeda
A. The US and Saudi Arabia inadvertently created a "Nerve Center" for the Islamic fundamentalist movement. Fundamentalists from North Africa, Saudi, Soviet Central Asia and Pakistan all meet there, form Al-Qaeda
B. Weak Pakistani government cannot control radical Islam.
a) 1996-Pakistan is asking EGYPT for help in controlling Peshawar.
C. Taliban provides welcoming home for Al Quaeda, which now turns its attention to other struggles "for Muslim Liberation"
a) Bosnia
b) Chechnya (USSR's worst fear-that Central Asia will split off).
c) Attacks on US, including embassy bombings, first trade center bombing, Cole.
VI. Lessons for the US
a) Difficulties of fighting a guerrilla force.
1) We don't know what the opposition in Iraq looks like. Will people fight on the side of Saddam?
2) Be careful who you fund.
a) Taliban/Al-Quaeda "blowback"
b) Who are we funding now?
c) Iraq: we are funding opposition groups. Who are they? Do we really want them in power afterwards?
3) Commit to nation-building.
a) One of the main axes of stability in the world system now came out of our relationships with our enemies after WWII. Marshall Plan and rebuilding of Germany and Japan, which are now stalwart democracies.
B) Afghanistan should teach us that you can't just fight and leave-you have to make a long term commitment.
C) But that commitment to Afghanistan is waning. Donor Aid not coming through, declining technical assistance. Poor people are radical people, and if we don't help create stability and order, somebody ELSE will promise to.
D) Commitment for Iraq.
OPEN DISCUSSION.