The 10 Year War Between Soviet and Afganistan That Created Modern Global Terrorism
- The Soviet invasion was a strategic blunder driven by paranoia about Islamic uprisings and a desire to prop up a failing communist puppet regime.
- The US-led Operation Cyclone provided critical funding and Stinger missiles that neutralized Soviet air power and turned the tide of the war.
- The power vacuum left after the Soviet withdrawal led to a brutal civil war that birthed the Taliban and provided a safe haven for Al-Qaeda.
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| Photo by Farid Ershad on Unsplash |
The Soviet Afghan War is not just a chapter in a history book. It is the defining geopolitical catastrophe of the late 20th century. This conflict broke the back of a superpower and birthed the modern era of global terrorism. To understand the world we live in today you must understand what happened in the mountains of the Hindu Kush between 1979 and 1989. It was a collision of empires and ideologies that left a scar across the globe.
The story begins long before the first Soviet tank crossed the border. Afghanistan has always been the "Graveyard of Empires." In the 19th century it was the chessboard for the Great Game between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia. The British wanted to protect India while Russia wanted a warm water port. Afghanistan was the buffer zone caught in the middle. The borders were drawn by foreign powers who ignored the complex tribal map of the Pashtuns and Tajiks and Uzbeks. This artificial geography created a nation that was always at war with itself.
By the mid 20th century the Soviet Union had become Afghanistan’s primary patron. They built roads and airports and trained the Afghan military. The relationship was stable as long as the Afghan King Zahir Shah remained neutral. However the stability shattered in 1973 when the King’s cousin Daoud Khan launched a coup. Khan abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. He was known as the "Red Prince" because of his socialist leanings but he was fiercely independent. He wanted Soviet money but not Soviet control.
The situation exploded in 1978 with the Saur Revolution. A communist group known as the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan or PDPA violently seized power. They murdered Daoud Khan and his entire family in the presidential palace. This new regime was split into two bitter factions. There were the radical Khalqis who wanted immediate violent revolution and the moderate Parchamis who favored a slower approach. The radicals won the initial power struggle and plunged the country into chaos.
The new communist government tried to drag Afghanistan into the 20th century by force. They banned traditional customs and redistributed land and enforced secular education for girls. These reforms might have worked in the capital city of Kabul. But in the rural villages they were seen as a direct attack on Islam and tribal honor. The government responded to resistance with brutal purges. They arrested and executed thousands of religious leaders and intellectuals.
Moscow watched this unfolding disaster with absolute horror. The Soviet leadership was old and conservative. They feared that the Islamic uprising in Afghanistan would spill over the border into their own Muslim majority republics in Central Asia. They also feared that the United States would take advantage of the chaos to flip Afghanistan into the American sphere of influence. The KGB advised General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev that they had to intervene to save the communist project.
The invasion began on Christmas Eve of 1979. The Soviet 40th Army rolled across the border with heavy armor and air support. Their first mission was a paradox. They sent Spetsnaz special forces to storm the Tajbeg Palace and assassinate the Afghan president Hafizullah Amin. The Soviets believed Amin was a liability who was secretly talking to the CIA. They killed the man they ostensibly came to support and replaced him with a puppet leader named Babrak Karmal.
The Soviets expected a quick police action. They thought they would secure the cities and stabilize the government and leave within six months. This was a fatal miscalculation. The invasion united the fractured Afghan tribes against a common enemy. The internal civil war transformed overnight into a Jihad or holy war. The resistance fighters called themselves the Mujahideen. They were a loose collection of warlords and tribal leaders who agreed on only one thing. The infidel invaders had to die.
The war settled into a brutal rhythm. The Soviets controlled the major cities and the ring road that connected them. The Mujahideen controlled everything else. The Soviet military was built for massive tank battles on the plains of Europe. It was completely ill suited for fighting nimble guerrillas in jagged mountain passes. The Soviets would bomb a village into dust only to have the fighters return the moment the tanks left.
The United States saw a golden opportunity. The CIA launched Operation Cyclone to fund the resistance. It became the largest covert operation in history. America funneled billions of dollars through Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence agency. The Saudis matched the funding dollar for dollar. The British and Chinese and even the Iranians helped supply the fighters. It was a global effort to bleed the Soviet Union dry.
The turning point of the war came in 1986. The CIA began supplying the Mujahideen with FIM 92 Stinger missiles. These were portable heat seeking missiles that a single man could fire from a mountain ridge. Before the Stinger the Soviet Mi 24 Hind helicopters were flying tanks that terrorized the countryside. After the Stinger the skies became a death trap for Soviet pilots. The loss of air superiority crippled the Soviet strategy.
The war became a meat grinder for Soviet conscripts. Morale plummeted as thousands of young soldiers returned home in sealed zinc coffins. Drug addiction became rampant in the ranks as soldiers traded ammunition for heroin to escape the horror of their daily lives. The Soviet economy was already crumbling under its own inefficiencies and the cost of the war became unbearable. It was costing Moscow billions of rubles a year to fight a war they could not win.
Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 with a mandate to fix the Soviet Union. He famously called Afghanistan a "bleeding wound." He realized that the war was destroying the legitimacy of the Communist Party at home and abroad. He ordered a withdrawal that began in 1988. The last Soviet commander General Boris Gromov walked across the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan on February 15 1989. The superpower had been defeated by a ragtag army of shepherds and students.
The Soviet withdrawal did not bring peace. It brought a new kind of hell. The communist government in Kabul held on for three more years before collapsing in 1992. The Mujahideen warlords who had united to fight the Soviets immediately turned their guns on each other. They shelled Kabul into ruins as they fought for control of the capital. The West had lost interest the moment the Soviets left and cut off all funding.
In this vacuum of lawlessness a new group emerged in the mid 1990s. The Taliban were students from the refugee camps in Pakistan who were sick of the warlords' brutality. They were led by a one eyed mullah named Mohammed Omar. They promised to restore order through a strict interpretation of Sharia law. The war weary population initially welcomed them because they disarmed the bandits and made the roads safe. But their version of peace came with public executions and the total erasure of women from public life.
The most dangerous legacy of the war was the internationalization of Jihad. Thousands of foreign fighters had flocked to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. They were known as the "Afghan Arabs." Among them was a wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden. He used his family fortune to build training camps and logistical networks. When the war ended these fighters did not go back to their normal lives. They were hardened veterans looking for a new war.
Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda from the remnants of this network. He believed that if they could destroy one superpower they could destroy the other. The skills and tactics learned fighting the Red Army were repurposed for a global war against the West. The training camps in Afghanistan became the launchpad for attacks in Kenya and Tanzania and eventually New York City.
The assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud on September 9 2001 was the final act of this tragic drama. Massoud was the legendary "Lion of Panjshir" and the only leader who could have stopped the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His murder was the signal that the big attack was coming. Two days later the planes hit the World Trade Center. The United States invaded Afghanistan a month later and started the cycle all over again.
The Soviet Afghan War is a lesson in the law of unintended consequences. The US helped create a monster to defeat a rival only to have that monster turn on its creator. The Soviets tried to secure their border and ended up destroying their own empire. The Afghan people were caught in the middle and suffered decades of unimaginable misery.
Today we are still living in the wreckage of that conflict. The instability in Central Asia and the rise of global terror networks and the mistrust between Russia and the West can all be traced back to the decision to invade in 1979. It serves as a permanent warning to any nation that thinks it can solve complex political problems with military force.