In the midst of the Cold War era, both the U.S and U.S.S.R engaged one another in proxy wars in regions throughout the world to further their respective expansionist national agendas while counteracting the geo-political influence of one another. Proxy wars are conflicts contained within third party nations or regions which are instigated by the influence of major geopolitical powers who do not themselves become directly involved in the conflict. Thus, proxy wars are facilitated by major powers to preserve and expand their geopolitical influence through promoting or opposing certain armed factions within a regional conflict which in turn align themselves with particular ideologies, socio-economic structures or forms of government. A prime example of a cold era proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union is the conflict in Afghanistan surrounding the soviet invasion and occupation of the country. During this period, the U.S supplied significant financial and material support to factions of the mujahedeen, a loose collection of militant Islamic factions which formed in Afghanistan to combat Soviet occupation, which began in earnest in late 1979 as a response to the perceived threat posed by armed resistance groups to the stability of the pro-soviet national government in Kabul..(History.state.gov) The significant role that the U.S played in supporting the Mujahedeen during their proxy war with the U.S.S.R in Afghanistan helped to effectively end soviet expansion in Central Asia and directly contributed to the removal of troops from Afghanistan.
Although the Soviet Union engaged in a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas day of 1979, which itself had been preceded by decades of military cooperation between the two countries, the administration under U.S president Jimmy Carter opted not to become directly militarily involved in the conflict. Instead, the Carter administration chose to provide financial and material support to a large coalition of Islamic militant groups which had amassed in Afghanistan and unified under the title of “Mujahedeen” in their efforts of armed resistance against a pro-soviet national government in Kabul and soviet military occupation following the invasion in 1979. (Jihad with US Arms) The decision of the U.S to avoid becoming directly involved in the conflict reflects a fundamental rationale which motivates major powers to engage in proxy wars in the first place, which is to promote, preserve and expand geopolitical influence at a minimal expense of human resources, such as the deployment of ground troops. A primary reason the U.S opted against becoming directly militarily involved in the conflict, beyond the obvious risk of inciting an all-out war with the USSR, was the lack of public support for committing to direct military involvement which followed the disastrous quagmire in Vietnam. Thus, the president could not reasonably call for, nor could congress hope to authorize, a direct military engagement for fear of backlash from a war-weary American public. Thus, the U.S found in the Mujahedeen a method to counteract soviet military conquest in the region while committing only material and financial support. (History.state.gov)
The U.S effectively helped the Mujahedeen rise to power through providing material and financial support to the rebel factions fighting against the soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was bolstered by the support provided by other major and regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. As the Mujahedeen gained prominence as an effective guerilla style military response to the soviet military occupation, Muslims from many surrounding countries traveled to participate in what many perceived as a “holy war”, most notably a young man from Saudi Arabia named Osama Bin Laden. While the U.S and Mujahedeen maintained a seemingly mutually beneficial relationship during the years of soviet occupation, relations between them quickly deteriorated following the withdraw of soviet troops from Afghanistan and subsequent collapse of the. U.S.S.R in December of 1991. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the national Afghan government lost credibility and Kabul fell to Mujahedeen forces in April of 1992. The disparate factional nature of the mujahedeen forces in Afghanistan set in motion four years of civil war which would cumulate in the rise of the Taliban to power in 1996, an extremist militant group which remains as a formidable adversary to the military and foreign policy objectives of the US in the middle east and beyond. (Jihad with US Arms)
The results of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the United States decision to intervene militarily there seem to be quite clear. American support for the mujahideen, the Islamic freedom fighters in Afghanistan in retrospect seem to have led to a lengthy civil war in Afghanistan, the creation of the Taliban and ultimately even the attacks of September 11, 2001. That is all very plain to see now nearly forty years after the fact. What is harder, is to attempt to explain the motivation for why the United States and the Carter Administration chose to support the mujahideen and what they thought was to be gained from supporting an armed resistance to the Soviet Union.
The United States throughout the course of the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan supported what was a very small-scale but intense insurgency by certain Afghan groups against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. The reasoning for the United States support of an armed resistance in Afghanistan rested with a deep sense of anxiety in the late 1970s “tide of Islamic revivalism sweeping the Muslim world” and key members of the Carter Administration like the National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski chose to support Islamist elements if Afghanistan which would draw into the Afghan “trap” which would ultimately lead the Soviet Union to collapse. (Cooley 9-10) At the time US officials also did not think that by supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan would they cause the creation of a powerful international terrorist group. How could they have known?
United States support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan relied on a complex series of international arrangements of states that were equally interested in curbing Soviet power in Central Asia and supported a particular view of Islam that was on its rise at the time. US support for Islamic fighters in Afghanistan flowed through a channel in which "The United States supplied funds, weapons, and general supervision. Saudi Arabia matched the United States financial contributions, and Chinas government sold and donated weapons." (Cogan 76) The Americans, the Chinese and the Saudis all played important roles in given the resistance fighters the funds and weapons that they needed to fight the Soviets but it was the Pakistanis and more specifically the ISI which actually did the heaviest operational lifting on the ground in Afghanistan (Cooley 76) Later on during the Reagan Administration the focus of the American goal in Afghanistan shifted "from ‘making the Soviets pay' to ‘making them get out." (Cogan 76) This new emphasis on the United States along with a new more aggressive policy by the Soviets along with the introduction of the Stinger Missile a "a hand-held, ‘fire and forget' anti-aircraft missile" which was used by the mujahideen to shoot down Soviet helicopters began to take a toll on the Soviet war effort and resolve (Cogan 76) The amount of effort put into this proxy war in Afghanistan is revealed by the amount of money spent during ten years of involvement in Afghanistan probably more than $2 billion with the contributions peaking at $400 million a year in 1987 and 1988. (Cogan 76) The United States through its involvement with some very unlikely partners including China and Pakistan made the best out of a bad situation out of a weirdly specific Cold War crisis.
The Soviet Union feeling the same pressures the United States had felt earlier that same year with Islamic Revolution in Iran knew that in order for them to stem the tide of Islamist ideology on its majority Muslim Central Asia republics on its Southern border. Furthermore. The Soviet-backed government in Kabul was overthrown in late 1979 and the Kremlin decided that they would intervene military in Afghanistan in order to "kill two birds with one stone." (Borovik 4) the thinking was that a Soviet intervention would be able to "get rid of Amin" the man who overthrew the government, "and to crush the armed resistance as a means of bringing to power a coalition led by Babrak Kamal.” (Borovik 4) As a matter of fact, the thinking behind Soviet intervention in Afghanistan started "in 1978 when we called the military coup in Kabul the ‘April Revolution' and immediately became enslaved to the phrase." Or was it because of 1968 and the intervention in Czechoslovakia? Or the 1956 intervention in Hungary? (Borovik 11) The Politburo’s commitment to supporting a Communist regime in Kabul in 1979 ultimately led them into an unsustainable situation in Afghanistan which allowed the United States and its allies to take the advantage and fight the Soviet Union to a bloody stalemate.
The reasoning both by Washington and by Moscow in 1979 was seemingly very clear and logical. Leonid Brezhnev, the Politburo, and the Red Army had no choice but to intervene in Afghanistan. A Communist government had been overthrown in Kabul and the directives of Soviet foreign policy dictated that the Soviet Union had a duty to support even with militarily that Communist government, the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine. (Judson) Soviet Decision makers thusly had no choice but to support their ally and attempt to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan. The United States reeling from the loss of an ally in the government of Reza Shah Pahlavi in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in Iran saw an opportunity. Brzezinski and President Carter’s foreign policy advisors found in Afghanistan a place where they could successfully engage the Soviet Union in a war of attrition by proxy. Afghanistan being a majority Muslim country it would be easy to use religion and foment a jihad against the Soviet infidels. The United States and its partners in the region including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China created quite a complex system of funding and supply for the Islamic fighters or mujahideen in Afghanistan
The American proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union although it benefitted the goals of Washington actually represented an entirely Muslim response to what they saw as aggression against Islam. The call for Jihad was not instituted by Muslim states but instead networks of Salafist Muslim scholars who “issued fatwas interpreting the Soviet intervention as an invasion of the territory of Islam by the impious.” (Kespel 139) Which made it a defensive jihad which bade all Muslims to join in the defense of Islam. (Kespel 139) The anti-Soviet jihad, the actual resistance was organized in neighboring Pakistan by General Zia ul-Haq who gave material and funds to seven parties which the Pakistani government recognized. (Kespel 139) The United States took advantage of the general willingness of the Pakistani government as well as of the Saudi and other Gulf states ability to fund a war against the Soviets as a perfect opportunity to fight a proxy war against their biggest enemy in the seemingly never-ending Cold War struggle.
The mujahideen in Afghanistan were fighting a “modern, mechanized, technologically advanced Soviet Army” which many thought they had no chance of defeating. (Jalali and Grau ix) Nevertheless, through the use of the terrain, ideological motivation and a series of tactics such as ambushes, raids, sieges and fighting an urban war the Afghan resistance fighters were able to sap the initiative away from the far superior Soviet Army and actually forced them to retreat. The cost of the Afghanistan War for the Soviet Union in casualties, money and the trust of the public in the Soviet state that it even led to the intensifying of the process by Mikhail Gorbachev to actually speed up reforms like glasnost. (Galeotti 142-145). The American proxy war in Afghanistan is usually attributed as the one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the amount of effort, time and money spent by the United States and its allies just work to underscore that reality.
The military realities which the Soviet Army faced in Afghanistan are reflected by a passage written in an analysis of the conflict in Afghanistan by the Russian General Staff in which they pointed out that the Soviet Army was prepared to fight a “large-scale, high-tempo offensive operations exploiting nuclear strikes on the northern European plain 'and China.’ (Russian General Staff 310) The Soviet Army also expected to be able to use both massed artillery and air power to make gaps to drive deep into lines. (Russian General Staff 310) This particular vision of war which the Soviets thought they would be fighting against China and NATO forces in case the Cold War got hot was clearly inadequate for fighting a long counterinsurgency effort against a highly mobile enemy in a mountainous region like Afghanistan. (Russian General Staff 310) The operational realities in this case definitely helped the case of the mujahideen and it made the odds of even a highly superior Soviet military force because the terrain as well as other factors highly helped the case of the resistance forces.
The legacy of Cold War-era proxy war between the US and U.S.S.R in Afghanistan is manifested clearly through observing the nature and objectives of the current U.S military engagement in and occupation of Afghanistan and other regions throughout the middle east following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. One of the “fundamental strategic assumptions” defining current U.S military involvement in the middle east is that the Taliban is synonymous with Al Qaeda and that the US. “must fight a counterinsurgency war with the Taliban”, yet the very existence of the Taliban is an indirect consequence of U.S intervention based foreign policy objectives.(Cortright, 2009) Furthermore, as the US campaign in Afghanistan is “primarily against the Taliban” it is important to regard facts such as those released in a report published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which stated that “opposition to external forces” was the primary factor contributing to mobilizing support for the Taliban.(Cortright, 2009.)
During the Cold War-era proxy war between the U.S and the USSR-Afghanistan, the U.S provided significant material and financial support to the Mujahedeen in their armed struggle against soviet military occupation following the wholesale invasion by the USSR in 1979. Furthermore, the assistance provided to the mujahedeen by the U.S during this period directly helped to effectively end soviet expansion in central Asia and directly contributed to the removal of troops from Afghanistan. However, the Mujahedeen persisted as a major military force in post-soviet Afghanistan which effectively plunged the nation into four years of civil war cumulating in the rise of the Taliban in 1996, which remains a formidable adversary to U.S military and foreign policy.(History.state.gov) Thus, it should be understood how the expansionist national agendas and intervention based foreign policy objectives of major geopolitical powers via proxy wars can destabilize the socio-political framework of entire nations and through extension create the conditions necessary for the rise of radical militant groups such as the Taliban to power.
One of the largest lessons of the Soviet-Afghan War and the US decision to intervene with aid to the mujahideen ultimately rests on the value of asymmetric warfare as a valid method of a numerically and technologically inferior military force to attempt to fight a war on their own terms. With the help of the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan Muslims from all over the world as well many Afghanis came to fight a jihad against the Soviet Union. These fighters were not the best trained in the world and they also did not have the best equipment or leadership. Yet, with guile, cunning and the ability to use the inhospitable terrain they were able to defeat the second most powerful army in the world and contribute to the downfall of the Soviet Union. Afghanistan is often called "The Graveyard of Empires" because it is so inhospitable to invaders and it gives a great advantage to defenders. The United States did not choose to fight the war in Afghanistan, it was the soviet union which invaded, but this simple fact probably more than any other fact helped the United States to reach its goal of finding a place where they could hobble Soviet military power and the logic of the Brezhnev Doctrine.
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