Could the Soviet Union have won its war in Afghanistan? Today, the victory of the anti-Soviet mujahideen seems preordained as part of the West’s ultimate triumph in the Cold War. To suggest that an alternative outcome was possible -- and that the United States has something to learn from the Soviet Union’s experience in Afghanistan -- may be controversial. But to avoid being similarly frustrated by the infamous “graveyard of empires,” U.S. military planners would be wise to study how the Soviet Union nearly emerged triumphant from its decade-long war.
There are, of course, some fundamental differences between the Soviets’ war in the 1980s and the U.S.-led mission today. First, the Soviet Union intervened to save a communist regime which was in danger of collapsing due to resistance to its comprehensive and often traumatic social-engineering programs. Unlike the Soviets and their client regime, the United States is not interested in forcibly removing the burkas from Afghan women, shooting large numbers of mullahs for resisting secularization, or reprogramming the political and social mores of Afghans. Instead, Washington has a far more limited objective: namely, ensuring that Afghanistan remains an inhospitable base for extremist groups hoping to attack the West.
Second, the Soviet army was prepared to fight a total war in Afghanistan, taking heavy losses in men and machinery and inflicting sweeping violence on the Afghan people. No U.S. commander would be willing to wage such a war today; the U.S. military realizes that making a desert and calling it peace is no way to curtail an insurgency.
But the Soviet experience should not be entirely ignored. When Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan in February 1989, many in the United States expected to see the mujahideen quickly topple the pro-Moscow government in Kabul. This did not happen. The regime led by Mohammad Najibullah, whom Moscow installed as president in 1987, remained in control of the country. For a moment, it appeared as if the Kremlin had successfully left in power an Afghan government and army that could withstand the Soviet withdrawal.
The Najibullah government was able to survive because Najibullah recognized the futility of the earlier Soviet strategy in Afghanistan. Afghans, he knew, would not fight and die for the Soviet Union. But, he realized, Afghans could be co-opted to work with the government to defend local and clan interests. Najibullah allowed regional leaders -- and, in some cases, former mujahideen commanders -- to form their own militias and, with mixed results, to join the regular army. The most successful of these was the Uzbek militia led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, which formed the 53rd infantry division of the Afghan army.
The departure of Soviet troops -- “the foreigners” -- weakened ties among various mujahideen factions. Najibullah’s government used long-standing rivalries, along with selective and generous bribery, to drive wedges between militant groups and then take advantage of the fighting that broke out as a result. At the same time, Najibullah received weaponry, food, and fuel from the Soviets, which gave his forces a significant advantage in terms of battlefield firepower and resources. The Afghan military flew the latest Soviet aircraft and had hundreds of Soviet-made Scud missiles in its arsenal.
The government in Kabul also dropped many of the more radical social-engineering programs previously championed by the Afghan communist leadership. It moved away from Marxist ideology and embraced Islam as the state religion, making an effort to put many of the country’s mullahs on the government payroll.
Finally, Najibullah constructed a nationwide patronage network to dispense the government largesse provided by the Soviet Union. In particular, he kept open the Salang Road -- a critical supply route linking Kabul with the country’s south -- by striking a series of deals with local villages and elders, who agreed to prevent mujahideen from mounting attacks on supply lines in exchange for a percentage of the goods flowing from the Soviet Union.
In short, Najibullah relied on time-honored practices of Afghan statecraft. He resembled a communist version of Mohammad Nadir Shah, who had ruled the country after the overthrow of King Amanullah Khan in 1929. Both the shah and Najibullah pushed for quiet modernization rather than reform from above, placated local interests while using divide-and-rule techniques to break up the opposition, and focused on strengthening the state’s army and security services.
The Najibullah regime demonstrated its resilience during the ill-advised mujahideen assault on the southern city of Jalalabad in March 1989. Although Pakistani and U.S. military advisers were convinced that much of the Afghan army would defect and the Najibullah government would quickly fold, the mujahideen overestimated their own strength and were forced to retreat. Inflated hopes of success meant the loss rocked the alliance of anti-Najibullah forces; meanwhile, morale inside the government skyrocketed, and Najibullah’s efforts to convince local leaders to back his rule began to bear greater fruit.
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