Afghanistan: Soviet failures echo for US

Control of roads and rural areas vexes coalition effort.

from the December 19, 2008 edition

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The US supplies arrive at Karachi by sea. American officials are now looking into using the longer and more costly overland route through Central Asia.

"The Soviets were unable to close sanctuaries in Pakistan," says Isby, the author. "America really has to do it now."

In that regard, the US might have greater opportunity for success than the Soviets did.

America was working with Pakistan in the 1980s to undermine the Soviets, funding the mujahideen. Today, Pakistan remains America's ally, though its efforts to dismantle militant sanctuaries have been stuttering.

Also in America's favor is the fact that while the insurgency is spreading, its roots are in the Pashtun south. The anti-Soviet insurgency was national.

"Against the Soviets, the [most effective] insurgents were non-Pashtun," says Isby, citing Ahmed Shah Masood, an ethnic Tajik from north of Kabul who was assassinated just before 9/11 by alleged Al Qaeda agents.

Obama's 'surge' not enough?

From the perspective of Zamir Kabulov, the former Soviet official, President-elect Barack Obama's proposed troops surge for Afghanistan is not enough.

The Russian diplomat has perhaps a unique view on Afghan history. He was in Kabul at the height of the Soviet-backed Communist regime in the mid-1980s. He returned to see the government fall to the mujahideen in 1992. Now, he is Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan.

The Soviets had nearly 400,000 Soviet and Afghan soldiers at their disposal – more than twice what the US and NATO have here – and yet they still failed, he notes.

The coalition's stretched resources have created an unwanted echo of the worst of Soviet times, Professor Goodson says.

"As the war … went on, the Soviets realized they had to get at the mujahideen in the countryside and so began a genocidal policy toward the rural villages and households," he says. Today, "every incident of inadvertent civilian casualties … awakens bad memories for the Afghans."

So do America's attempts to change Afghan society, says Mr. Kabulov. Just as the Americans have tried to improve women's rights and instill democracy, the Russians tried to instill Communism.

"After [the Soviet-backed government] stopped trying to impose socialism on the people, the [Afghan] Army started to believe that they were fighting for their own cause," he says.

"The biggest mistake we made was to try to spread our ideology among them," adds Viktor Pavlov, chairman of the Yekaterinburg chapter of the Russian Union of Afghan War Veterans.

The best course, Kabulov suggests, is to help Afghans help themselves.

US and NATO "underestimate the Afghans – they don't address the issue of … trying to build a strong national state," he says.

The Soviet failure illustrates the fruitlessness of military might alone, Goodson agrees: "A more effective approach centers on relief, economic development, rule of law, and good governance, with the security pillar of nation-building being just an enabler of the other pillars."

•Anand Gopal contributed from Kabul; Fred Weir from Moscow.

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