What the Soviets learned in Afghanistan about assumptions

Indeed, the Soviets had denied the coup leaders’ requests for combat assistance for several years (beginning prior to the coup) KGB Chief Yuri Andropov, in March 1979, told Politburo (the Communist political party executive committee) members that sending troops to Afghanistan would be fruitless because the country was illiterate and backward. “In such a situation, tanks and armored cars cannot save anything,” he said. The Soviets worried about the effects of an invasion on their international image, and on their prospects for good relations with the US, which they feared and relied upon for trade.

But the leaders in the Kremlin grossly overestimated the extent of US involvement in Afghanistan. They saw Afghanistan through the lens of the US-Soviet relationship: President Carter’s increasingly tough talk, the rise of the belligerent neoconservatives and presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, and new NATO missiles being introduced in Europe. The Soviets feared the US would establish bases or missiles in Afghanistan, surrounding the Soviet Union with weaponry.

Members of the Obama administration know well why the Soviets had reason to be paranoid. In his 1996 autobiography, “From the Shadows,” current Defense Secretary Robert Gates revealed that Carter authorized the CIA to begin covertly aiding the Islamist guerrillas several months before the Soviet invasion. National Security Adviser – and one time Obama adviser – Zbigniew Brzezinski, . has since said he hoped to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan, where they would face their own Vietnam War. The amount of US aid before the invasion was small – only several thousand dollars – but it was noticed by Soviet officials and criticized in the Soviet press. They fed into Soviet fears about US domination, and the suspicious Soviet minds took care of the rest.

Americans reacted to the invasion with fury. The US ambassador to Moscow was recalled, the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were boycotted by the US and other countries, bilateral contacts were reduced, and trade was shut down. The US funding to the Islamists in Afghanistan eventually became arguably the biggest covert operation in history, attracting jihadists from around the Middle East. US-Soviet relations deteriorated to their worst point since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

As Washington begins to deploy the 30,000 addition US troops to Afghanistan, Obama must consider Soviet mistakes: Attempting to conquer Afghanistan is folly.

Jordan Michael Smith is a writer based in Washington.

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