Martin Harris
March 18, 2014
On
the twenty fifth anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan,
the Taliban have likened the success of the holy war fought against the
Soviets to the “jihad” now forcing the United States and its allies out
of Afghanistan. While it remains unclear how post US involvement in
Afghanistan will compare to what followed the Soviet occupation in 1989,
there are important parallels that can be drawn from the experience of
both former Cold War rivals as they sought to cut their losses and
withdraw from the so-called “graveyard of empires”.
On December 27, 1979, after repeated
calls for assistance by Kabul, the USSR entered Afghanistan in order to
stabilize the country’s fledgling communist government. Supported by an
estimated 80,000 troops, the operation was completed in just two days
and marked the Soviet Union’s largest foreign military intervention
since the Second World War.
But within just the first year, the
Soviets recognized that the situation was not going well. Babrak Karmal,
the Afghan president who Moscow installed following the invasion, had
proved ineffective. Desertions within the Afghan National Army were
rampant and the Soviets found themselves engaging a growing
constellation of rebel groups amid rising causalities.
The arrival of Soviet Primer Mikhail
Gorbachev in the Kremlin coincided with a growing stalemate on the
ground, and one of his first orders of business was to steer the war in a
new direction. Thousands of more troops were sent in and tactics were
shifted to include heavier use of Special Forces and helicopter
gunships. Moscow also replaced president Karmal with the more able Dr.
Mohammad Najibullah, a former head of the Afghan secret police.
Najibullah began implementing a policy of national reconciliation and
had improved the effectiveness of the Afghan army. But despite the
augmented troop presence, which peaked at around 120,000, and the new
military tactics and political approach, by 1986, it was clear that
Moscow was already looking for a way out. In many respects, these
changes were central to the broader exit strategy.
A decade later, on the pretext of
responding the September 11, 2001 attacks in NYC, the US invaded
Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban regime due to its failure to hand
over Osama bin Laden. In accomplishing its mission, the US used heavy
airpower coordinated by Special Forces on the ground; these units also
worked with local militias, which were fiercely opposed to the Taliban
and had been fighting the Islamist movement since it came to power in
1996.
As with the initial stages of the Soviet
intervention , the US’s invasion was swift and faced weak or limited
resistance. Upon securing the capital and other major population
centers, Washington launched a campaign of “nation building” with Hamid
Karzai as the new leader and face of Afghanistan’s democracy. US troops
meanwhile scoured the countryside for known or suspected members of Al
Qaeda. But to ensure security throughout the country, the US increasing
relied on former mujahedeen commanders who, following Afghanistan’s
civil war in the early 90s, had effectively carved out personal fiefdoms
in various parts of the country. Though anti-Taliban, these “warlords”
were often despised by the local population. Indeed, their corrupt and
chaotic rule was a main reason the Taliban came into existence in the
first place.
This seemingly contradictory policy of
“spreading democracy” while empowering warlords, combined with the near
immediate US shift its focus to regime change in Iraq after dislodging
the Taliban, would later come back to haunt the US. Just months into the
operation, Washington had already diverted substantial military and
intelligence resources to the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the Taliban – far
from defeated – had simply melted away only to fight another day.
