The military conflict in Afghanistan, which began more than thirty years ago, remains the cornerstone of world security today. The hegemonic powers, in pursuit of their ambitions, not only destroyed a previously stable state, but also crippled thousands of destinies.
Afghanistan before the war
Many observers, describing the war in Afghanistan, say that before the conflict it was an extremely backward state, but some facts are silent. Before the confrontation, Afghanistan remained a feudal country in most of its territory, but in large cities such as Kabul, Herat, Kandahar and many others, there was a fairly developed infrastructure, they were full-fledged cultural and socio-economic centers.
The state has developed and progressed. There was free medicine and education. The country produced good knitwear. Radio and television broadcast foreign programs. People met at the cinema and libraries. A woman could find herself in public life or run a business.
Fashion boutiques, supermarkets, shops, restaurants, a lot of cultural entertainment existedin cities. The beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the date of which is interpreted differently in the sources, put an end to prosperity and stability. The country in an instant turned into a center of chaos and devastation. Today, radical Islamist groups have seized power in the country, which benefit from maintaining unrest throughout the territory.
Reasons for the start of the war in Afghanistan
To understand the true causes of the Afghan crisis, it is worth remembering history. In July 1973, the monarchy was overthrown. The coup was carried out by the king's cousin Mohammed Daoud. The general announced the overthrow of the monarchy and appointed himself President of the Republic of Afghanistan. The revolution took place with the assistance of the People's Democratic Party. A course of reforms in the economic and social sphere was announced.
In reality, President Daud did not reform, but only destroyed his enemies, including the leaders of the PDPA. Naturally, discontent in the circles of the Communists and the PDPA grew, they were constantly subjected to repression and physical violence.
Social, economic, political instability in the country caused a civil war, and the external intervention of the USSR and the United States served as an impetus for even more massive bloodshed.
Saur Revolution
The situation was constantly heating up, and already on April 27, 1987, the April (Saur) revolution took place, organized by the military detachments of the country, the PDPA and the communists. New leaders came to power - N. M. Taraki, H. Amin, B. Karmal. They immediately announced anti-feudal and democratic reforms. The Democratic Republic began to existAfghanistan. Immediately after the first jubilations and victories of the united coalition, it became clear that there was discord between the leaders. Amin did not get along with Karmal, and Taraki turned a blind eye to this.
For the USSR, the victory of the democratic revolution was a real surprise. The Kremlin waited to see what would happen next, but many prudent military leaders and apparatchiks of the Soviets understood that the outbreak of war in Afghanistan was not far off.
Participants in the military conflict
Already a month after the bloody overthrow of the Daoud government, new political forces are mired in conflicts. The Khalq and Parcham groups, as well as their ideologists, did not find common ground with each other. In August 1978, Parcham was completely removed from power. Karmal, together with his like-minded people, travels abroad.
Another failure befell the new government - the reforms were hampered by the opposition. Islamist forces unite in parties and movements. In June, in the provinces of Badakhshan, Bamiyan, Kunar, Paktia and Nangarhar, armed uprisings against the revolutionary government begin. Despite the fact that historians call 1979 the official date of the armed clash, hostilities began much earlier. The year the war in Afghanistan began was 1978. The civil war was the catalyst that pushed foreign countries to intervene. Each of the megapowers pursued its own geopolitical interests.
Islamists and their goals
Even in the early 70s, an organization was formed on the territory of Afghanistan"Muslim youth". Members of this community were close to the Islamic fundamentalist ideas of the Arab "Muslim Brotherhood", their methods of struggle for power, up to political terror. The primacy of Islamic traditions, jihad and the suppression of all reforms that contradict the Koran - these are the main provisions of such organizations.
In 1975, the "Muslim Youth" ceased to exist. It was absorbed by other fundamentalists - the Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA) and the Islamic Society of Afghanistan (ISA). These cells were led by G. Hekmatyar and B. Rabbani. Members of the organization were trained in military operations in neighboring Pakistan and sponsored by the authorities of foreign states. After the April Revolution, opposition societies united. The coup in the country has become a kind of signal for armed action.
Foreign support for radicals
One should not lose sight of the fact that the start of the war in Afghanistan, dated in modern sources as 1979-1989, was maximally planned by foreign powers participating in the NATO bloc and some Islamic states. If earlier the American political elite denied involvement in the formation and financing of extremists, then the new century has brought very interesting facts to this story. Former CIA officers left a mass of memoirs exposing the policies of their own government.
Even before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA financed the Mujahideen, equipped training bases for them inneighboring Pakistan and supplied the Islamists with weapons. In 1985, President Reagan personally received a delegation of the Mujahideen in the White House. The most important US contribution to the Afghan conflict was the recruitment of men throughout the Arab world.
Today there is information that the war in Afghanistan was planned by the CIA as a trap for the USSR. Having fallen into it, the Union had to see all the inconsistency of its policy, deplete resources and “fall apart”. As you can see, it did. In 1979, the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, or rather, the introduction of a limited contingent of the Soviet Army, became inevitable.
USSR and support for the PDPA
There are opinions that the USSR prepared the April Revolution for several years. Andropov personally oversaw this operation. Taraki was an agent of the Kremlin. Immediately after the coup, the friendly assistance of the Soviets to fraternal Afghanistan began. Other sources claim that the Saur Revolution was a complete surprise for the Soviets, albeit a pleasant one.
After the successful revolution in Afghanistan, the government of the USSR began to follow the events in the country more closely. The new leadership in the person of Taraki showed loy alty to friends from the USSR. KGB intelligence constantly informed the "leader" about instability in the neighboring region, but it was decided to wait. The beginning of the war in Afghanistan was taken calmly by the USSR, the Kremlin was aware that the opposition was sponsored by the States, they did not want to give up the territory, but the Kremlin did not need another Soviet-American crisis. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was not going to stand aside, all-after all, Afghanistan is a neighboring country.
In September 1979, Amin assassinated Taraki and proclaimed himself president. Some sources indicate that the final discord with regard to former comrades-in-arms occurred because of President Taraki's intention to ask the USSR for the introduction of a military contingent. Amin and his associates were against it.
Entry of Soviet troops
Soviet sources claim that about 20 appeals were sent to them from the government of Afghanistan with a request to send troops. The facts say the opposite - President Amin was opposed to the entry of the Russian contingent. The resident in Kabul sent information about US attempts to drag the USSR into a regional conflict. Even then, the leadership of the USSR knew that Taraki and the PDPA were residents of the States. Amin was the only nationalist in this company, and yet they did not share the $ 40 million paid by the CIA for the April coup with Taraki, this was the main cause of his death.
Andropov and Gromyko didn't want to listen to anything. In early December, KGB General Paputin flew to Kabul with the task of persuading Amin to call on the troops of the USSR. The new president was relentless. Then on December 22, an incident happened in Kabul. Armed "nationalists" broke into the house where the citizens of the USSR lived and cut off the heads of several dozen people. Having impaled them on spears, armed "Islamists" carried them through the central streets of Kabul. The police, who arrived at the scene, opened fire, but the criminals fled. On December 23, the government of the USSR sent to the governmentAfghanistan message informing the president that Soviet troops would soon be in Afghanistan in order to protect the citizens of their country. While Amin was considering how to dissuade the "friends" troops from the invasion, they had already landed at one of the country's airfields on December 24. Start date of the war in Afghanistan - 1979–1989 - will open one of the most tragic pages in the history of the USSR.
Operation Storm
Parts of the 105th Airborne Guards Division landed 50 km from Kabul, and the KGB special unit "Delta" surrounded the presidential palace on December 27. As a result of the capture, Amin and his bodyguards were killed. The world community "gasped", and all the puppeteers of this undertaking rubbed their hands. The USSR was hooked. Soviet paratroopers captured all the main infrastructure facilities located in large cities. For 10 years, more than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers fought in Afghanistan. The year of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan was the beginning of the collapse of the USSR.
On the night of December 27, B. Karmal arrived from Moscow and announced the second stage of the revolution on the radio. Thus, the beginning of the war in Afghanistan is 1979.
Events 1979–1985
After the successful Operation Storm, Soviet troops captured all the major industrial centers. The Kremlin's goal was to strengthen the communist regime in neighboring Afghanistan and push back the dushmans who controlled the countryside.
The constant clashes between the Islamists and the SA units led to numerous casu alties among the civilian population, but the mountainthe terrain completely disoriented the fighters. In April 1980, the first large-scale operation took place in Panjshir. In June of the same year, the Kremlin ordered the withdrawal of some tank and missile units from Afghanistan. In August of the same year, a battle took place in the Mashkhad Gorge. SA troops were ambushed, 48 fighters were killed and 49 were wounded. In 1982, on the fifth attempt, Soviet troops managed to occupy Panjshir.
During the first five years of the war, the situation developed in waves. The SA occupied the heights, then fell into ambushes. The Islamists did not carry out full-scale operations; they attacked food convoys and individual parts of the troops. The SA tried to push them away from the major cities.
During this period, Andropov had several meetings with the President of Pakistan and members of the UN. The representative of the USSR stated that the Kremlin was ready for a political settlement of the conflict in exchange for guarantees from the United States and Pakistan to stop financing the opposition.
1985–1989
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first secretary of the USSR. He had a constructive attitude, wanted to reform the system, charted the course of "perestroika". The protracted conflict in Afghanistan hampered the process of normalizing relations with the United States and European countries. Active military operations were not carried out, but nevertheless, Soviet soldiers died with enviable constancy on Afghan territory. In 1986, Gorbachev announced a course for a phased withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In the same year, B. Karmal was replaced by M. Najibullah. In 1986, the leadership of the SA came to the conclusion that the battle for the Afghan people was lost, since to take underThe SA could not control the entire territory of Afghanistan. January 23-26 A limited contingent of Soviet troops conducted their last Typhoon operation in Afghanistan in the province of Kunduz. On February 15, 1989, all the troops of the Soviet army were withdrawn.
Reaction of world powers
The entire world community after the media announcement of the capture of the presidential palace in Afghanistan and the murder of Amin was in a state of shock. The USSR immediately began to be seen as a total evil and an aggressor country. The outbreak of the war in Afghanistan (1979–1989) was a signal for the European powers that the Kremlin was being isolated. The President of France and the Chancellor of Germany personally met with Brezhnev and tried to persuade him to withdraw the troops, Leonid Ilyich was adamant.
In April 1980, the US government authorized $15 million in aid to the Afghan opposition forces.
The US and European countries urged the world community to ignore the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, but due to the presence of Asian and African countries, this sporting event still took place.
The "Carter Doctrine" was drawn up precisely during this period of aggravation of relations. Third world countries by a majority vote condemned the actions of the USSR. On February 15, 1989, the Soviet state, in accordance with agreements with UN countries, withdrew its troops from Afghanistan.
Result of the conflict
The beginning and end of the war in Afghanistan are conditional, because Afghanistan is an eternal hive, as its last king spoke of his country. In 1989 Limited contingentSoviet troops "organized" crossed the border of Afghanistan - so it was reported to the top leadership. In fact, thousands of SA soldiers, forgotten companies and border detachments remained in Afghanistan, covering the withdrawal of the same 40th army.
Afghanistan after a ten-year war was plunged into absolute chaos. Thousands of refugees fled their country to escape the war.
Even today, the exact number of dead Afghans remains unknown. Researchers voice the figure of 2.5 million dead and wounded, mostly civilians.
CA lost about 26,000 soldiers in ten years of war. The USSR lost the war in Afghanistan, although some historians argue otherwise.
The economic costs of the USSR in connection with the Afghan war were catastrophic. $800 million was allocated annually to support the Kabul government, and $3 billion to equip the army.
The beginning of the war in Afghanistan was the end of the USSR, one of the world's largest powers.
