In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Unable to control the countryside with their initial thrust, they ended up occupying the country with 100,000 soldiers. With equipment not built for the environment and a lack of counter insurgency training, they were stymied at every turn by the Afghan insurgents, who hid within the local population. The Soviets were reduced to using ham-fisted, brutal tactics, which ended up inflaming the populace even further.
The Soviets were unable to build a loyal, competent Afghan army to replace its occupation forces. Back in the USSR, officials heaped scorn upon their puppet ruler Babrak Karmal, who had little influence outside the capital.
The war itself was unpopular with the Soviet citizens, particularly due to the draft. Their wishes and desires had no effect on the political machinery of the country.
Stop me when any of this sounds familiar.
Reading Mikhail Gorbachev's statement [1] may cause severe deja-vu:
In October of last year [1985] in a Politburo meeting we determined upon a course of settling the Afghan question. The goal which we raised was to expedite the withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan and simultaneously ensure a friendly Afghanistan for us. It was projected that this should be realized through a combination of military and political measures. But there is no movement in either of these directions. The strengthening of the military position of the Afghan government has not taken place. National consolidation has not been ensured mainly because comrade Karmal continued to hope to sit in Kabul under our assistance. It was also said that we fettered the actions of the Afghan government.
Let us briefly go over the details of the war.
The Afghan resistance consisted of a half a dozen large groups, encompassing many different view points. Some were fundamentalist Islamic revolutionaries, some were pro-western and wanted to see the return of the exiled king, some were more traditional and tribal, and some were more extreme or moderate than others. What united them was their hatred of the USSR and the communists who had taken over their country. The resistance used classic, tried and true insurgency tactics against an overwhelming military occupation force: bombing and killing collaborators at all levels, bombing supply lines, police stations, electrical grids, bridges, factories, and convoys, and isolating small bands of Soviet forces with ambushes.
The guerrilla groups were supported materially by Egypt, Saudia Arabia, China, and the United States. Famously, the U.S. supplied thousands of shoulder fired stinger missile launchers which allowed the resistance to decimate Soviet attack helicopters, severely damaging one of their few advantages in the countryside.
The Soviets had grossly miscalculated the political and material costs of occupying Afghanistan, costs born both internally and abroad. International relations were severely strained, with the period of détente with the U.S. and NATO coming to an end. The USSR desperately needed to reform their economy -- their military-industrial complex was so large, so top heavy, so intrusive that it threatened a complete collapse of their entire society, being completely unsustainable. Many internal reformers wished to redirect their country to a path of consumer goods, to open the country up, but to do so while in the quagmire of Afghanistan was simply impossible. Internal discontent among the Soviet population was extremely high and proved nearly impossible to stamp out. The USSR was hemorrhaging on all fronts.
The results of the Soviet occupation were chilling. Over a million Afghans were killed. Over five million, or one fourth the population, fled the country, mostly settling in Pakistan, forming the largest refugee population in the world. Another two million were internally displaced. The infrastructure was just absolutely torn apart; the irrigation systems, vital for farming in the drier regions, were devastated, leading to crop failures and starvation in the bleak winter months. An estimated 10 million land mines still dot the countryside, killing civilians to this day.
For the Soviet’s trouble, they had lost approximately 15,000 dead, 50,000 wounded.
In the waning years of the war, the USSR desperately tried new ideas to recover their position. They put in a new leader, Dr. Mohammad Najibullah, who proved to be much more effective. Local elections, a new constitution, national reconciliation, and power sharing were promised. This push ultimately failed.
Humiliated, exhausted, and just downright battered, the Soviets began serious talks about withdrawing their forces in 1987. The main problem was that they had made considerable investments in both men and material in Afghanistan and they had to discover a way to leave which would save face. They eventually found the correct tact: declare victory. After all, their publicly stated reason for initially invading was to help the Afghan communist party from being overthrown. They had done so. Therefore, starting in May 1987, the Soviet forces began withdrawing on an agreed timetable as signed in the Geneva Accords of April. All forces were gone by February 1989.
The only problem with declaring victory was that it was a lie. Soviet analysts expected Kabul to fall soon after they left. It was riddled with factionalism and unpopular with the people. Surprisingly, the government lasted for several more years in a bitter civil war. The national army performed better than they ever had under Soviet supervision, but it couldn't last as the leadership fragmented. In 1992, the resistance finally won.
However, like the dog that caught the car, there was mass confusion. With the communists ousted, the many different factions now had very different ideas on how to run the country and were bitterly divided. Another civil war followed, with the eventual victor being the Taliban. They turned the country into an extreme Islamic fundamentalist theocracy which greatly restricted personal freedom and rights, especially those of women.
The fates of the former Soviet sympathizers were not good, either. When the Taliban found Najibullah they beat him to death and strung him up from a light post for being a traitor to the Afghan people.
Now that we understand a general summary, let us pose a hypothetical: in 1987, high ranking Politburo members communicate to the U.S. that yes, they would love to withdraw Soviet forces but...there’s this one thing...bit of a snag, really...it might lead to destabilization. It might lead to a civil war. Lots of people will die if they just up and up leave. Besides, do you know how difficult it is to withdraw 100,000 soldiers? What about all the equipment? We have to go forward with both eyes open on this one, comrade.
Well, I’m pretty sure what would’ve happened. The U.S. officials would have replied, most likely in a more diplomatic manner but along a similar vein: are you fucking kidding me? You’re not serious, right? You just invaded and occupied a country in a straight up land grab for the basest of reasons, destroyed its society, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and now you say you can’t leave because it might cause further instability?
So the claim would be that the USSR can’t leave because they are so concerned about the safety of the Afghan population. This is despite the fact an overwhelming percentage of Afghans want the Soviets to leave and have not only been saying so, they’ve been demonstrating the fact using bullets and bombs. This is despite the fact that the USSR has demonstrated 1) no capability of making Afghanistan more livable for humans (quite the opposite, actually) 2) no concern for the Afghan population over the last several years and 3) no desire to shape Afghanistan beyond a puppet state in order to exploit its resources and its geographically strategic position.
What would we have made of it? Did they take us for idiots? Was there some sort of chemical leak in the Kremlin, causing the Soviet officials to become delusional? Was it a ploy to kick the can down the road a little further so they could try one last gambit, hoping for the miracle?
There are differences, to be sure, between this and our current occupation of Iraq. For example, I’m unaware of the USSR killing 1.5 million Afghans before the war with crippling, inhumane sanctions, in addition to random bombings which killed a couple dozen here and there so the Soviet premier could "look tough" back home. I’m also unaware of a super power currently giving support to the Iraqi insurgency. There are many other differences.
We’ve already swallowed mountain high piles of this claptrap, of reasons why we can't leave, not only from the usual suspects but also from prominent Democrats and well meaning liberals concerned about the average Iraqi. It’s going to intensify as the potential for an Iraqi pullout comes through the fog and appears within grasp. We’re going to hear a lot of excuses from Very Serious News Show Experts as to why, golly gee, we just can't pull out, it'd be awful. One could probably just go back to 1968, copy/paste, change the names and dates, and be done with it.
What will be the aftermath of our pullout from Iraq? It's difficult to tell, but it will be bad. The history of ethnic/sectarian civil wars over resources is not a pretty one. Just look at what happened after the USSR pulled out. Afghanistan turned into a swirling vortex of chaos. It's still in a low level civil war. But it's important to realize the mindset of forcing your will on the local population and meddling in their internal affairs by staying isn't all that different than what led you to stupidly invade them in the first place. After all, didn't we really invade to bring freedom and democracy anyway? We've said it so many times, so it must be true...maybe we should just stay there until they like us! USA and Iraq: BFF!
Or, to sum it up in a catchy one liner, you don’t put the woman who was just raped under the protective custody of the rapist.
Reference:
- Documents on the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (warning: PDF), page 75 for the Mikhail Gorbachev quote. The entire thing makes for interesting reading, as there are large amounts of internal Soviet documents.