Was Afghanistan the Soviet Union’s Vietnam? I'd really like to know how you've answered the question. There must be a lot of good ideas out there :-)

cheers

Olaf

If you need the footnotes, just ask me


Regardless of obvious differences between military aspects of the Soviet Afghanistan War and the United States (US) Vietnam War, both ended as political defeats of the Cold War superpowers. That such was the outcome in Afghanistan is to a large extent due to Soviet political miscalculations and military ineptitude, but also to Moscow’s main global adversary’s activities: the US worked hard to make this come true. The day Soviet armed forces entered Afghanistan, an indigenous resistance movement arose, and Zbigniew Brzezinski declared that ‘Now [the US] can give the USSR its Vietnam War.’ US had understood the lessons of Vietnam better than the Soviet Union (SU), and managed to turn this knowledge against her main global opponent, both on the battlefield and on the home front,

1. Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam

It is particular tempting to highlight the parallels of the two wars discussed because they were the main foreign wars of the two main actors of this period. However, the balance between similarities and differences does not seem to justify the analogy, as will be shown in the following paragraphs. Nevertheless, a closer look at the specific Soviet problems in Afghanistan make it understandable why it has become a truism to see the war as a mirror of the America’s Vietnam.

1.1. Similarities

Some fundamental patterns of the wars were strikingly alike: Superpowers were supporting Third World governments, in each case claiming to defend “democracy” with military force on foreign territory. In both cases un-popular regimes were supported, and in both a Superpower was fighting to contain the other Superpower. In both cases, the decision to intervene was taken reluctantly and only after careful consideration , but in both it became increasingly difficult to pull out, for the US because of their domino thinking, and for the SU because a withdrawal, as it appears in newly published sources,

‘would have meant a concession to the aggressive policy of the United States; would have strengthened [Western] proponents of the harsh course towards the Soviet Union; and would have led to rapid growth of Muslim extremism near the borders of the Soviet Union.’

These wars were also the longest two wars of the Cold War in which the US and the SU, respectively, had been involved directly. There were sanctuaries for the guerrilla, and financing and military support from abroad, which eventually resulted in ‘[T]he hot pursuit of Mujahideen by Afghan and Soviet forces [and] frequent border violations […] similar to Laos’ and Cambodia’s ‘Ho Chi Minh path problem.’ Throughout the Afghanistan War ‘The [Soviet] leadership was poorly informed about the strength of religious beliefs among the masses of the Afghan population,’ as was the US about the strong motivation of Vietnamese nationalists.

In purely military terms two features were very similar. Firstly, the US’s over-reliance on airpower mirrored a ‘ Soviet Air Force [that] was useless against an enemy that it could not target,’ and the fact that both Superpowers had to learn by doing. As M. Navroz has observed, ‘Like the United States, the Soviets had to restructure and retrain their force while in the combat zone.‘

Criminal behaviour among de-motivated troops were part of the picture in both cases: My Lay is mirrored by the Soviet soldiers’ frequent atrocities in ‘sending a person to Kabul’ , which meant basically mugging and murder.

Another astounding similarity lies in the gradual escalation of the campaigns. In 1985, when Gorbachev came to power, the Soviets launched a major offensive that brought the Mujahideen ‘close to breaking, but the Soviets did not realize it.’ Tad Daley observed that ‘Soviet counterinsurgency had improved dramatically by 1986, and there were some indications that they were finally beginning to turn the military tide against the rebels.’ This is well comparable to the US’s utter military defeat of their enemies during the TET offensive but in either case, it was already too late to turn military success into a politico-strategic victory.

1.2. Differences

In comparison with Vietnam, the Soviet efforts in Afghanistan took a much more modest dimension. ‘The number of Soviet troops in the country […], most often given as about 118,000 - was sufficient to maintain the status quo but not enough to decisively crush the resistance.’ This number was considerably less than the half million US troops stationed in South Vietnam between 1968 and 1972. Whilst Vietnam saw ‘divisional and multi-divisional operations, […] in Afghanistan, a region five times the size if Vietnam’, Soviet troops resorted mainly to low profile operations. Even if the Soviets had wanted to, they could not have scaled over five divisions because this was ‘the maximum amount that could be supplied over the overburdened Afghan road network.’

Unlike Vietnam, casualties in Afghanistan occurred during what Luttwak calls the “post-heroic period”. At the time, the explanation most commonly offered for the defensive, and uninspired Soviet tactics, was that Soviet commanders were reluctant to rely on their poorly trained conscript troops. Actually, they were under ‘constant and intense pressure from Moscow to avoid casualties at all costs.’ Still, the numbers are frightening:

‘The dead and missed Soviet soldiers amounted to […] almost 15,000 men, which is much less than the 50,000 US soldiers Killed in Vietnam, however serious illnesses, like hepatitis, happened to 73% of Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan. These numbers ‘are unheard of in modern armies and modern medicine […]’.

The most important difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan, however, is the character of the retreat. Gorbachev ‘got his troops out on time in spite of fierce […] constant political manoeuvring of the Reagan Administration.’ He managed to avoid a situation, as the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister has put it, ‘that leaves us with our last people leaving Kabul on the struts of helicopters.’

Overall, there is a relative balance between similarities and differences between the two wars. As a result, militarily it is inappropriate to put them in the same operational or strategic category. However, in both cases a military deadlock eventually developed into a political defeat. The following section will examine why Afghanistan thus became a Soviet “Vietnam”.

2. Soviet attitudes on the Afghanistan war:

2.1. Wrong expectations

S. Savranskaya describes the Soviets’ wrong expectations and fears as the roots of the decision for a military engagement. Moscow’s ‘paranoia about the possibility that [Afghan communist leader] Amin would become another Sadat and turn towards the US’ were answered by an attempt to change Afghanistan into a kind of ‘compliant satellite state similar to Mongolia.’

As Kosygin said during the Politburo debate, ‘We must not surrender Afghanistan.’ Taking into account the possibility that for the first time an allied country could break from the Soviet empire; the bad example this would give to already unreliable partners like Poland; and the historical imperial fear of political spillover effects from Muslim-ruled areas via Afghanistan into the Central Asian republics, a political emergency brake seemed to be necessary. The resulting […] ‘invasion clearly made the [ruling party] PDPA subservient to Moscow and ended the Party’s independence.’

On the military front, ‘Soviet troops went into Afghanistan with the assumption that by seizing the capital they were seizing the country.’ To achieve their aims, an intervention had to be a ‘rapid, and overwhelming action’, which it actually became. However, the military problems started immediately. Unexpectedly, ‘[a] substantial indigenous resistance movement arose in Afghanistan.’ Although the population was split into ethnic and religious groups, they acted together as a coalition of guerrillas, called the Mujahideen. As L. Grau observed:

‘The one event that unites all Afghans in a common cause is foreign invasion [and] the country’s true combat power lies in the rural lands and remote mountains where warriors hold sway.’

2.2. Faulty solutions

The initial effort to establish countrywide territorial control was soon abandoned, and the Soviet army ‘settled down to defend the largest towns and the highways that connected them.‘ The army, equipped with a lot of artillery and tanks, and trained for the battles expected in a major central European conflict, found themselves unable to dominate the fight. ‘The Soviets needed lots of light infantry and engineers - which they never had enough of.’

In addition, targeting the enemy with the military means at hand turned out to be extremely difficult. The Mujahideen, even if amalgamated by a common enemy, included many armed groups, seven of which had their headquarters in Pakistan, and four in Iran. Normally the Afghans thought of themselves ‘primarily in peer group terms’ rather than as Afghans. The wartime translation of these tribal affinities made a huge tactical difference for the Russians. What was missing was a centre of gravity that could be identified, targeted, and eventually be defeated. ‘The Afghan insurgency knew no guerrilla counter-government, nor the ‘attempt to create “state capabilities”.’ By contrast:

In Vietnam, the Communists waged a classic, peasant-based, centrally directed, three-stage, Maoist model insurgency, culminating in a conventional military victory. ‘[They] also had a clear and well-publicised political, economic, and social agenda.

Since Moscow could never exactly define the enemy, her only escape was the use of massive force that ‘became a useful drug against the painful search for political and military precision.’ Finally, even the massive use of force, especially after the introduction of helicopter gunships in 1984 - a very efficient counter guerrilla weapon - was eventually thwarted by US military support for the Mujahideen. This leads us to the next topic, the United States contribution to Soviet failure.

3. The US as spoilers

Immediately after the start of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, National Security Advisor Brzezinski delivered a memorandum to President Carter, stating that the US had to show that she was ‘unwilling to let the Soviets get away with this invasion with impunity’, adding that ‘[one] should not be too sanguine about Afghanistan becoming a Soviet Vietnam’ . The US had learned her lessons from Vietnam. Such an outcome would therefore have to be pursued on several fronts: the military frontline, the international illegitimacy of Soviet policy, and the Soviet home front.

3.1. Military support

The US Government rallied support on the domestic front as well as internationally. Brzezinski’s toured India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and even China to gather support for his campaign. ‘In Washington, Congress [was] willing to approve [for Afghan rebels] ten times the amount of CIA money which goes to the Nicaraguan contras […].’ Starting from 122 million Dollars in fiscal year 1984, by 1985 US aid had reached 250 million Dollars, and was then gradually increased to 700 million per annum only 2 years later. This was usually met by equal contributions from Saudi Arabia.

Eventually, during a phase when the Soviets appeared to regain control of the situation in the occupied country, the US decided to gift Stinger AA weapons to the Mujahideen. ‘When the Stinger finally arrives in the fall of 1986, it is a “silver bullet”. Soviet and Afghan aircraft begin to fall from the skies as never before.’

‘On 25 September 1986, Mujahedin fighters fired their first five Stinger missiles, knocking three Soviet MI-24 Hind helicopters out of the sky on their first try. The military dynamic had shifted.’

The arrival of the Stinger was so decisive a contribution to warfare on the ground that only two months later the Soviet politburo set a two-year deadline for the withdrawal of its army.

3.2. International relations

Brzezinski’s 1979 analysis turned out to be correct: ‘World public opinion may be outraged at the Soviet intervention. Certainly, Moslem countries will be concerned, and we might be in a position to exploit this.’ Further, he explained that the already existing refugee problem in the area would put the US in a position ‘to indict the Soviets for causing massive human suffering.’ Gromyko, who may have seen the famous photo of Brezinski proudly presenting an AK 47 assault rifle the Pakistan-Afghan border, soon understood that:’[…] the Americans are not interested in a settlement of the situation […] it is to their advantage for the war to drag on.’ C. Simpson, who edited the declassified NSA directives of the Reagan administration confirmed that ‘[t]he U.S. objective [was] to keep maximum pressure on Moscow for withdrawal and to ensure that the Soviet’s political […] costs remain high while the occupation continues.’

Finally, ‘on the global level, Moscow’s policy of championing Third World causes was compromised, and it earned the enmity of practically the entire Islamic world.’

When the Soviet Military Command warned in 1989 of people who were ‘trying to create an analogy between the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and […] Vietnam’ and they qualified this analogy as ‘not only unfair but even absurd to draw […],’ it was already too late. The political war had dragged on, whatever happened on the battlefield, highlighting exactly the parallels.

3.3. The home front

The Soviet home front began crumbling when returning “Afghantsy” seen in Soviet cities ‘became a part of the urban landscape’ in Russia. The image of Soviet soldiers building schools in Afghanistan, which was industriously worked out by the official media, would not hold ground against the obvious evidence that something very different was apparently going on.

However, the heavily manipulated Russian media insulated civil society from bad news. Thus, what the free press had done in the US during the 1960s had to be artificially initiated and transported to the Russian public, against the barrier of an ‘authoritarian state’s propaganda apparatus’ - at least until that barrier was eventually brought down by Gorbachev himself, who ‘deliberately lifted the press ban.’

Before this happened, however, a substitute to normal publishing had to be found, which could not easily be countered by Soviet propaganda. Thus, the US administration hoped to force the war into Eastern consciousness by initiating a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. This was something the USSR could not hide from the public domain, given the importance of sports in Soviet propaganda. Sports then remained the only platform where the SU could display her superiority in the contest of economic or political systems. It was a Russian asset: ‘the growing impact of socialist sport […] is one of the best and comprehensive means of explaining to the masses the advantage of socialism over capitalism,’ and ‘the Olympic games [were] now regarded by many as merely a testing ground for the two great political units.’

The alleged Soviet strength turned into a weakness when on 21 March 1980 President Carter announced the boycott of the Olympic games. This boycott was to become a major success. 60 countries were missing during the opening celebrations. Even medal ceremonies had to be held under the flag of the Olympic committee, rather than the national ones, while the Olympic hymn was being played.

For the first time, it became clear to the Soviet people that their self-perception as the leading force for peace was not shared by large parts of the world’s population. In combination with the growing number of deserters, fraud to evade military service, and knowledge spreading about the loss of legitimacy of the country’s policy, Soviet society became alien to its leadership and their aims.





Conclusion

Afghanistan is a Soviet Vietnam if one reads “Vietnam” as the metaphor for an unexpected defeat of a superpower by an apparently inferior enemy. The analogy therefore makes sense politically, even if in military terms the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War showed too many fundamental differences to make them historical twins.

At the end of the day, the Soviet Union had lost her credibility in front of Third World nations, and ‘Moscow’s international isolation was the deathknell [that caused] its public’s growing disbelief in the Soviet rule.’ In 1986, Akhrome’ev, a member of the Politburo, understood that the SU had ‘lost the battle for the Afghan people.’ What he did not realise was that they had also lost the battle for the peoples of the Soviet Union and her neighbouring countries.

Prolonging the Afghanistan war by denying victory to the SU, as it was designed by Brzesinki, had decisively helped to achieve this outcome.


Bibliography


Articles and books:

Daley, Tad (1989), Afghanistan and Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy, in Asian Survey, No. 5, pp. 296-513

Gibbs, David (1987), Does the Soviet Union have a ‘Grand Strategy?’ Reinterpreting the Invasion in Afghanistan, in Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp.365-379

Grau, Lester (2004), A Superpower Mired in the Mountains, in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 129-151

Herring, George C. (1982), American Strategy in Vietman: The Postwar Debate, in Military Affairs, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 57-63

Inside Washington, (26 April 1980), Simon plays key role in Olympic Boycott, pp. 5-6

Jalali, Ali A./Grau, Lester (2001), Expeditionary Forces : Superior Technology Defeated-The Battle of Maiwand, in Military Review, pp. 1-6

Kilkullen, David (2007), Counter-insurgency Redux, in Survival, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 111-130

Kuperman, Alan J. (1999), The Stinger Missile and U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan, in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 114, No. 2, pp. 219-263

Lagon, Mark P. (1992), The International System and the Reagan Doctrine: Can Realism Explain Aid to ‘Freedom Fighters’? in British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 39-70

Le Nouvel Observateur, Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Paris, 15-21 January 1998, Posted at globalresearch.ca,15 October 2001, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Luttwak, Edward N. (2003, 2nd ed.) Strategy The Logic of War and Peace, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass)

Moise, Edwin E. (1998), Afghanistan the Soviet Union Limited War, in Clemson University, History Department, Faculty Pages, http://www.clemson.edu/caah/history/FacultyPages/EdMoise/limit6.html

Navroz, Mohammad/Grau, Lester (1995), The Soviet War in Afghanistan: History and Harbinger of Future War? in Military Review, September/October, pp. 1-12

Nyrop, Richard F. (1986), The Soviet Occupation, in Illinois Institute of Technology, Government Publication Access, Paul V. Galvin Library, http://gl.iit.edu/govdocs/afghanistan/TheSovietOccupation.html

Record, Jeffrey (2002) How America’s Own Military Performance In Vietnam Aided And Abetted The “North’s” Victory, in Gilbert, Marc Jason, Why The North Won The Vietnam War, (Palgrave, London), pp. 117-136

Reuveny, Rafael/ Prakash, Aseem (1999), The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union, in Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, pp. 693-708

Riordan, James (1974), Soviet Sport and Foreign Policy, in Soviet Studies, Vol. 26. No. 3, 322-343

Savranskaya, Svetlana (ed.) (2001), The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs, National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html

Shipler, David K. (1987), New York Times, 18 November, 1987, p. 7

Steele, Jonathan (1986), Moscow’s Kabul Campaign, in Middle East Report, Nr. 141, Hidden Wars, pp. 4-11

Valenta, Jiri (1980), From Prague to Kabul: The Soviet Style Invasion, in International Security, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 114-141

Weinstein, Gene (1984), Review of: Olympic Sports and Propaganda Games: Moscow 1980, in The American Political science Review, Vol. 78, No. 3, pp. 858-859

Westad, Odd Arne (1996), Concerning the Situation in “A”: New Russian Evidence on the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan, in Cold War International History Bulletin, pp. 128-132

Documents:


CPSU CC Politburo Meeting, 17 March 1979, in Savranskaya, Svetlana (ed.) (2001), The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs, Document 1

CPSU CC Politburo Meeting, 17 March 1979, in Savranskaya, Svetlana (ed.) (2001), The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs, Document 14

CPSU CC Politburo transcript (excerpt), 13 November 1986, in Savranskaya, Svetlana (ed.) (2001), The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs, Document 18

Excerpt from Statement of the Soviet Military Command in Afghanistan on the Withdrawal of Soviet Troops, in Savranskaya, Svetlana (ed.) (2001), The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs, Document 23


Brzezinski, Zbiniew (1979), Reflections on Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Memo National Security Advisor to President Carter, 26 December, http://www.cnn.com/Specials/cold.war/episodes/20/documents/brz.carter/