Singapore Chinese Girls' School

Rights of Women during Soviet Occupation

I can't seem to find anything in the article about the USSR's policy of 'freedom from the veil' that was instituted during thier occupation of Afghanistan, nor can I find anything about the Mujahideen insurgents' posistion towards women (i.e. objects to be bartered with) --66.227.111.238 17:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Soviet Union didn't cared abou such isues. During soviet times in central asian republics non officialy was allowed poligamy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.118.205.130 (talk) 09:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Women under and before Soviet occupation is a tabu topic in Afghan history today because it is heavily ideological. The reason is that gains in women's rights started to be rolled back significantly after the fall of the Najibullah government. This is not to say that Afghanistan was a paradise for women before that, but the accounts on the situation of women during and before the Soviet occupation are almost non-existent and based on personal accounts while contrasts of the situation during the Taliban and after the US invasion have been much publicized. The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA, a secular, anti-fundamentalist organization rooted in the Maoist movement) is one of the few Afghan women groups that have some credibility among Western sources now. The Feminist Majority invited RAWA to the U.S. in March 2000 for the Feminist Expo, and Eleanor Smeal [president of the Feminist Majority] spoke at a RAWA protest rally across from the White House in DC in April of the same year. Speaking with US congress members, RAWA representatives have emphasized that the word "Revolutionary" does not have the same meaning in Pashtun as a communist uprising as it does in English (5–925PDF 2001 AFGHAN PEOPLE VS. THE TALIBAN:THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM INTENSIFIES HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION OCTOBER 31, 2001), but that RAWA is a pro-democracy group advocating women's rights in Afghanistan since 1977. Although RAWA was heavily anti-Soviet, an article posted on their site from The Guardian, July 20, 2002 by Natasha Walters ("Bare faced resistance") reports that "I had to keep reminding myself that Kabul was not always a dystopian city - that once, in the 1970s and 1980s, it was cosmopolitan, with women walking down the streets in miniskirts, crowded jazz clubs and colourful parks. It's also important to remember that Afghan women were not always victims. In the 80s, 40% of doctors and 50% of university students in Kabul were women - and though such liberation did not extend throughout Afghanistan, many urban, educated women lived lives of relative freedom." I have heard similar comments through the internet from Afghan refugees, now living abroad in reference to college life in Kabul as a "fashion parade." My guess is that this part of history is being suppresed now to make it right.Otherwise I cannot explain why it is so hard to find unbiased reports on the topic. Vescalant (talk) 02:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Misleading introduction

"The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine year war between the Soviets and anti-Soviet forces which were fighting to depose Afghanistan's Marxist government. The Soviet Union supported the government while the insurgents found support from a variety of sources including the United States,and Pakistan."

The Mujahadeen were fighting to overthrow the Afghan communist government since it took power in the April 1978 revolution, how exactly were they "anti-Soviet forces"? The Soviets didn't get involved until December 1979. "Anti-Soviet forces" implies that they went to war only after the USSR invaded Afghanistan, which is not true. It makes more sense to call the mujahadeen "anti-government insurgents".

Or just rebels. The USSR was only involved after the government asked for help and for th USSR to step in, so it was not anti-soviet forces as you have said. --M-Mann.

"The USSR was only involved after the government asked for help and for th USSR to step in" - Dude, you are in serious need of some de-programming!!

From what I've read (D.S. Richards "The Savage Fronteir") that BK(?) took power with the express understanding that (as inevitably took place) the USSR would back him. It's hard, in that light, to separate the government the Mujahedin were fighting from the USSR. That said, I might like 'Soviet-backed government' better than the other two alternatives.

What is the basis for describing the Afghan mujahedin as islamic fundamentalists? This would be an appropriate term for the foreign arab jihadis who came to the conflict, but not for the majority of the mujahedin, who were simply afghans who practiced islam as their culture dictated. An example of fundamentalist islamic afghans would be more like the Taliban of the 1990 which came out of the more extreme kind of islam taught in fundamentalist madrasses in pakistan during the 1980s.Walterego 11:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Lack of information about the war

War crimes, and allegations of war crimes, that were commited by both sides. The Soviet's bombing of Afghan villages, the mujahadeen's torture and murder of the Soviet POWs.

Terrorism and terrorist acts that were carried out by the mujahadeen? For example they used Stinger missiles to shoot down several civilian airliners, they also attacked public schools and murdered teachers.

The foreign jihadis who fought in Afganistan a.k.a "Afghan Arabs"? There were tens of thousands of them.

Afghan casualties? Afghan military casualties, Afghan civilian casualties, Afghan insurgent casualties.

Injected with POV

The following changes must be made to this article:

- The mujahideen must be described as external Arab invaders.

- The Soviet Union did not invade Afghanistan. Rather, it deployed troops in order to assist a regime whose regime was under attack by an externally supported and organised rebellion.

- Perspective must be shown in concern to the repression endured by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan under Daoud.

- Babrak Karmal was the former Deputy Prime Minister under Taraki who had been demoted to the insignificant post of ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

These all seem like POV-skewed statements to me. The Mujahideen were not entirely external, nor were they necessarily "invaders." And the same principle applies to the Russians. In addition, you point out no details as to what this "repression" is, and fail to show why the ambassador post is insignifcant. --S.M. 04:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Major edit on September 1st

I've noticed a major edit on September 1st, which basically re-wrote the article. It shifted more focus from actual invasion to political games around it, and it re-introduced a lot of slippery points. I wonder if we:

• should salvage some of the information from the older edit into separate article for the actual invasion, which at this point accounts for less of the half of total text
• bring back the war table
• patch minor glitches

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Adopted redirects for Google: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet Union Invasion of Afghanistan, The Soviet Union's Invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet Attack on Afghanistan, Soviet Union Attack on Afghanistan

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This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for a private mailing list 5 days or so after the September 11 attack. It has been updated for the Wikipedia.

BTW - The numbers in the What was Wagered and What was Accomplished section are taken from "A Quick & Dirty Guide to War" (ISBN 0-688-06256-3) by James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay. The numbers in this book are a composite from many sources themselves. There exist [[http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm#Afghanistan other sources]] for this information, no one source can be regarded as 'correct'. With all these caveats in mind, I do not believe that any of this information can be regarded as copyrighted, except with regard as to form, which I have changed from the original. I hope this is enough due diligence as to possible copyright issues.

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Thanks much. Here's a quick question. If I screw up such an edit, and end up really causing problems with the DRoA page when I port their more detailed information here, (along with some of my own that I removed the first time - I figure better to be a bit too detailed than not enough if we are going through all the trouble of creating a special page and all.....) due to my inexperience and lack of faith in my own ability, what can be done? (Still having problems with those vicious run-on sentences! <GRIN>)

I took 'Be bold!' to heart, but I still feel uncomfortable with editing and moving material that obviously took someone a long time to put together. On the other hand, no one has replied to my post on the DRoA Talk page about these changer either. Sorry for so much hand wringing, I'm certain I will slowly get the hang of it. dobbs

For each page, we keep the previously saved versions. You can see them by clicking the History link on the left or bottom of your screen when viewing an article to get a list of them. If you screw up, we can still read the old version and use it to edit the new version, or if you really screw up (which I don't expect), we/you can just put the old back. So, just go ahead and edit! Jeronimo

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Ok, the new info is up. This page isn't really just a timeline anymore, so I'm unsure if it needs to be renamed. I've changed the 'Soviet Invasion' heading into a link that points here, I'm not certain how to or what else I would point here.

Again, neutral POV insights would help. I've really tried to change much of it to be as neutral as possible. For instance, while EVERYONE I have ever read, spoken to personally, or heard of, accepts that the invasion and resulting war was unprovoked agression by the U.S.S.R. against the Afghani's - SOMEONE must of at least thought up the party line that they were 'helping out' their socialist brethren. Thus, my attempts to re-write all that. I hope my studied assumptions on Soviet geostrategic goals is not out of line. While it is written neutrally (I hope), it is still subjective (even if well researched). I think that is acceptable for an encyclopedia, is there something "official" in the Wikipedia universe (talk area perhaps?) to steer me towards? Thanks again.

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Ed, I'm not sure if "supporters of the Soviet Union" is a correct statement to add as a qualification. Certainly right-wingers in the US have never supported the Soviet Union, yet they currently support the idea that the Soviet reaction to the Islamist issue on their southern border was prescient of our current troubles. Take their ambivalence toward the Russian suppression of Chechnya, for example..... Dobbs 00:26 Sep 19, 2002 (UTC)

Label the advocates any way you want, as long as it's clear who's doing the advocacy. Some people support -- and some people oppose -- both the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the 2001 "War on Terror" that toppled the Taliban. I would rather see the various advocates identified, rather than some vague statement that "some" support or oppose a given act. --Ed Poor

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The events that took place on the timeline after the 'Start of the Invasion' heading can all be given as the 'starting' point of the 'actual' war. Moving troops into enemy territory in order to remove the government is starting a war, even if it is sneaky and not realized. The same comment can be made about cutting telephone cables and removing equipment from service - all of those things are things that start wars as well. Thus my change. Dobbs 21:07 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

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Upon looking again, NPOV looks better than I thought. Brain fart. Sorry. [[User::Williamv1138]]

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Some of these anti-personnel mines were shaped like pens, or dolls, or other shiny trinkets, known as 'dolly bombs', intended for children to attempt to pick up." -- Was there ever any evidence of this? Sounds like an urban legend ... 11:55 Feb, 2004

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This seems to be one of those insidious non-NPOV titles. The Afghanistani government invited the Soviet Union in, so I don't know where people get off calling this an "invasion". Of course, you can argue this point, or put points in the article, but don't try to stick your POV in the title. If this is to be called an "invasion", then we might as well talk about the US invasion of South Vietnam since it is the same scenario - a superpower invited in by the government. Either way, the title should be neutral, and not reflect one POV. -- HectorRodriguez 22:52, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

They weren't invited in. They sent troops into Kabul and deposed Hafizullah Amin and his government. It was clearly an invasion. Hans Zarkov 17:39, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are wrong: they were repeatedly invited in, both by Amin himself when he came to power in September 1979, and his predecessors. Being not familiar with the facts doesn't automatically make it a "clear invasion".

The government of N. M. Taraki repeatedly requested the introduction of Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. ... On 14 April the Afghan government requested that the USSR send 15 to 20 helicopters with their crews to Afghanistan ... After a month, the DRA requests were no longer for individual crews and subunits, but were for regiments and larger units. On 19 July, the Afghan government requested that two motorized rifle divisions be sent to Afghanistan. The following day, they requested an airborne division in addition to the earlier requests. They repeated these requests and variants to these requests over the following months right up to December 1979. (ISBN 0-7006-1186-X)

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Any proof that chemical weapons were used in Afghanistan?

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Info on war needed

The article right now seems to only be about the beginning of the conflict; it doesn't discuss how the conflict progressed and what happened in the end. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 23:13, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Someone seems to have removed part of it. Fred Bauder 23:22, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Is this a copy-&-paste job from somewhere ?

The following is an unwikified version of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by Anon. User:12.46.110.123. The original version has been restored. I don't know this topic, so I shouldn't merge the two versions. Please feel free to do so.

In 1979, the USSR took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, and tried through the following decade to gain control over the whole country and its people. The invasion was a failure, costing thousands of lives and having serious consequences still felt today.

To better understand the reason for the Soviet invasion and failure, first one must understand the geography and culture in Afghanistan. The land is mountainous and arid. Jagged, impassable ranges divide the country and make travel difficult. Due to these physical divisions, the people are extremely provincial, with more loyalty to their specific clan or ethnic group than to a government or a country. The people are Muslims, and extremely religious and conservative. The majority ethnic group is the Pashtun, but there are over ten minority groups.

Starting in the 1950s, the USSR began giving aid to Afghanistan. The Soviets built roads, irrigation and even some oil pipelines. In the 1970s, a Communist party overthrew the monarchy and tried to institute social reforms. The rural populations saw land distribution and women's rights as alien to their traditional Islamic culture, a culture in which polygamy, covering of women, and blood for blood practices are accepted. The Communist governments in Kabul in the 1970s lacked the popular support of the rural population.

The Invasion

The Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979 for a number of reasons. First, they wished to expand their influence in Asia. They also wanted to preserve the Communist government that had been established in the 1970s, and was collapsing because of its lack of support other than in the military. Third, the Soviets wanted to protect their interests in Afghanistan from Iran and western nations.

The Soviets brought in over one hundred thousand soldiers, secured Kabul quickly and installed Babrak Karmal as their puppet leader. However, they were met with fierce resistance when they ventured out of their strongholds into the countryside. Resistance fighters, called mujahidin, saw the Christian or atheist Soviets controlling Afghanistan as a defilement of Islam as well as of their traditional culture. Proclaiming a "jihad"(holy war), they gained the support of the Islamic world. The US gave them weapons and money. The mujahidin employed guerrilla tactics against the Soviets. They would attack or raid quickly, then disappear into the mountains, causing great destruction without pitched battles. The fighters used whatever weapons they could take from the Soviets or were given by the US. Decentralized and scattered around Afghanistan, the mujahidin were like a poisonous snake without a head that could be cut off. There was no one strong central stronghold from which resistance operated

Effects / World Response

Afghan refugee's eyes represent the anguish brought upon her by the Soviet Invasion (Denker, 1985).

The Soviet invasion had a devastating effect on the Afghan people. Because the rural population fed and housed the mujahidin, the Soviets tried to eliminate or remove civilian populations from the countryside where resistance was based. Soviet bombing destroyed entire villages, crops and irrigation, leaving millions of people dead, homeless or starving. Land mines maimed unsuspecting Afghans, especially children who mistook them to be toys. Refugee camps around Peshawar, Pakistan sprang up and quickly became overcrowded, unsanitary and insufficiently supplied. In addition, many internal refugees fled from their region.

The Soviet invasion in Afghanistan elicited a strong reaction from all over the world. The United States condemned the occupation immediately. We sent hundreds of millions of dollars worth of guns and food to Afghanistan to aid the mujahidin and the refugees. The United Nations voted to condemn the action, and repeatedly exhorted the USSR to pull out. From throughout the Arab world, people gave money and aided the mujahidin. One of these benefactors of the war was Osama bin Laden. Although the primary reason for the Soviet withdrawal was their military failure, diplomatic pressure from around the world may have hastened it.

Top

Soviet Withdrawal / Reprecussions

In 1989, Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan. Fifteen thousand Soviet soldiers and countless Afghans had been killed in the decade-long war. Billions of dollars had been spent each year to support troops in Afghanistan. Unable to defeat the mujahidin and pressed by world opinion to leave Afghanistan, Soviet leader Gorbachev decided that the USSR had to get out. In part, the tide of the war had been turned by the introduction of US-made shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles in 1987. With these missiles, the mujahidin shot down Soviet planes and helicopters every day, increasing the monetary and human cost of the war, and making Soviet strike tactics ineffective. Demoralized and with no victory in sight, the USSR's forces left Afghanistan.

The war had far-reaching effects on Afghanistan, the Soviets, and the US. Several million Afghans had either fled to neighboring Pakistan for refuge or had become internal refugees. In addition, millions more had died from starvation or from the Soviet bombings and raids. Among the survivors were a generation that had known only war, hatred, and fear. Homes, animals, and precious irrigation systems were destroyed, leaving the country barren and in ruin. Also, thousands of miniature land mines dropped by the Soviet planes continued to pose a hazard to the Afghan people long after the war with the USSR ended.

The USSR was also affected greatly by its failure. It lost fifteen thousand troops, but the true damage done was in the degradation of its image, and the billions of dollars it spent during the war. This fall from invincibility and vast expendature of money to finance the invasion in part caused the USSR to fall apart in the early 1990s.

One long-term effect of the Soviet invasion and pull-out was the establishment of a weak state full of religious hatred and hatred of richer nations: a breeding ground for terrorism. Though supplying the Afghan resistance with American guns and anti-aircraft missiles seemed like a good idea for the US in the 1980s, and was the reason for the Soviets’ defeat, now as the US invades, they are met with their own guns. The significance of the sophisticated guns has yet to be determined. In light of the US involvement today in Afghanistan after the September 11th terrorist attacks, it is especially important to understand the history of the Soviet's involvement there so we can avoid making the same mistakes.

Thanks. -- PFHLai 07:07, 2005 Jan 30 (UTC)

Soviet Deaths

What's the source for the 22,000 figure cited for Soviet deaths? Most sources I see list the deaths as 13,000-15,000 depending upon the source. ---B- 08:23, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The most reliable source for Soviet casualties is Krivosheev (for instance, here's afghanistan - http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter6.html#6_12 - sorry, in Russian only). His data is - 15 051 Soviets lost their lives (or went missing and are still not accounted for). Out of those 14 427 were from the Soviet Army, the rest being KGB, MVD and civilians. Out of this 14 427, 9 661 were KIA, 2 457 died of their wounds (including after leaving afghanistan) and 287 were MIA. The remainder died in accidents (1 795) or from disease (833, including after leaving afghanistan). 53 753 were wounded (all causes, hostile and non-hostile), while 415 932 were sick. As for material lost, it includes 118 airplanes, 333 helicopters, 147 tanks, 1314 ifv's and apc's (BMP, BMD, BTR), 433 guns and mortars, etc. With respect, Ko Soi IX 09:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

10-year war?

24 Dec 1979 to 2 Feb 1989 looks more like 9 years to me. GeorgeStepanek\^talk 21:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Soviet-Afghan War

This war is in need of name. I find "Afghan War", "Afghanistan War", "War in Afghanistan", "Invasion of Afghanistan", "Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan", "Mujahadeen Jihad", Afghan-Soviet War" and "Soviet-Afghan War", to name a few. It needs to be standardized. nobs

• Encarta calls it the Soviet-Afghan War. --24.247.126.44 14:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Encarta is honestest encyclopedia in the whole world. Amen. Look at this opus from it: "Soviet-Afghan War, war between military forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and anti-Communist guerrillas in Afghanistan..." Why they're anti-communists? May be they're capitalists or another one what i mean? Correctly, they're anti-soviet, but "objective encyclopedia" have another point. You may don't believe me, but if you have own mind you'll understand that it's just a propaganda. --Al3xil 22:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

the name has to be changed into Soviet-Afghan War. The current name is nonsense.--TheFEARgod 19:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

That is complete shit. Leave the fucking Soviets out of it. They were supporting the government and the western powers supported the other guys. It's just propaganda "oh, the big bad soviets invaded afghanistan". Leave the soviets out of this.

-G

This is for G

• File:Bunny-pancake.gif

  WTF

(ForeverDEAD 13:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC))

pov

umm, the vietnam war article doesn't start as "the american invasion of vietnam was an 18-year war that wreaked incredible havoc and destruction on vietnam." nor does the invasion of iraq article start "the american invasion of iraq in 2003 is a war that is continually wreaking incredible havoc and destruction on iraq." etc. etc. ...much rhetoric...this article appears to be heavily biased against the USSR, & doesn't significantly discuss the US reaction against the invasion and its consequences (one sentence?)... then again i am not going to put in the effort to edit it, so whatever, if someone who already has an account and knows how to do this stuff wants to maintain the credibility of wikipedia, then go for it! anyway, just an observation. (ooh sorry i forgot a subject last time so i did something and now it has one!)

Alpha group strength

December 27, 1979 - 700 KGB spetsnaz special forces troops, Alpha Group, in Afghan uniforms storm the Presidential Place in Kabul, taking heavy casualties, killing President Hafizullah Amin. "

IIRC only ~50 of them were actual Alpha fighters - two groups with two APCs each (Thunder - 25 men and Zenith - 24 men). The others were an unclear entity - moslem division that blocked retreat from the palance and reinforcements to it. Alpha casualties were 5 men and two APCs.

All right, but the article shows "heavy casualities". I have changed it to "light casualities".

Article Introduction

" as a pre-emptive war against Islamist terrorists."

This is far fetched. The pre-emptive doctrine did not exist then and in any case was definitely not used in Afghanistan. Neither were there Islamist terrorists then, particularly in that part of the world, with their purpose being solely Islam and terrorism.

The pre-emptive doctrine has existed for a very long time, I'd be surprised if it hadn't existed for millenia, but certainly since the Prussian Bismarck.[1] It is, however, far fetched to say that is why the Soviets went in. JoshNarins 20:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Red Army didn't invade Afganistan

The Red Army were renamed to the Soviet Army in February 1946

Pre-assault assassination attempt

I've recently seen a Russian TV program investigating the beginning of the war (they looked at official Soviet documents, talked to witnessed - seemed pretty professional to me). What they stressed in particular was that the USSR decided to carry out the Presidential palace assault only after an assassination attempt had failed. Apparently, they were able to infiltrate the palace kitchen and poison Amin's food. Amin ate the poisoned food but ironically, there were some Soviet doctors working in Kabul at the time. They obviously didn't know of the upcoming assassination and 2 of them came to the palace when called upon. They were able to save Amin, barely, and that's why the assault was launched. When all the shooting began, they were still at the palace. The doctors apparently hid in a cupboard and were shot by advancing Soviet troops, who shot at all closed doors and cupboards upon entering a room.

Unfortunately, I don't know if this research is confirmed in any non-TV sources. --Bicycle repairman 04:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is a source that confirms the poisoning: Afghanistan. However, this says that he was poisoned at the actual time of the attack. --68.41.14.137 20:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Some of the innovations incorporated into the constitution were a multi-party political system, freedom of expression, and an Islamic legal system presided over by an independent judiciary. The Afghanista was an atheist State from 1978 to 1992. Francesco

Not Truth. Babrak Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah make sure to appase some part of the afghan population by including Islam in government. Messhermit 16:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Come on people

Only someone with no scholarly aptitude would not concur that the invasion by the Communist Soviets was illegal. This was codified in the annals of the United Nations documents during the illegal invasion by the Secretary General of the UN.

Maybe a Copy of the Treaty of Friendship that the USSR and the DRA signed could clarify if there was really an invasion or a request for military assitance. Messhermit 01:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? It was completely legal from Soviet point of view. We do not have international laws that are stronger than national. DarkFighter 04:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but the first paragraph is not mine. That's why I put that previous statement. Messhermit 13:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The "Soviet Union" is no more! Kaput! Done! Finished! Over! Lost in a big way! So who cares????

My understanding was that the Communist regime in Afghanistan was, at least in the beginning, asking numerous times for aid from the USSR. The regime was being destabilized by the Western backed Mujahedeen.72.78.23.18 (talk) 05:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Stingers capability

"shoot down Soviet jets and helicopters frequently, easily, and without loss on their own side" - not likely. It was not that frequently, NOT easily (on all accounts no more than 10% of missiles shot down anything, VVS changing there tactics constantly, modifying their aircraft and increasing operating altidude), and Stinger launch positions were heavily bombed afterwards and in process of air strikes. Also Soviet Special Forces were in constant search for Stinger teams, eventually capturing some missiles and launchers. From "Hot sky of Afganistan" - [2] (Russian): "Effiency of all jamming systems against MANPADs on Mi-8 helicopter was 70-85% (counted by number of misses and hits)" That was in 1982. Also total lossed in 1985 were distributed as following: 27% - small arms 40% - 12,7 mm DShK MG 27% - specialized AAA installations 6% - MANPADs

So I deleted the citation above. Stingers should be mentioned, of course. DarkFighter 04:59, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Serious vandalism in the beginning of the article. Some one should check the author and block the ip address.Akupta321 17:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I deleted this trash about teddy bears with explosives and child killing. Never proven. Not a single reliable source. Civilian casualities were large, but that was because of large-scale artillery and air strikes collateral damage.

We've got some more valdalism on our hands, 65.9.175.20...Please ban this IP. Thanks administrators, Bogdan 20:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Fiction

What's wrong with adding this link?

Memories of war veterans (from Russian side)

ellol 14:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• If it was deleted, I apologise. Unfortunately, some IP user started writing biased opinions supporting the Mujahiddin, and I reverted to the previous version. I think the website is ok, so feel free to post it again. Messhermit 15:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Combat Losses and Casualties

I am in possession of a very reputable source for combat losses and casualties. Krivosheev's "Combat Losses and Casualties in the Twentieth Century". I will be updating this page with a new section on this.

"engineer plants"? what?

Sounds like a mistranslation from Russian. --HanzoHattori 15:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Title - invasion?

Google Print search: "Soviet invasion of Afghanistan" used in 476 books; "Soviet war in Afghanistan" used in 190. Why not go with a more popular title?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone has not been paying attention to earlier discussion. You should first familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's NPOV policy. You should also head to your local library and seek a copy of Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation signed by Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in December 1978 -- one full year before the deployment of Soviet divisions. Frankly, this is an encyclopedia and not an agitprop outlet where documents published by the US Congress found in your little Google search are to be cited. Looking at the first two pages of your search results, half of them are propaganda pamphlets published by the US Congress.

I'd say "Soviet war in Afghanistan" is sufficient as a title. "Invasion" implies just the time of the advent of forces, and not the years of counterinsurgency to follow. It is also antagonistic to those who saw the intervention as a legitimate support of the local government. To the anonymous poster above: your assertion the Library of Congress is half-filled with "propaganda pamphlets" is incorrect and rather an antagonistic POV. Yes, this is an encyclopedia, and also, yes, it is definitely admissible to use the results of Google searches to back assertions. Of course, some resources found on the web will be more authoritative than others. Play nicely. --Petercorless 22:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

POV edit reverted

Someone just expunged a bunch of background about the war, and I restored it. However, there seems to be an unbalanced POV in the areas I just put back in. While there is a lot of good information, there is a bias that seems to creep in through the text. Let's see if we can make it more neutral, shall we? If you want to edit information, try to make it more neutral before simply deleting entire sections, or bring the issue up here on this talk page. --Petercorless 15:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is full of POV. For example the soviet intervention is called "brotherly aid" whereas the US involvement is labeled "US subversion". Some passages refer to the Mujahideen as "terrorists". I doubt they saw themselves as such... Further on, about a UN resolution condemning the invasion: "the resolution was interpreted as illegal". Was interpreted by who? Also, there is a heavy emphasis on the mujahideen atrocities, but no mention of the Soviet and Parcham war crimes. Etc etc.. It needs a major reworking to weed out the POV.--Raoulduke47 00:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Raoulduke47: Anytime editors ignore established, respected scholarship on a subject while simultaneously citing the works of unknown, unestablished, fringe scholars, then the editors are pushing their own POV. Unfortunately, this is what you and Scythian1 are doing in this article. Kenmore (talk) 03:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done what I could to take out POV and cited both sides as best as I could. I have not found a quote of Soviet dismissal of the UN 6th Special Emergency Session's resolution. If anyone might have any particular details to add there, that would give the Soviet rationale. However, I made sure to keep it as balanced as possible. --Petercorless 07:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work! It's much less POV now. However some passages are still heavily loaded: i removed some bits that called the Muj terrorists, per Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Terrorist, terrorism, and another that said they skinned their victims alive. Another passage contained a unsourced claim that they had chemical weapons.

The "Afghan insurrection" section should describe, at least briefly, the various stages of the war and the major battles: the insurrection in Herat, the Panjshir valley offensives and the siege of Khost.Raoulduke47 23:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Comanders Indirect Roles

Perhaps an extra name should be added to this, Jihadis including Osama Bin Laden were involved in this war.

To the anonymous poster... It may be true that OBL was involved in Afghanistan, but at the time, he was a financier and not a military commander. --Petercorless 05:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Date confusion in the article

There seems to be confusion with the dates in this article.

In "The Saur Revolution" section, it says: "On April 27, 1978, the PDPA overthrew and executed Daoud along with members of his family."

Then, in the "Initiation of the insurgency with U.S. and Pakistani support" section it says: "In June of 1975, fundamentalists attempted to overthrow the PDPA government."

Those dates don't seem to fit together.

Well spotted. What happened was, in 1975, militants of the Jamiat Islami("fundamentalists") tried to overthrow the Daoud govenrment, not the PDPA. I'll be rewriting that passage anyway to provide a better assessment of the origins of the insurgency.Raoulduke47 11:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Photos

It's all Soviets! A single photo of even one Mujahid would be nice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.234.60.154 (talk) 12:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Done! Raoulduke47 13:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Casus Belli

The Casus Belli is listed as the treaty of friendship between the Soviet Union and the government they installed in Afghanistan. Considering "Casus Belli" means "Cause of the War", I doubt that the cause of the conflict was a treaty of friendship between two allies, unless I'm interpreting this wrongly. Could someone either correct me or review this? Thank you 86.151.29.180 21:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Soviet Casualties

I have a pretty reliable source that pegs the 40th army casualties at 26,000 dead. I feel like this should be put somewhere in the article, but I'm not sure where. What're your thoughts? Here's the link to my source:

http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/grasovpreface.pdf You can find the figure on the 3rd page of the file.

Shortcord 02:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Try changing the "Official Soviet personnel strengths and casualties" section to "Soviet strength and casualties", or something of the kind, and then add that figure. Don't forget to point out that it is an estimate made by Russian officers. Raoulduke47 15:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I actually thought: 53,753 wounded and 415,932 sick, and only 13,833 killed or died from wounds and diseases? But, the thing is it's the official figure. I they said "3 killed", it would be still. If there are reliable independent estimates (CIA?), they may be included. --HanzoHattori 16:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

That figure comes from a book (The Soviet-Afghan war: how a superpower fought and lost) that is the translation of a study written by members of the Russian general staff who served in Afghanistan. Would you consider that a sufficiently reliable source?Raoulduke47 20:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Book/names pls. --HanzoHattori 21:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Full ref: Russian General Staff(translated and edited by Lester Grau and Michael Gress)(2002); The Soviet-Afghan war: how a superpower fought and lost; University Press of Kansas; ISBN 0-7006-1185-1 , page 43 Raoulduke47 20:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I would definitely consider the Russian General Staff a reliable source. Shortcord 00:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

According to History Channel (Declassified series), the CIA est. Soviet casualties at 70,000 in 1984 (I guess they didn't mean merely sick). --HanzoHattori 13:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't really trust the CIA on this issue. According to Robert Kaplan, their main source of information on Afghanistan was the Pakistani ISI, who would inflate the importance of mujahideen successes at their convenience. In one instance, the ISI told the CIA that Kandahar airfield was closed because of mujahideen rocket attacks, but when Kaplan went there he saw Soviet planes landing every day. This was all part of the agency's policy of delegating the conduct of operations to the Pakistanis. Raoulduke47 21:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Al Qaeda

Quoting the article as it is now: "Most observers including the US government and ISI [Pakastani intelligence] maintain ... that participation in the conflict by Osama bin Laden and other Afghan Arabs had minimal military impact and was unrelated to CIA programs."

The references given for this are unconvincing. Of course the CIA -- hardly known for truth telling -- is going to deny involvement. And "most observers" is ridiculously vague. Does it mean 51%? Are the majority of these "observers" conmen and fools and the minority sincere, objective and wise? The above sentence may not not have been written with the intention to deceive, but it needs a lot of work. -- random user.

nothing about creating of "Al Qaeda".--Berserkerus 21:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is. Raoulduke47 19:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Afghan government forces

Commanders, strenght, losses needed. --HanzoHattori 13:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

More on the Kabul forces needed

It's too Soviet-centric since 1979. The gvt forces were more effective (more numerous and better armed) later then they were in the first few years. --HanzoHattori 22:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Pakistani involvment

I can understand that some of us would like to downplay the role of Pakistan in this conflict, but that is not justified. Pakistani support to the Afghan resistance significantly predates US and Saudi involvment. Hosting the major resistance parties in Peshawar was the result of Pak. decision. When the massive aid programmes started, it was the ISI who was charged with distributing the funds and weapons to each party. Moreover Pakistan provided training and operational and strategic guidance to those Muj. commanders who would accept them(ie not Massoud). And,last but not least Pakistan was the only other nation to be militarily engaged in this war, with the insertion of advisors, commandos into Afghanistan, and during several dogfights between Pak fighters and DRA/Soviet planes.

So no, Pakistan was not just an intermediary, and this is not just my POV, as it can all be traced to reliable sources. It is true that the ISI arms distribution programme was fraught with corruption, and certainly not devoid of unfairness and, to a degree, of self-interest. But that does not alter the fact that Pakistan was more involved than any other nation supporting the mujahideen.Raoulduke47 13:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Combatants in Infobox

Since you all seem to have a problem with the order of the combatants in the Infobox, how about a compromise and put the "supported by" list in alphabetical order? --Bejnar 16:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

How about putting civilians in a separate category, akin to Vietnam War article, to maintain NPOV? With respect, Ko Soi IX 09:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection with putting civilians casualties in the casualties3 slot. It was already done some time ago and then reverted for some reason. Raoulduke47 20:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Casus belli

Casus belli means justificaton for war. There are many wikipedia editors who remove casus belli altogether. This war definetly had a casus belli. After extensive research I have decided to add the following:

Casus belli: Mujahideen insurgency against PDPA; Request by DRA Government for a Soviet invasion under 1978 treaty.

Please respect this and don't edit or remove it. Thanks to all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.142.50 (talk) 16:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

There was no "request for invasion". The invasion was resisted by the Afghan government (no wonder - The Soviets came to kill the president). --HanzoHattori 11:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, Amin did request military assistance from the Soviets to help fight the insurgency, but obviously he didn't ask them to come and kill him! Anyway, the reasons for this conflict are many and complex. I don't think its advisable to try and simplify them and squeeze them into the infobox. Raoulduke47 18:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Reasons for war was Soviet love for oil. Since CCCP didn't have any economy, all empire was built upon oil money;) And from Afganistan you can gou to oil rich middle eastern countries.

Well, this is an original point of view. However, it is not documented as well :) It's recommended to take a look at the Operation Cyclone and DRA domestic policy to learn more the situation in these days. As for the oil money, the nowadays wars show what could be happened if Soviet Union was aside in 1978. --Fastboy (talk) 20:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Defeat leaded to fall of the soviet empire

At least one of reason for fall of soviet Empire of evil, was defeat of inwasion in Afganistan.

Find a source, and type away...72.78.23.18 (talk) 05:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Herat casualties

This article claims 27,000 were killed in Herat. This is irreconcilable with the analysis of competent military observers and the fact that Herat at the time had a population of some 80,000. This source puts it at 5000 [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hadjin (talk • contribs) 21:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

There are varying estimates for the casualties that followed the Herat uprising. For example, O. Roy in Islam and resistance in Afghanistan' indicates the estimates varied from 5,000 to 25,000. The figure given in the article is 24,000, not 27,000, and it is the higher estimate, but you are not entitled to delete it, as a reliable source has been provided. Also, there is absolutely no justification in removing the whole "initiation of the insurgency" section: that is nothing more than vandalism and if you do it again, you will be blocked from editing wikipedia. --Raoulduke47 10:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox for you to propound your confused and unsupported ideas about what happened in Aghanistan. It's clear from your posts that you are not well read about this historical epoch. You are ignoring the works and conclusions of mainline scholars and basing your articles solely on what you have read in fringe publications. People are trying to reason with you...you cannot expect to deal with them by having them "banned" from Wikipedia. I intend to talk to the editors about your posts.

Kenmore (talk) 19:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

lol! Kenmore, it's you who's getting confused here... Who are these "people", who are trying to reason with me in particular?? If you check on this Hadjin you'll see that he is in fact a sockpuppet of a banned user. I was civilly and quite appropriately reminding him of the rules of wikipedia, and other users agreed with me and also reverted his unwarranted deletions. The account has now been blocked through no action of mine. Maybe you should choose your friends a bit more carefully, eh? Raoulduke47 (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Hadjin was trying to point out that you are being unreasonable by refusing to check, consider and balance all data from all available sources. You are failing to think critically about the credibility of your sources, too. It looks like you have a phantasmagoric POV about this war, and you are trying to validate your POV with whatever isolated, dubious single source you can find out there. Again, I ask why you refuse to read or reference this article with Mark Urban's "War in Afghanistan"? Kenmore (talk) 20:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You can admonish me if you like, Kenmore, but for the moment it's you who are siding with sockpuppets and threatening others with flame wars, and generally behaving like a troll. In fact, in your anxiousness to contradict me, you seem to have forgotten that this thread was about the casualties of the Herat insurection. The sockpuppet Hadjin was not all questioning my editing, he was just being disruptive, like all socpuppets. You seem to have projected your own concerns into his behaviour, a psychiatrist would probably find that very interesting, but I don't. And he was citing The bear went over the mountain by L. Grau as a source, not Mark Urban's works, so I don't see how that has suddenly appeared in this discussion. --Raoulduke47 (talk) 22:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Hadjin's point is that there are more sources to consider than just the single source you settled on. I agree with him.

As for "The Bear Went Over the Mountain", the authors argue that the war was something of a military defeat for the Soviets. However even this book does not carry that argument to the extreme degree that you are Scythian1 do in this article.

The article needs to be balanced. Kenmore (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagreement over impact of war

Raoulduke47 and Wolfkeeper disagree over wording in the lead and Soviet war in Afghanistan#Ideological impact section. I propose leaving the lead the way it is and changing the Soviet war in Afghanistan#Ideological impact section to:

Mainstream sources generally credit for the fall of the Soviet Union primarily on internal economic and political problems, such as balance of payments problems and food production

Main article: History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)

but some American and Islamist sources saw the Afghan war and the part they played in it as the cause.

Some, particularly American neoconservatives, believe American and Muslim funding of the Afghan insurgents was not only responsible for the Soviet defeat but for the fall of the Soviet Union itself.

Some Islamists believe the insurgency, but not the United States, was responsible for the fall of the USSR. Osama bin Laden, for example asserted that the credit for "the collapse of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahidin in Afghanistan ... the US had no mentionable role," but "collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant."

Bin Laden emerged from the war as "the undisputed leader of the Arab Afghans" and returned to Saudi Arabia a hero and celebrity. According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid "more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad" during the course of the Afghan War. With its end an "international brigade of jihad veterans, ... outside the countrol of any state, was suddenly available to serve radical Islamist causes anywhere in the world." These Arab Afghans fought in the Algerian civil war, waged attacks on France in 1995, and forming much of the membership of Al-Qaeda.

--BoogaLouie 16:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree that certain aspects have been neglected, and should be given greater attention, but I don't agree with your formulation. In effect, you've created a section with a vague title "ideological impact", that will serve as a dumping ground for various extremist claims. That is not acceptable. --Raoulduke47 17:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's nonsense. Such edits have to be notable and from verifiable sources. And I actually read the reference that the war lead to the breakup of the soviet union, it was all very vague.WolfKeeper 19:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

What is nonsense? What edits are you referring to, and how are they connected to the present discussion? You'll have to be more clear, Wolfkeeper, if you want to be understood.

If you are referring to the theory that the war in Afghanistan contributed to the dissolution of the USSR, then that is completely verifiable. It is backed by a source written by academic researchers, working for the University of Washington, that ranked 17th in the classification of the world's best universities. You won't find many more reputable, or reliable sources than this. It was good of you to read the article to the end, but if you didn't understand it, then that's your problem.

One might, of course argue over the relative importance of each factor that lead to the demise of the Soviet Union, but that does not justify your grossly partisan attempts to present this theory as pure neocon propaganda. Also, you're rather badly placed to point at a lack of sources, as your version was purely based on a controversial, politically skewed documentary. If this is the limit of your knowledge on these matters, and you can't do any better research than that, then I suggest you refrain from editing this article alltogether. --Raoulduke47 16:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

"If you are referring to the theory that the war in Afghanistan contributed to the dissolution of the USSR, then that is completely verifiable." The one article you cite (Reuveny and Prakash)is the only study out there -- out of literally thousands -- which argues that the war had a "profound" impact on the USSR and caused its collapse. That no other scholars make such outlandish claims should tell you something about the authority of this one article. Even Reuveny and Prakash themselves admit in their article that their views are unusual, isolated in the world of academia, contrarian and controversial. Further, anyone who reads the article can see that the authors grossly exaggerate the role played by the Soviet Afghan veterans in the country's post-war society, and that they are vague and hyperbolic about alleged Soviet military "defeats". That you would regard this one article as being more citable and authoritative than the many other studies which are more sober and balanced in tone says much about your lack of research on this subject. I hate to be harsh in tone, but it's the truth.

Kenmore (talk) 01:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to discuss the rise of international jihadist movements, then you should create a section for that called "Development of international jihadist movements", or something of the kind. The consequences for the Soviet Union should also be treated in a separate section. --Raoulduke47 17:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much about international movements, it's more about islamist movements, it's not really the same thing, and I would be opposed to that particular section title.WolfKeeper 19:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. More opposition, but no constructive suggestions. Why am I not surprised? And why do you object to "international" in favour of the more vague "islamist"? Please voice your objections in a cogent manner, or this argument isn't going to go very far. --Raoulduke47 16:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Soviet deaths way under rated

Soviet forces in Afghanistan suffered a greater death toll .. in many places it states that the death toll is 15,000 + but many Afghans who Lived in Kabul at the time remeber by the time Soviets left Afghanistan... Najibs government released information as well as many international documenteries stating Soviets lost about 52,000 men in the conflict in Afghanistan. My fathers friend who was a pilot(not by choice) says that there wasnt a day where you wouldnt see tons of soviets in body bags by the number waiting to be air lifted by the infamous black cargo planes known in the soviet union as (evil's chariot)bringing bodies of fallen soliders from Afghanistan. It also states that half of the death tolls are from sickness or soliders who fell ill.. yes this could be true to some extent but the article totally underestmaites the Afghan rebles effectiveness in fights and major battles... most Soviet soldiers were killed in Ambushes , Hit and runs , Stinger missiles air strikes , and the 2 major battles of Panjshir which cost alot of Soviets thier lives. Im not asking the article to be changed but I just want to inform certain people who do not know this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.81.128.120 (talk) 02:48, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that Soviet archives are a more authorative source on Soviet losses than whatever numbers were alledgedly released by other parties. 52 thousand deaths would mean 17-18 deaths per day (2976 days); even this inflated number does not prove what "your fathers friend" said. However, the reality was that there were (on average) about 5 fatalities each day of the war. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 16:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Who has changed correction of the combatants?????

I added the groupe of participators of the conflict who very affected the situation of the opposing parties and the result of the war. I didn't wrote that they all personally took part in hostilities but it is wrong to confine number of the participators!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.123.46.22 (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Ummm..What about

How this war supplied the taliban and Bin Laden with weapons that are now helping to kill the people who gave them to the afgans, and how it gave OBL the influence in Islamic extremists to plan 9/11 alot of people agree that this is one of the milestones in planning of 9/11 and yet there is very little or no mention of how this war has directly causes most of the 21st centuries problems--Matterfoot (talk) 15:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Find a reliable source that addresses the claim, and add it to this article citing the source. Kingturtle (talk) 15:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a good sized article on the Arab Afghans --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I also expanded Ideological impact section a little. --BoogaLouie (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Impact of the war on the Soviet Union is misunderstood

I eliminated the introductory paragraph which states that the war was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is nonsense. The Afghan conflict did not have much of an impact on the Soviet Union at all.

The Afghan war was really just a military and political sideshow for the Soviets. It was always regarded by the Kremlin as much less of a priority -- militarily, economically and politically -- than the Soviet Union's tense international standoff with the United States, NATO, and China.

The war did not have a "profound" impact on the Soviet Union, as the article incorrectly stated before I corrected it.

Just read Russian history to get some perspective. Wars that had a "profound" impact on Russia or the Soviet Union were conflicts that were far larger in military, political, and economic scope than was the Afghan war. The fighting in Afghanistan did not impact Russia/Soviet Union on a scale that was anything comparable to other major conflicts in history, such as the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, or even the 1940 Soviet-Finnish War.

It is far fetched to imagine that a small regional conflict such as the Afghan war could have caused the Soviet Union's collapse.

Gorbachev pulled his troops out of Afghanistan because of dire economic circumstances within the Soviet Union itself. This economic meltdown was caused by the demands of the Cold War confrontation with the United States. It was not caused by the Afghan rebels.

The Soviet military was not driven from Afghanistan by the rebels. On the contrary, the Soviet army was strongly entrenched in Afghanistan and it was under no military pressure to retreat.

The war was an embarrassment for the Soviet military because the vaunted Soviet army could not destroy the rebels and end the conflict. That is not really the same as a defeat.

NATO's experience against the Taliban today is more or less the same experience the Soviet army had against the Afghan rebels in the 1980s. No victory, no result, but at the same time, no defeat. Just interminable, desultory skirmishing.

Kenmore (talk) 05:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Rather than omit supported claims that this war was a factor in the demise of the Soviet Union, this article should include such supported claims *and* include supported claims that this war did *not* lead to the demise of the Soviet Union. Kingturtle (talk) 05:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

You need to consider the merit of the "supported" claims. No respected authorities in academia, journalism, or affairs of state seriously argue that the war was a contributing factor to the Soviet Union's collapse. Any well known figures who make this argument are just hyperbolizing.

To include such "supported" claims in this article would be to seriously undermine the article's credibility.

Kenmore (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The Soviet's began planning to withdraw in the early '80s, not in 1985

I eliminated the sentence which states that the Soviets began planning to withdraw at the end of 1985. This is an error. In truth, the Soviets were planning to withdraw their troops as early as 1982. By 1985, the withdrawal plan was nearly fully developed. The only questions were the timetable of the withdrawal, and whether the Soviet generals would be permited to try to destroy the guerrillas prior to withdrawing.

This information is based on what research of Selig Harrison and Diego Cordovez in their book Out of Afghanistan : the inside story of the Soviet withdrawal. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 450 p. Call number & location: 958.1045 C67 1995 Main (IRC))

I saw Harrison speak on this issue at Hampshire College in 1988. That was shortly after he and Cordovez published their data in one of the foreign policy journals that same year (I don't remember which one).

Harrison points out that as early as 1980, there was a fierce debate in the Kremlin between so called "hawks" (Brezhnev, Gromyko, etc.) and the younger generation of Politburo members, whom Harrison called "doves". This younger generation of Soviet leaders was more liberal in approach than the older generation, and they were disgusted with the fact that their leaders had sent an army to Afghanistan in the first place.

According to Harrison, serious withdrawal plans were laid out starting in 1982, under Yuri Andropov. After that it was just a matter of time until the younger Soviet leaders replaced the older leaders, at which point the withdrawal from Afghanistan would be accelerated.

The intentions of the Soviet leaders to leave Afghanistan, from the early '80s onward, had little to do with battlefield realities in Afghanistan itself.

When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he relented to his generals entreaties to give them one more year to destroy the guerrilla movement. Against his better judgment, Gorbachev relented. For the next year (1985-86), the Soviet army drastically increased its battlefield aggression and its use of elite spetnasz commandos in an effort to finish the guerrillas off. The guerrillas came close to collapse (in private conversations U.S. State department personnel were even calling the Mujahideen the "Muja-has-beens" at that point), but the guerrillas managed to survive. By the end of 1986, Gorbachev informed his generals that he was not giving them any more time to destroy the Mujahideen, and he proceeded with the withdrawal plan.

The introduction of the Stinger missile to Afghanistan in mid-1986 was what enabled the guerrillas to remain in the fight. The missile did not turn the tide of the war, as is often mistakenly believed. Rather the missile ensured that the guerrillas would survive the blistering Soviet offensive of 1985-86. Because of the Stinger, there would be no quick end to the fighting in favor of the Soviet army.

The Soviet generals were angry at Gorbachev for cutting their offensive short. They believed they could end the war -- even in spite of the Stinger missile -- if only they had more troops. But Gorbachev denied the generals the extra resources they wanted. For the generals, withdrawal without destroying the guerrillas was tantamount to a defeat, or at least the perception of defeat.

By the end of 1986, of course, Gorbachev had too many other domestic and international priorities of an urgent nature to attend to, and he would not allow himself to be swayed by his generals' advice to remain in a war that he regarded as being of only peripheral importance to the Soviet Union in the first place. Kenmore (talk) 00:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Change name

I believe this page should change title (redirect) to Soviet-Afghan War. 69.234.201.82 (talk) 02:34, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. "Soviet-Afghan War" is inappropriate because it exaggerates the importance, scope, and scale of the conflict internationally. The Soviets sent a limited military contingent to interfere in an Afghan civil war that was already being fought before the Soviets arrived, and which continued to be fought after the Soviets left.

"Soviet-Afghan War" makes the war sound like a full-fledged war between two fully mobilized nation-states, on par with huge conflicts such as the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Sino-Japanese War, etc. The Soviet intervention of course was not that far reaching in scope or goals.

Kenmore (talk) 22:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I also have a counter idea. Everything you said were exactly the same as what happened to Cambodia. Vietnam also sent troops to Cambodia and occcupied the country, but very limit. Not to mention that there are already the civil confict between various Cambodian factions before and after the Vietnamese invasion and occupation. Yet the article still called Cambodian-Vietnamese War, described as a full-scale war. So, depend on your ideas above, I think as if that article should redirect to Vietnamese war in Cambodia, same as this one. 69.234.201.82 (talk) 07:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

"Limited contingent" was actually limited, so much that the Afghan communists always outnumbered Soviets (even if were mostly worse troops, and prone to desertion/defection). It was just "Soviet involvement in Afghanistan". --84.234.60.154 (talk) 13:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

As of the war in Cambodia, you should discuss it on its page. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 13:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Article is biased

This article talks about damage to Afghanistan but is silent on aid given by the USSR thereto. Infact, as of 2004, Russia was still the top investor in this country with almost $8 billion in debt which easily exceeds the gross domestic product of Afghanistan.Anwar (talk) 13:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Mujahideen" or "mujahideen"?

--84.234.60.154 (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Mujahideen article says mujahideen, so I'll correct this article. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 13:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

There were some raids into Soviet Tajikistan

Soviet Union territory. (Are not mentioned.) --84.234.60.154 (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The "raids" consistently of nothing more than a few isolated rocket attacks. They were not significant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.41.54.165 (talk) 15:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

DOES NOT COMPUTE

" After the war the USSR published casualties figures broken down by year.

Soviet casualties by year
1979	86
1980	484
1981	298
1982	948
1983	446
1984	346
1985	868
1986	333
1987	215
1988	759
1989	53

"

It's not 14,000. Remove this. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 18:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This is close to 6,000.Biophys (talk) 03:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It is not even clear where this Table came from.Biophys (talk) 17:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. This table should be kept, since this is official info on Soviet casualties. See: http://www.hro.org/editions/karta/nr24-25/victim.htm. --Fastboy (talk) 18:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

And the rest of the article repeatedly states the official figure is 14,000-15,000. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 02:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it states that casualties were at least 40,000 according to Western sources (see at the bottom).Biophys (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

So the source is (Russian): газета "Правда" от 17.08.1989 года (Newspaper Pravda from 17.08.1989). This is newspaper "The Truth" by Soviet Communist Party. This "source" is as good as any professional disinformation; one can not take it seriously. One can only tell: "according to Soviet propaganda sources...".Biophys (talk) 02:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

So, this source tells: 40,000 "according to Western sources", and it also gives several mutually contradicting numbers from Soviet sources. This Table contradicts all other estimates, Soviet and Western. Why do we need it?Biophys (talk) 18:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops, the original table was probably wrong copy-pasted. First of all, it should look like:

Soviet casualties by year
1979	86
1980	1484
1981	1298
1982	1948
1983	1446
1984	2346
1985	1868
1986	1333
1987	1215
1988	759
1989	53

Which gives the total number close to 14,000. Secondly, it does not matters, if someone does not like Soviet propaganda, U.S. or someone's else propaganda. Like I noticed before, this is officially confirmed numbers. All other estimates are good to know, but they remain only "estimates" from non-official sources. My opinion, official numbers should be noticed at first, and other estimates should be referenced then. --Fastboy (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine. Then let's simply tell that the casualtes were 14,000 according to Soviet soutces, and at least 40,000 according to Weastern sources. That is what your source claims. It means than the number of casualties is disputed. What for do you need this Table with disputed numbers?Biophys (talk) 20:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this mention is enough. I didn't noticed before that this table is not only one mention in the article. --Fastboy (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Indian support

There was a citation needed tag on the following sentence:"Notably, India, a close ally of Moscow during the Cold War, supported the Soviet invasion and provided crucial logistics and intelligence support to the Soviet army." I have found a bbc article mentioning the Indian support, and so have added the citation, currently #30.72.78.23.18 (talk) 05:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Mujahideen Victory

Unregistered user(s) continue to delete six sourced references that specify that it was a Mujahideen victory. What they offer instead is their source purporting that it was "inconclusive" engagement. He/she further improperly rejects the six cited sources without providing independent scholarship as to the merits of the sources. The unregistered user is in no position to offer their speculative assessment as to the weightiness of the sources. Indeed, this article continues to be the subject unwarranted edits exemplified by recent unregistered users' deletions. Scythian1 (talk) 03:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Which is a more authoritative source of scholarship on the war: 1) books that are full scale studies of the war, or 2) books on other subjects (i.e., not about the war itself) which make isolated, peripheral comments about the conflict?

You are claiming that the second category of books (i.e., books not intended by the authors to be analyses of the war) are authorities on the subject, and that the first category of books (i.e., full scale, scholarly research devoted to analyzing the war) are "speculative" and lacking "merit", and should be dismissed.

I do not believe that any reasonable person would agree with your historiography.

Kenmore (talk) 16:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Your math is kind of weird Kenmore. You've removed six sources to replace them with only one, but without citing a page number, or which passage you are referring to, so you can't actually prove that you've read it. I have actually read this book(the 1991 revised edition, rather than the out-of-date 1988 edition), and there are certain issues with it. While it is certainly detailed and informative, the author takes a very pro-Soviet and pro-DRA stance, especially in the last chapter that hardly deserves its name "analysis". In the preface to the 1991 edition, Urban himself admits that his views are controversial and isolated, and were subject to much criticism. His views are no doubt politically motivated, probably by admiration for Gorbachev, which was a frequent theme at that time in the West. There are obviously other studies of this conflict, such as Isby's War in a distant country, or Maley's excellent Afghanistan wars, that are equally reliable, and whose authors do not share Urbans' views.

So you're the guy who's been asserting that the "mujahideen never won any victories"? I'm not surprised that such a biased and evidently incorrect utterance should come from you. If you had taken your own advice, and read Mark Urban's War in Afghanistan, you would have seen that there were several instances of mujahideen battlefield victories, especially over the DRA(Urban, p.228-229, p.255, p.219; p.173). And yes, one could say that, whenever they chose to apply adequate means to achieve their tactical goals, the Soviets were able to maintain battlefield superiority over their opponents. But in the long run, this didn't change anything because in a guerilla war, battlefield results are irrelevant, unless they seriously alter the strategic situation. The US in Vietnam, or the French in Algeria could very well claim to have "won all the battles", but in the end they both lost the war. Soviet operations didn't change anything to the strategic situation, that was that the mujahideen always controlled 80-90 percent of the country. In fact according to Urban(p.286) the DRA held even less territory in 1988 than it did in 1979.

As for your commentary that the mujahideen "couldn't interfere with the withdrawal", that is another demonstration of ignorance and bias. It is a well-known and established historical fact that the mujahideen didn't attack the retreating Soviet army because the Soviets had concluded ceasefires with local commanders.(Urban p.251) The mujahideen may not have been able to prevent the withdrawal, but they could have foiled Gromov's plan for a peaceful withdrawal without casualties. In the event, they didn't intervene because they had no interest in doing so. --Raoulduke47 (talk) 19:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Raoulduke47: thanks for taking the time to argue your points here in detail. I do not have Urban's second book in my personal library, so I intend to visit the library (hopefully today) to review it again. What I remember about the second book from an earlier reading, however, is that in the final chapter, Urban states that even as of 1990 (when the book was written), he did not regard the Soviet military intervention as having been a failure or a defeat. More on this later.

Yes, certainly the mujihadeen won victories over DRA forces at certain times in the war. However they enjoyed no such successes against the Soviet military (with the possible exception of the Battle of Jadji, summer of 1987). Thus, when I stated the "mujihadeen won no victories", my point was that they did not achieve any success on the ground against the Soviets that compromised the Soviet military position, or which could have forced the Soviets out of the war.

Usually, the consequences of mujihadeen victories over DRA forces is that Soviet units would intervene in the wake of the DRA defeats, force the mujihadeen back, and retore the original DRA-Soviet position. This pattern, admittedly, did tend to be an annoyance and an embarrassment for the Soviets because it evinced Soviet political failure in building-up the effectiveness of the DRA war machine.

You are correct in stating that conventional battlefield outcomes in guerrilla wars tend not to impact the strategic balance of the war, or its long term outcome. However the Soviets themselves appeared to understand this in Afghanistan, which is evinced by the fact that they rarely undertook any ambitious, large scale offensives aimed at permanently conquering land or totally destroying mujihadeen guerrilla infrastructure (Lester Grau gives examples of these limited Soviet operations in one of his books...I'll give you the specific footnote later today).

As for the fact that the Soviets controlled only a limited amount of Afghan territory throughout the war (10% to 15%), this is because the Soviets deliberately chose to limit themselves to control of the cities and major provincial towns only. The Soviets realized that taking control of the countryside and the mountain ranges would have required the use of an additional 200,000 to 400,000 soldiers to serve as an occupying force, something the Soviet leaders never intended to do in Afghanistan in the first place.

The Algeria analogy you raise is a good one. In Algeria, the French military actually the upper-hand in the conflict, strategically and tactically. The war was terminated by French president Charles de Gaulle for political reasons, not military reasons. de Gaulle did not want France to be bogged down economically, socially and politically by its connection to the Algerian colony. That is similar to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, as the Kremlin had been making plans since 1982 to withdraw its forces for political reasons (a strategic goal given urgency later in the 1980s by the Soviet Union's impending economic meltdown, which Gorbachev was desperately trying to avoid by cutting Soviet commitments all around the globe). The Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was not driven -- based on current available evidence -- by the military situation on the ground. It is interesting to note that in both the Algerian and Afghan examples, the French and Soviet military leaders resented the decisions made by their respective heads of state, as they felt that their military accomplishments were being spoiled uneccessarily.

Concerning the mujihadeen leaders' willingness to negotiate truces with the Soviets as the latter were withdrawing in 1988-89, this is because the guerrillas knew that attacking the Soviets would be futile and costly. Remember that the retreating Soviet columns were heavily protected by dense tank columns and large fleets of helicopter gunships. Strategic points on the withdrawal routes were secured ahead of time by Soviet forces. And, of course, the guerrillas wanted to avoid having their territories raked by overwhelming Soviet artillery bombardments, such as that unleashed by Gromov in late 1988 in the area of the Panjshir Pass in order to ensure that the area was cleared of guerrilla ambush forces.

Isby and Maley have written fine accounts of the Afghan war. However neither author gives the military situation the same kind of comprehensive, extensively detailed, and painstaking military analysis that Urban's books do. I do not believe that Urban was motivated by any admiration for Gorbachev or the DRA, either. His writing and analysis strike me as being exceptionally cold and objective.

Lester Grau writes excellent material on the Soviet-Afghan war, and certainly he states that the Soviets were defeated. But, so far, Grau's works are limited to analyses of tactics (micro analysis), sometimes giving actual battlefield examples to support his points. None of Grau's books describe the unfolding of the war on a macro level from 1979 to 1988 in such a way as to enable the reader to see, on a factual level, how exactly the Soviet military position became vulnerable and how this necessitated a withdrawal.

I am waiting for someone to publish a thorough, factually based analysis of the war showing that the Soviets did indeed suffer some kind of weakening of their military position, and that this failure drove the Kremlin's decision to retreat from Afghanistan. Maybe some day somebody can prove that the Soviets really did lose their air support in 1987, and that this made them feel so vulnerable they decided to retreat. Or maybe someone can prove that the morale of Soviet infantrymen was so poor in 1987 that their leaders could no longer send them out on patrols, or use the troops effectively in large scale operations. Both arguments were theorized in the late '80s by Western observers, but evidence supporting these theories never really materialized (as Urban himself points out).

Kenmore (talk) 17:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

When you speak about lose/victory, it's important to determine the primary reason of the Soviet withdrawal. What prevented Soviet forces from staying in DRA - an order, or the mujahideen's hostility - the right answer could be given only based on historical facts and not rumors. Yes, Soviet forces didn't change the strategic situation: their mission was failed. But what was their mission? Now with the cold war is over (hopefully), the anti-soviet point of view is obviously dominating. It could be difficult to answer these questions in a neutral point of view without using pro-soviet sources. The good idea may be to describe two (or probably several?) point of views as soon as the historical facts are still under heavy pressure of propaganda.--Fastboy (talk) 19:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

---

This article is specifically dealing with the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and NOT the Afghan Civil War. The 40th Army had accomplished all of its stated objectives and did not suffer any significant tactical defeats. The end of the Soviet engagement in Afghanistan is marked by the withdrawal (which was planned, rather than forced), which in no way qualifies as "Mujahiddeen victory" since the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, allied to the Soviet Union, was left in control of the country and actually outlived the Soviet Union itself. Therefore, stating that the campaign ended in "Mujahiddeen victory" is an anachronism in definition . The current page provides a misleading and fundamentally biased view on the result of Soviet involvement. Pages like these tranish Wikipedia's image as a credible and free source of information. Absolutely appalling! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.107.138 (talk) 13:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Note

The recent IP trolling was probably banned user Jacob Peters (talk · contribs), who has targeted this article before. All of his edits can be reverted instantly and without discussion. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 10:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I was the person who made edits yesterday without signing in. I was not aware of the IP/sign-in rule. Irregardless, however, it is Scythian1 who is initiating an edit war. Until recently, everyone working on this article was satisfied with "inconclusive" as being the war's result in the information box.

If I wanted to, I could easily find six or seven sources that regard the war as "inconclusive", but where would that get us? In the end, footnoting is only as valid as the credibility and appropriateness of the source being used as a reference. Please see my reply above to Scythian1 for more.

Kenmore (talk) 16:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

After the stinger missile instroduced in 1987, Soviet aircraft started dropping like flies and the hardliners led by Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov were discredited. INF, Soviet withdrawal, Russian elections, and later Polish elections are all direct consequences of this. If the Soviets had won in Afghanistan, the hardliners would have been calling the shots. This is "inconclusive"? Kauffner (talk) 15:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The stinger missile did not have the decisive impact on the war that you claim it had. The missile did indeed blunt Soviet offensive capacity, but it did not turn the tide of war in favor of the mujahideen. As for Sokolov, the ebbing of his political fortunes was due to his being on the wrong side of a Kremlin power struggle; he was one of the older generation "hawks" who were being supplanted by younger generation "doves" such as Gorbachev. This had little to do with events in Afghanistan.

The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Polish elections, Russian elections, etc. were due to the meltdown of the Soviet communist system...they were not caused by the military events on the ground. Kenmore (talk) 02:51, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The stinger missile made the war unwinnable for the Soviets. But apart from stinger issue, the conclusion of the war is that the Soviets were forced to withdraw and the Kremlin hardliners were discredited. Sokolov would been a hero if he'd been able to win the war. Gorbachev's policies didn't arise in his mind spontaneously, but were a response to the fact that hardline policies had failed. Kauffner (talk) 13:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

You are incorrect on all counts. The Soviet military was actually grinding its way indecisively to a slow, long-term victory on the ground when the withdrawal was announced in 1987. See my link below (Bauman analysis) for a balanced analysis of what happened, and what were the confluence of events (military and political) that influenced the Soviets to leave. The Soviet army was certainly not "forced" to leave Afghanistan.

Truth be told, the Soviet military experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s was not much different from NATO's experience in Afghanistan today.

Again, the Kremlin's plans to leave Afghanistan began in 1982...this was long before the stinger missile appeared. See more posts above for more on this.

Sokolov and the "hardliners" were not discredited by the war. They were out of favor because they stood for old-style ways of thinking that Gorbachev and the younger generation of Soviet reformers wanted to discard.

Gorbachev's policies were forced on him by the fact that the Soviet system was proving to be inadequate in economic, industrial and technological competition with the West. This realization is what led to Gorbachev's reforms, not Afghanistan.

Gorbachev scrapped the USSR's military involvement in Afghanistan because it was an economically and politically costly venture that was getting in the way of his reforms. It was part of a world-wide pattern of Soviet disengagement and retrenchment forced on the Kremlin by grim economic realities. Kenmore (talk) 05:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You call it a "economically and politically costly venture", I say they were forced out. It's not really a substantive difference of opinion. You're just spinning every event in the most pro-Soviet way you can. The stinger was of course just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The Soviets were willing to sacrifice economically as long as it seemed like that they had a winning system militarily. Gorbachev had already been in office for two years in 1987, but he couldn't put through any major reforms until after ousting Sokolov. If you look at Russian history, the big political changes occurred after major military defeats, like 1905 (Japan) or 1917 (WWI). To put the emphasis and on how young, hip, and smart Gorbachev was -- you make it sound like he was making one smart move after another until finally the Soviet Union collapsed. Kauffner (talk) 10:29, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I've actually read a great deal about Russian history, and I can assure you that there is no comparison between the 1980s Afghanistan situation and big, lost wars such as the Russo-Japanese War or WW1. The Japanese War and WW1 were major conflicts that taxed the entire Russian system economically, politically, socially and militarily. Afghanistan, by contrast, was just small scale skirmishing.

Compare the Soviet experience with the US's present involvement in Afghanistan. Nobody would think to compare American military operations there today to our larger, deeper experiences in WW1, WW2, or the American Civil War. There is a vast difference in scope and scale. The comparison can't be made in the US/NATO case, and it doesn't work in the Soviet case either.

Kenmore (talk) 11:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

my friend

hello , does anyone remember a man called Juris Interberg? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.66.106 (talk) 22:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

superb analysis of the war by Dr. Robert F. Baumann

This article is one of the of the very best synopses of the Soviet-Afghanistan War I have yet to see. It explains fully how the Soviets lost the war in spite of having the upper hand militarily throughout the conflict.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/soviet-afghan_compound-warfare.htm Kenmore (talk) 18:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Change title

Why this war called "Soviet war in Afganistan" and why used "cold war propagandistic terms" like "Soviet war in Afghanistan", "Soviet-Afghan War", "Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan", etc. Yes, this terms have rights to existence, but not to use theirs as an article title, it isn't objective. How about Iraq war or Vietnam war?

It is my opinion that this article should be merged with the Afghan Civil War article (since the two are ridiculously linked) or find a suitable name, that is, an objective name, free of Western bias. This article should also become semi-protected.