by Ahmed Elmokadem

As the millennium approaches a closure, man will head on to the next spectacle ofthe human journey with the memory of the Twentieth Century as both the Best and theworst period in history thus far. On the basis of human knowledge and technology, thehuman race has reached unprecedented feat by landing a man on the moon, by curingdiseases that once killed millions, by bringing the world closer together like neverbefore through rocket-speed communications technology, and above all, by producingan incredible advancement in political freedom.

Yet, to the distress of human achievements, such advancements have been coupledwith major tragedies, unparalleled before in history. Such tragedies as World War I,which killed over 20 million people due to a mere underestimation of the capabilities ofnew war technologies by the leaders of the world.1 Such tragedies as the rise of brutaltotalitarian regimes in Red Russia and Nazi Germany, both of which claimed the livesof millions and millions of innocent human beings in gulags and concentration camps.The future will never forgive Stalin or Hitler, Mao or even Milosevic - all dictators thatpreyed ruthlessly on their populations. The world will never forget the two bloodyWorld Wars, Desert Storm, Vietnam, or the Cold War - all of which have claimed thelives of millions of the finest young men at the prime of their being.

Of the plethora of human tragedies overflowing the century we are on the verge ofabandoning, two in particular shall capture the memory of generations of futureAmericans. For almost half a century, the struggles of the Cold War and Vietnam havecompletely dominated the lives of past and present generations of Americans.

Of the political satires of the Twentieth Century, not many equate the irony of howone of the century’s most stubborn rivalries emerged out of such a close alliance thatendured through two World Wars in which victory led to the freedom of the majority ofthe human race. In 1945, the Americans, Soviets, and other allied nations defeated themenace of Nazi Germany, Adolph Hitler, ultimately ending World War II after some 50million losses of human life. As the American army attacked Nazi territory from theWest, the Soviet Red Army invaded from the East, meeting halfway into Germany anddeclaring the fall of the Third Reich. For the 46 years that followed, the point where the‘allies’ met became what Winston Churchill called an ‘Iron Curtain’ separating the freeworld from the enslaved enclaves of communist dominion. From that point forth, therosy dream of an enduring post-war alliance between the United States and the Union ofSoviet Socialist Republics reversed into a horrifying nightmare of Nuclear annihilationfor generations to follow.

For almost half a century, American foreign policy centered around containing ‘RedScare’ of communism behind its borders. Immediately at the explosion of the Cold War,the Truman administration aimed to limit the ‘Red Scare,’ first through strategicmilitary treaty organizations, such as NATO (in Europe), SEATO (in South East Asia),CENTO (Middle East), and RIO (Latin America). Such organizations were based on thenotion that ‘an attack upon one will be regarded as an attack upon all.’ Second, througheconomic aid - as emodied by the Marshall Plan - to provide vulnerable nations witheconomic sufficiency to deter them away from communist influence. As PresidentTruman proclaimed, it is “the policy of the United States to support free peoples whoare resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”2

The entry of Richard Nixon into the presidential scene marked the second phase inCold War policies. Nixon realized that the world was no longer subjugated to thesovereignty of two superpowers. He saw that the Bipolar world of American and Sovietdomination was being replaced with a Multipolar world with the emergence ofnumerous powerful states. For such a multipolarity, Nixon found an urgency to changeAmerican policies towards the Cold War. As the war in Vietnam escalated, Nixonrealized a great benefit in a new form of Triangular Diplomacy.3 In such diplomacy,Nixon succeeded in using the arch enemies, China and the Soviet Union, one against theother in order to achieve America’s goals, such as ending the draining Vietnam War,and proceeding with the arms, cultural, space, and economic agreements with the SovietUnion.

The final round in the Cold War was brought forth by the shrewd diplomacy ofRonald Reagan. As Reagan entered the Oval Office, he felt that containment had beentoo defensive. Across the globe, communists had gained much grounds in countriessuch as Angola, Nicaragua, and other third world nations. In such, communism wasgaining while America watched a tide of Soviet expansion throughout the globe. It wasthe Reagan Doctrine, then, to destabilize communist regimes in such countries, bringingabout the ultimate triumph of Democracy and freedom.

When Reagan assumed the Presidency in 1981, one of such Soviet expansions hadjust taken place in Afghanistan in December of 1979. The American response thatfollowed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan truly embodied the ultimate success ofAmerica’s secret diplomacy to contain the Soviet expansion throughout the worldwithout actual engagement in combat.

Since the Nineteenth Century, Afghanistan’s relations with the west had been fairlyhostile. For a long period of time, the United Kingdom aimed to keep Afghanistan as abuffer state during Britain’s colonial rivalry with Russia during the ‘Great Game.’Hence, Afghanistan would act as a buffer between Britain’s ‘jewel in the crown,’ India,and Russian territories in Eastern Asia. Afghanistan thereby was a separating line withinEast-West relations. Afghanistan itself was divided between the United Kingdom andCzarist Russia.

Following World War I, Britain, like the majority of European states, found itselfdrained of resources and manpower, and weakened in Asia especially with the rise ofGandhi in India (Gandhi would not earn Indian independence from Britain until 1947).Meanwhile, Czarist Russia had been weakened by the Bolshevik Revolution ofVladimir Lenin in 1917.

Amidst the weakening of the two imperial powers that dominated it, King DostAmanullah Khan found a perfect opportunity to declare his country, Afghanistan, as anindependent nation on April 13, 1919. He asserted his objective of keeping Afghanistanapart from foreign feuds when he said, “no foreign power will be allowed to have rightto interfere internally and externally in the affairs of Afghanistan, and if any ever does, Iam ready to cut its throat with this sword.”4 Yet, his independent administration clearlywelcomed the Leninist Revolution in Russia and expressed a desire for relations withthe communist giant, who aided his efforts in what it considered a potentially satelliteregime in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United States rejected any diplomatic interest inAfghanistan.

Afghanistan remained neutral through World War II, yet kept an ambitious eye onthe United States’ rise to glory in hope for some sort of economic alliances. The firstmajor contact between the United States of America and Afghanistan came through a$17 million concession for construction and irrigation projects with the Morisson-Knudsen Company in 1946 in an attempt to develop the country. Yet, the projectswallowed more excessive resources than already designated, and extended theAmerican economic presence until 1978. Understandably, the agreement created amajor source of irritation in Afghan-US relations.

Furthermore, in 1953, Prince Mohamed Daoud, the Prime Minister of Afghanistan,made proposals to the United States for aid to modernize his armed forces. Yet, theEisenhower administration rejected his appeals, which led Dauod to turn to the SovietUnion for support. During Dauod’s Prime Minister-ship from 1953 to 1963,Afghanistan turned closer to the Red Camp, which supplied the primitive country witheconomic aid of close to $100 million in low interest loans, technical support, buildingof hospital, and signed a renewal of a 1931 nonagression and neutrality treaty for tenyears5. such was the close relation between Afghanistan’s Prime Minister MohammedDauod, and the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

In 1963, Dauod was asked to step down from power by his brother-in-law, ZahirShah, who was the Afghan king at the time. The purpose of disposing Dauod frompower was to establish a Constitutional Monarchy, yet it continued its amicable foreignpolicy towards the Soviet block. Internally, democratization lead to the rise ofindependent political parties. On January 1, 1965, the leftist People’s Democratic Partyof Afghanistan (PDPA) emerged as the largest political party under the leadership ofNur Taraki, Barbarak Karmal, and Hafizullah Amin.

In 1973, former prime minister Daoud returned in a bloodless coup and took over thegovernment, keeping the King in exile, and suspended civil liberties. As he returned topower, rumors circulated of Soviet involvement in the coup to restore the extremely proSoviet former prime minister. Yet, by 1974, Daoud began to distance himself from theUSSR, and established close relations with the Shah’s Iran, America’s police force inthe region at the time. In 1975, with American backing, Iran agreed to a $2 billionpledge of aid to Afghanistan, which was later followed by Saudi Arabia, India andChina.6 Such new sources of support alarmed the Soviet government of Brezhnev, andindicated a decline in Russian influence in the region.

Drastic events eventually escalated in 1977 as a failed assassination attempt againstBarbarak Karmal, leader of the PDPA, and a successful attempt in 1978 murdered MirAkbar Khyber, a prominent leftist ideologue, culminated mass anti-Americandemonstrations after the PDPA claimed the assassinations were CIA inspired.Meanwhile, Hafizullah Amin, another PDPA leader, drew out instructions for arevolution to overthrow the government which was executed on April 28, 1978. As aresult, Nur il Din Taraki replaced Daoud and was named Prime minister. He appointedAmin and Karmal as his two deputy foreign ministers.

To its discredit, the newly formed government undertook reforms that opposed muchof Afghan traditions. Although the Soviet government advised him to halt his speedyreforms, Taraki proceeded with his program, which eventually led to insurgenciesagainst the PDPA. In September of 1979, facing intense internal as well as externaltensions, Taraki retired his position as head of the state for reason of illness, leaving allresponsibilities to Amin.

Amin’s assumption of power was followed by an increase in rebel activities which heunsuccessfully attempted to contain by releasing people held in jail during Taraki’sregime. Also, he made numerous friendly agreements with the United states in an effortto secure his internal regime, yet these attempts were unsuccessful as well. OnDecember 25, 1979, Moscow sent its troops into Afghanistan concluding Amin’s shortregime, and installing Karmal in his position. Thus was the beginning of the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan which lasted for a decade to follow.

Leading the international reaction to Soviet aggression, President Jimmy Carterdeclared that the invasion was “the greatest threat to peace since the Second WorldWar.”7 He further explained that the invasion posed a threat of further expansion in theregion as well as a threat to the flow of Western oil through the Persian Gulf.

Unfortunately, in face of such threat, Carter had no long term Soviet policy thatwould provide a framework for action against such aggression. Facing harsh criticismfrom conservative antagonism led by his own national security advisor, ZbigniewBrzezinski, and facing the devastation of the Islamic revolution and hostage situation inIran, Carter found no alternative to taking severe action.

Carter’s Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, observed that the fundamental objectivewas to bring about withdrawal of Soviet forces.Yet, a soviet pullout was so unlikely thatthe primary objective soon became to “make Soviet involvement as costly as possible.”8As a result, the President directed that the United States strengthens its positions in thePersian Gulf and Southwest Asia. As a result, there was an agreement that security tieswith Pakistan, Afghanistan border to the South, had to be strengthened.

On the political and economic hemisphere, Carter announced a delay of the signingof the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty) which would go in opposition to theadministration’s previous attempts to push for the same treaty.Yet, this attempt was notvery effective. In addition, Carter announced six ways to penalize the Soviet Union andto express US opposition to the Soviet aggression towards Afghanistan:9

1) Delay of the opening of new consulates in Kiev and New York.

2) Cancellation of a number of technical and cultural exchanges guaranteed by aUS-Soviet agreement signed in 1973, which was up for renewal in December,1979.

3) Sale of high technology equipment, such as computers and oil drilling deviceswere stopped. The CIA predicted that, by this measure, the Soviet Unionwould soon confront an oil shortage. As it turned out, the Soviet Union didnot suffer from this measure, and obtained the technology it needed fromother suppliers.

4) Restriction on fishing privileges in American waters that cut four percent ofSoviet’s worldwide catch.

5) An embargo of 17 million tons of grain. (After a bad harvest in 1979, theSoviets asked to buy twenty five million tons of grain). Yet, the Sovietsreceived the grain they needed from other nation, especially Argentina.Therefore, the real losers were American farmers rather than Sovietpoliticians.

6) An ultimatum declaring that the United States would withdraw from the 1980summer Olympics in Moscow if Soviet troops were not out of Afghanistan byFebruary 20.

In short, Carter’s long lists of threats and sanctions did almost no harm to theSoviets, and caused absolutely no Russian troop pullouts from Afghanistan. To theshortcomings of Carter’s foreign policy rose the hard-liners, leading to a new “Cold War”type of foreign policy. The champion of this revived rhetoric was Ronald Reagan, whoassumed the Presidency in January, 1981.

Reagan’s view of the cold war was that America had been on the defensive for toolong. It was now time to go after the ‘Evil Empire,’ as he labeled the USSR, and destroy it atits own base. He realized that the optimal means by which to exploit the internal flaws of theSoviet Block was to draw them on a pattern that would drain their resources, leading to theultimate devastation of the communist regime which required large spending on thepopulation. Instead, he revived the arms race that was absent during the Carteradministration, thereby drawing Soviet resources into mass defense spending. Reagan’spolicy was to confront the Brezhnev Doctrine, which implied that Russia would not toleratecountries, like Afghanistan, that threatened the security of Russia.

In Afghanistan, hard-liners and conservatives saw the perfect opportunity to strikeback at the evil empire at a time when the nation still had not recovered completely from thelure of the decades-long war in Vietnam. As Rep. Charles Wilson of Texas was quoted, “there were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one...I have a slightobsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose ofit...I’ve been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversariesthan other money on the defense budget.”10

The Reagan administration’s policy towards the Afghan situation was a substantialuse of cover operations and aid the Mujahideen (rebels). Covert aid to the rebels took rootsunder the Carter administration, but only to a very small scale. When William Casey assumedhis position as Reagan’s Intelligence advisor and director of the CIA, he remarked once heviewed the Afghan file that “this is the type of activity we need, only more of it.”11 Under theReagan administration, the CIA ordered in December, 1982, to funnel a large variety ofgrenades, mortars, launchers, mines, and anti aircraft missiles. Covert aid to the mujahideenwas running at about $80 million a year by 1984. Congress accorded $250 million in 1985,then an estimated $600 million a year kept flowing from the United States to the resistancemovement.12

The authorized funds, along with equal sums of aid from Saudi Arabia, wentprimarily into the purchasing and funneling of arms into Afghanistan. These arms would beshipped into Pakistan in the province of NWFP (North Western Frontier Province) whichbordered Afghanistan, and had a large Afghan refugee population. There, the Pakistani ISI(Inter Services Intelligence) would train volunteers and funnel weapons into the hands oftribal leaders inside Afghanistan. The leaders would then distribute the weapons among theMujahideen who engaged in actual warfare.

The primary marketplace for arms to the operation was Egypt. In 1981, PresidentAnwar Sadat of Egypt explained only a few weeks before his assassination that the UnitedStates contacted him shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan asking him to open thestores of Soviet weapons he detained so that the United States could provide the mujahideenwith the weapons they needed to fight. Sadat said, “the transport of armaments to Afghanisstarted from Cairo on US planes,” and that he “supplied Soviet made weapons that heobtained before he broke with Moscow in 1972.”13

Egypt was a logical choice for the CIA, because not only did Sadat have a largesupply of Soviet made Weapons, but Egypt had also begun to manufacture spare parts andammunitions for its Soviet arsenal. Therefore, Egypt was unlikely to run out of supply ofSoviet arms. The greatest advantage was that once these arms reached the mujahideen, it wasimpossible to lay claim to where they originated from, thereby providing a veil of secrecy tothe operation.

Yet, as Brigadier Mohammed Yusuf, who headed the arms funneling operation aschief of the Afghan Bureau of ISI , claims, the Egyptian arms were largely outdated and old,dating back to the 1970’s and sometimes to the time of Nasser in the 50’s and 60’s. He alsostated that no less than “30,000 82mm mortar bombs were found unusable on the battlefieldas the cartridges had swollen in the damp and would not fit the bombs.”14 His arms market ofpreference was China, who proved to be an excellent supplier of completely reliableweapons.

Mohammed Yusuf also explains that the CIA’s main tasks in the Afghan operationwere to purchase arms and equipment and arrange their transportation to Pakistan, providefunds for the purchase of vehicles and transportation inside Pakistan and Afghanistan, trainPakistani instructors on new weapons or equipment, provide satellite photographs and mapsfor operational planning, provide radio equipment and training, and advise on technicalmatters. Apart from that, the entire planning of the war, all types of training of theMujahideen, and the allocation and distribution of arms and supplies were the responsibilityof ISI.15

Nevertheless, the key role of the Reagan administration in the success of the operationshould not be underestimated. In Yusuf’s testimony, Spy Satellite photographs were the keyto victory by exposing the exact location of Soviet troops.

A key turning point in the success of the operation was the entry of MikhailGorbachev into the political arena as successor to Brezhnev in 1985. A devout Soviet whosought to save the empire, Gorbachev realized that one of the flaws of his system that wouldpotentially cause the breakdown of his empire was overextension beyond the administrationscapability to govern. Gorbachev’s ideology was not as strict as that of his predecessors. Forexample, he implemented his systems of Perestroika and Glasnost which providedrespectively for economic and political reform that provided for more liberal rights than thoseimplemented by Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev.

The west viewed Gorbachev as finally a Soviet leader that could be somewhat trustedand dealt with, as British prime minister Margaret Thatcher convinced Ronald Reagan. As aresult of this new window of opportunity, President Reagan and President Gorbachevconducted summit meeting in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988 in Switzerland, Iceland, Moscow,and Washington respectively. Such summit meetings were instrumental in bringing an end tothe Cold War, including the invasion of Afghanistan. Such negotiations with Gorbachevfinally led to the gradual troop pullout.

In 1986, the Soviet installed Babrak Karmal resigned and was replaced in 1987 by hisassociate, Sayid Muhammed Najibullah. In 1988, the leaders of nine Sunni Muslim rebelgroups joined in Pakistan to form an interim government in exile. Faced with this moreunited resistance, the Soviet Union became unwilling to sustain the losses of the intensifyingmilitary stalemate. It entered into an accord with the United States to withdraw all its forcesby February 15, 1989.

What is the result of such madness? After 9 years and three months of constant warfare,what has anyone gained? The Soviets lost 13,000 dead, 35,000 wounded, and 311 missing. TheAfghans lost 12,000 of 22,000 villages, 2,000 schools, more than one million dead, a million anda half wounded or mutilated, and five million driven in exile. The Americans suffered no lossesin human lives, but they did not win the battle in Afghanistan. The Soviets might have leftAfghanistan, but they were replaced with a new enemy completely brought out of the dark ageswith American money and training. An enemy that does not seek economics or geopolitics. Onethat seeks only an ideology that was largely harvested by American intelligence to unite a dividednation.