Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp

The Americans made a point of increasing their military presence in the Persian Gulf - in direct proximity to the DRA 

and our southern borders. 

 

 

The situation in various parts of the world was assessed as tense and explosive, especially in the Near and 

Middle East. Right beyond the Soviet Union’s southwestern border another revolution was occurring, in Iran, which 

worried Soviet leaders for two reasons. First and foremost, the Islamic renaissance in Iran could lessen Soviet 

influence there, and spread “defiance” to Afghanistan and even among millions of Soviet Muslims. Further, the fall of 

the Shah could require the United States to seek another place in the region for its military base. Therefore the CPSU 

CC Politburo showed a determination not to permit its competitor to profit from an analogous situation in Afghanistan. 

The overthrow of a regime in Iran friendly to the US prompted euphoric ideas among Kremlin politicians about the 

possibility of influence in the Middle East – to strengthen their positions quickly, decisively, and without special 

effort. 

 

 

The Soviet leadership proceeded from the then-existing assessments in the world and the region and also the 

views of the prospects for competition with the US. The predominant opinion was that the stationing of American 

missiles in Europe made our facilities vulnerable, even as far as the Urals. But this act would permit the removal of 

tension and deflect attention from Europe. The reinforcement of the US carrier group in the Persian Gulf and on the 

island of Diego Garcia – thus posed difficulties in ensuring the air defense of industrial and primary centers for the 

extraction of oil, natural gas, and coal in Siberia…In the opinion of several experts there was a danger of American 

interference in the affairs of Afghanistan, which could create a threat to the security of the southern borders of the 

USSR. In my view the latter argument is improbable – they would have shared the same fate as we did. 

 

 

On top of that, the personality factor played a role of no little importance, e.g., the ambitions of individual 

Soviet politicians (they could not forgive Amin for ignoring the appeal of the CPSU CC Politburo’s and Brezhnev 

“personally” to spare Taraki’s life). The ambitions of the CPSU General Secretary himself had a certain decisive effect 

on the rest of the Soviet leadership, depriving them of government wisdom and forcing them to change their 

convictions about the inadvisability of using troops in a domestic Afghan conflict. The desire of our leadership to avert 

the formation of Amin’s terrorist regime, to protect the Afghan people from genocide, and also not to permit the 

opposition to come to power and to preserve an “ideological” ally, evidently played some role. 

 

 

In addition, great power thinking predominated then in the style of the leadership. A somewhat scornful 

attitude toward the Afghans was noted and not just toward them. Ustinov, for example, said that Soviet troops need 

only show up in Afghanistan and some rebels would drop their weapons right there and the others would simply flee. 

Obviously they envisoned the opposition forces with this derisive attitude in mind. But in practice the underestimation 

of an enemy always costs very dearly. 

 

 

At a closed session of the Second Congress of USSR People’s Deputies at the end of 1989, with regard to the 

reasons causing the leadership to deploy troops to Afghanistan, KGB Chairman Kryuchkov noted:  

The situation was described as extremely tense. This was a period of a retreat from détente, 

dragging the world into a new round of the arms race, and the organization of massive subversive 

activity against the USSR and its allies by the West. Of course, we too had not been sleeping. 

 

 

The American leadership, encountering a serious crisis of trust within the country, had 

decided to look for a way out by strengthening US leadership in world affairs. Under the American 

aegis and the slogan of countering the “Soviet threat” three existing power centers (the US, Western 

Europe, and Japan) were cemented. A prohibition was imposed on selling modern technology to the 

Soviet Union and various sanctions were widely employed. Work on cruise missiles, nuclear 

warheads with increased yield, B-1 bombers, and new MX strategic missiles were stepped up and 

the reluctance of the American military to ratify the SALT-2 Treaty was examined. As a whole, 

Washington’s practical actions all the more often had an unpredictable and often dangerous nature. 

 

 

The centrifugal trends in NATO which intensified during the latter half of the 1970s 

worried the US. Right now, as you know, the attitude toward such complex ambiguous phenomena 

has changed. Then, the implementation of a long-range program of upgrading and rearmament had 

begun in Western Europe under pressure from Washington. Consequently there was a buildup of the 

nuclear potential of the bloc accompanied by a continuous three-percent increase in the military 

 

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budget of a majority of NATO members. It is impossible to say that there were no grounds given by 

us for justifying the need in the West for such military programs. But in equal measure our 

arguments can be recognized as justified that what was happening was an attempt by the West to 

undermine strategic parity… 

 

 

Such a confrontational approach spread through practically the entire spectrum of relations 

between the two great powers and their allies. A whole series of regions of the world were regarded 

by the Americans as a sphere of “vital interests” of the West. Naturally, the revolutions which 

occurred in 1978 in Afghanistan, which the Soviet Union in no way instigated, and then in Iran were 

understood mainly in the context of this confrontation. Trying to compensate for the weakness of 

their position in the Middle East the US deployed naval forces in the Persian Gulf and developed 

plans for an invasion of Iran. The Americans, like many of their allies, could not have failed to ask 

the question of how far Afghanistan would go in its relations with the USSR. 

 

 

A policy was adopted of replacing the regime in Kabul. Ideas appeared to station American 

SIGINT equipment [against] the Soviet Union and possibly some types of missiles in case pro-

Western forces came to power. We also knew about the development of plans by American and 

Pakistani special services to inflame nationalistic, pan-Islamic sentiments in Soviet Central Asian 

republics using the territory of neighboring states. It can be assumed that in these conditions the 

Soviet leadership was most likely inclined to the conclusion that a fundamental change of the 

situation in revolutionary Afghanistan and the strengthening of the position of the US and its allies in 

this country would lead to an overall change in the balance of power undesirable for the USSR, not 

only in the region but on our southern borders. It was without doubt that the West hoped to shoot 

down the wave of national democratic revolutions through Afghanistan… 

 

 

The Soviet leadership could not fail to also consider the development of the situation inside 

Afghanistan itself. Leftist excesses and a reliance on military force and repression in resolving 

domestic problems led rather quickly to the loss of popular support by the regime. A massive flight 

of refugees to Pakistan and Iran began. Discontent with the policy of the authorities was skillfully 

used by the Afghan counterrevolution. By the autumn of 1979 “Islamic parties” which had already 

appeared on Pakistani territory were able to bring the strength of their armed formations up to 

40,000 men and organize combat operations against government troops in 12 of the 27 provinces of 

the country. The Afghan army, weakened by repression, turned out to be incapable of crushing the 

antigovernment movement. Mutinies in the troops became more frequent and mass desertion with 

weapons began… 

 

 

The prospects for a change [evolyutsiya] of regime also aroused great alarm. The 

establishment in the Party and government of the personal authority of Hafizullah Amin, who in the 

autumn of 1979 had organized the murder of the head of state and CC PDPA General Secretary N. 

M. Taraki, occurred rapidly. Representatives of healthy forces in the PDPA ever more often directed 

the attention of the Soviet side to the fact that the reckless acts of the Amin clique were leading to 

the complete physical destruction of the national patriotic and progressive forces of the country. 

Representatives of ethnic minorities suffered especially heavily – Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmen, and 

other peoples of the north of the country related to the population of Soviet Central Asian republics. 

Information that Amin, trying to preserve his regime at any price, was ready to enter into a secret 

understanding with the Islamic opposition and make serious concessions to the West and its allies 

caused serious concern among our friends in Afghanistan. 

 

 

By the end of 1979 it had become all the more obvious that Afghanistan was on the edge of 

a general national crisis. The country had come to an impasse… 

 

This analysis of the situation in and around Afghanistan introduced as a justification for the actions 

of the Soviet leadership was made 10 years later but it realistically shows the views and evaluations 

dominating at the end of the 1970s and allows one to understand what guided the CC CPSU Politburo in 

deciding to deploy Soviet troops in Afghanistan. 

 

 

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