SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR

Conflict Analysis of the Soviet-Afghan War

Conflict Analysis of the Soviet-Afghan War

Introduction

By 1988 the war in Afghanistan between the mujahideen (fighters of the jihad or holy war), or freedom fighters as Ronald Reagan called them, and the Soviets and their Afghan communist clients had been going on for ten years. The fighting had actually started in 1978 with the communist coup, but the real war erupted when the Soviets, after twenty months of growing rebellion, inserted thousands of troops just after Christmas, 1979. (Miall, and Woodhouse, 2005) In the classic pattern, the government now controlled the cities and main roads, the guerillas the countryside, except in this case the government instead of the guerillas was communist. The Resistance, as the mujahideen side was also called, was composed of two parts: the commanders inside Afghanistan and the political parties in exile in Peshawar.

Afghanistan is a place not easily got at. (Pruitt, and Kim, 2004) Wrapped around a great mountain range, dry, distant and forbidding, even now it is not a simple trip, and before the first all-weather road was opened over the mountains thirty years ago, the difficulties must have discouraged most would be travelers, friends or enemies. (Rigby, 1985) The Hindu Kush Mountains are not as high as the impossible Pamirs, Karakorams, and Himalayas to the east, but the half dozen main passes are blocked during the long winter by snow, and watched over for the rest of the year by suspicious men who know how to use their guns.

Russians in Afghanistan

The Soviets did not find Afghanistan a cake-walk. (Miall, and Woodhouse, 2005) Very little was broadcast at home about the war, so soldiers were not prepared for what they would face. They were told they were protecting their southern borders, that they were protecting Afghanistan from the Americans. Having heard for years about the schools, roads, and hospitals the Soviets had built in Afghanistan, the soldiers did not expect the hostile reception they received. Although arms and money began being secretly funneled to the Mujahideen months before the Soviet invasion, the election of Ronald Reagan stepped up the pace and brought it out in the open. The Soviets were faced with sophisticated modern weaponry, much of it made in the USSR and ending up in Mujahideen hands after detours through Egypt and elsewhere. One of the very sad ironies for the Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan is that they found themselves being killed and wounded with weapons from their own country.

Much of the grass-roots opposition to the Soviet presence came from women. They were the first to organize huge demonstrations in the streets. They were the first to gather at the gates of Pul-e-charki Prison in Kabul, demanding the release of political prisoners. In January of 1983, four hundred women were in the Salon of the Mourning Woman in Shahrinau Park in Kabul. Many of the women had lost husbands and sons to the war. During their prayers, women started to speak about their ...