40 years ago, on December 25, 1979, the Afghan war began. On this day, the columns of the 40th Combined Arms Army crossed the Afghan border. It was a just and necessary war. The Soviet Union secured its southern borders.
However, soon in the USSR, destructive forces took up, "restructuring-democratizers", which led to the sad results of the Afghan war. Afghanistan became a trap that allowed our internal and external enemies to accelerate the process of disintegration of the Soviet state.
A just and necessary war
From a military-strategic point of view, this was a necessary war. We had to secure our southern borders and support a friendly regime in Afghanistan. If we hadn't done this, the Americans would have done it. As it happened in the 2000s, when the Afghan strategic foothold was occupied by the United States and NATO. Afghanistan allows you to influence a huge region: India, Iran, Central Asia (and through it to Russia) and China. Thus, the Soviet Union secured its southern borders. For many years he postponed the appearance of NATO troops in Afghanistan or the victories of the bandit formations that established gigantic supplies of heroin to Russia.
We entered Afghanistan legally - at the request of its top political leadership. At the same time, in its entire history, Afghanistan has never lived so freely and freely (just look at the photographs of Afghans of those years), as under the protection of our troops. The Soviet Union invested heavily in the country, built roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, housing, developed agriculture and industry, beat bandits who were involved in drug trafficking, and established a normal life. A cultural revolution, modernization took place in Afghanistan, the country was becoming secular, leaving the archaic.
Later, when ordinary Afghans were able to compare the behavior of the Russian Shuravi with the actions of the Western invaders, they repeatedly noted that the Russians were real warriors, creators, teachers, helping the people build a new, better life. The Americans, on the other hand, are destroyers; they only care about profit. If the Russians considered Afghans to be people, the Americans did not consider the locals to be full-fledged people (as in the past: “a good Indian is a dead Indian”). Western intelligence services took control of the production and transit of drugs, increased their production many times over, turning Afghanistan into a huge world heroin factory. The bulk of the people were thrown into poverty, survived as best they could, the country was ruled by gangs and drug dealers. The archaic won, there was a rollback to the past, to the feudal and tribal orders. Now Afghanistan has become a "zone of inferno", chaos, from where waves of instability spread across the planet.
In fact, Russia, if it solves its internal problems and restores its positions in the world, will still have to return to the Afghan problem. This is a question of the world's "drug factory". Thus, according to the Federal Drug Control Service, Afghan-made heroin in Russia annually kills twice as many people as Soviet soldiers died during the entire nine-year war in Afghanistan. Most of the population of Afghanistan no longer knows how to engage in normal creative, production activities, and it simply does not exist. All life is connected with drugs. This is a question of radical "black" Islam, the "caliphate", which is leading an offensive from the southern strategic direction. The entire Turkestan, which only degraded after the collapse of the USSR, can become a continuous zone of chaos in the visible future. Russia will be covered by waves of millions of refugees, among whom there will be thousands of caliphate fighters. The southern border is practically open, huge, there are no natural boundaries. These are the flows of illegal migrants, Islamists, weapons, drugs, various smuggling, extremist materials, etc. These are also the issues of the presence of the United States and China in the region.
Fought badly?
During perestroika and post-perestroika times, our troops in Afghanistan were doused with mud. Liberals and Westernizers tried to show how ineffective and outdated the Soviet army was. That it was a futile and criminal war. How the Afghans hated the Russians, how we committed "war crimes", etc. In fact, the Soviet army fought in Afghanistan quite effectively and skillfully. She led the case to complete victory. Almost the entire territory of the country was under the control of the 40th Army and the forces of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The local army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the special services were also under our control. In addition, in the second half of the war, they began to rely on the GRU special forces, pinpoint operations to eliminate caravans, field commanders, etc., which was reasonable in a war with irregular enemy units.
Of course, there were mistakes. In particular, the introduction of troops was not sufficiently thought out. It was wiser not to introduce combined-arms formations or to introduce for a short time to defeat the largest gangs. Act mainly with the help of military advisers, military experts, special forces, the GRU and the KGB. Conduct pinpoint operations with the Air Force. To act like the West, that is, to form our own forces from the local population, to arm, train, provide advisors, support with fire (air strikes). Maintain the friendly regime of Najibullah. To create full-fledged Afghan armed forces under our control, supply them with weapons, equipment, ammunition, fuel, this was enough to keep Afghanistan.
As shown by the military operations of NATO and the United States in Afghanistan, the Westernizers fought worse than the Soviet Army. At the same time, the local rebels in 2000-2010 were not supported by powerful external forces. And the mujahideen against the USSR were supported by the Anglo-American special services, the Islamic and Arab world, which, represented by the Saudis, was in a strategic alliance with the United States against Moscow. The Americans have created several strategic bases, they control the capital (partially), communications and drug trafficking. And that's all, they do not care about the Afghan people, about what is happening around.
The question was the political will of the Kremlin. The Soviet Union could maintain control over Afghanistan, crush the detachments of the Mujahideen, but for this it was necessary to resolve the issue with the sponsors of the bandits and terrorists. The United States acted mainly with the help of the secret services of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. And the USSR could well put them in their place. For example, by demonstrating the military might of the Red Empire, targeted strikes against terrorists' nests, field camps, and arsenals in Pakistan. Physical elimination of the organizers of international terrorism, Islamic radicalism. However, the spirit was not enough. The Soviet Union was already "rebuilt", destroyed, prepared for surrender. Therefore, the Soviet Army was not given the opportunity to defeat the main sponsors and export centers of the war.
Therefore, glory to the Russian soldiers - "Afghans" - they honestly and courageously fulfilled their duty to the Motherland. And the "perestroika" -capitulators, who withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan, allowed bandits, drug dealers, Islamists, and then the West to gain a foothold there, they destroyed the great Soviet Union, a tribunal is needed, even posthumously.
Afghan trap
The USSR would have collapsed without the Afghan war. The destructive processes in Soviet civilization were started even under Khrushchev. That is, Afghanistan was not the main factor, but only one of the prerequisites, detonators. However, the war was used by both internal and external enemies of the Soviet regime. Inside the country, hysteria was whipped up about the allegedly huge losses, financial and material costs. As a result, the public opinion was formed that we had lost the war. The same opinion became the leading one in the "world community".
The external enemies of the USSR also used this situation to the maximum. Former CIA director and head of the US Department of Defense Robert Gates in his memoir "Out of the Shadows" admitted that American special services began to help the Mujahideen six months before the Soviet Army entered Afghanistan. In fact, the Americans have provoked the Kremlin. Former adviser to the President of the United States on national security and prominent Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski confirmed Gates' words:
“This covert operation was a brilliant idea! We have lured the Russians into an Afghan trap."
The West used the situation very skillfully. All the powerful information and propaganda machine of the "world community" instantly made Russian enemies of the Muslim world. A Muslim front was immediately formed against us. The Anglo-Americans have long dreamed of setting the Islamic world against Russia. Given the confrontation with the United States and NATO, this was the second front. Before the war, the Americans had already prepared contacts with local field commanders, bandits, and the supply of weapons, ammunition, ammunition, and communications began immediately. Even anti-American Iran is up in arms against the Russians. Pakistan becomes a rear base, a bridgehead and a training camp for terrorists and bandits. Huge financial resources of the Arab monarchies, primarily Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were directed to the war with the USSR.
During the Afghan war, the special services of the West, Arab monarchies and Pakistan created an "export" mutation of Islam, heavily mixed with big money and drug trafficking. On its basis, a "caliphate" will later be created. "Black" Islam is merciless not only to "infidels", but also to Muslims of other currents. Also, Washington got from Saudi Arabia to release huge quantities of oil on the world market in 1985, which led to a fall in prices for "black gold" (by 1986, the price fell to $ 10 per barrel and below). It was a strong blow to the economy of the USSR, which by this time had already been well put on the "oil needle".
Thus, an anti-Soviet alliance was formed from the West and the Muslim East. China also acted against the USSR. Everything was done to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan. The Americans hoped that Afghanistan would become a springboard for transferring the war from Soviet Turkestan (Central Asia). However, the Afghan war alone could not bring the Americans and their allies a victory over the USSR. Afghanistan, with the help of the USSR, quickly changed for the better, the people had never lived so well. The Soviet army and the Afghan security forces controlled by us controlled almost the entire country. Mohammad Najibullah's power was solid. That is, we did not lose the war. The country and the army were surrendered by the Soviet elite, led by Gorbachev.
In fact, Moscow started the war in conditions of internal decay, which had already passed into an open phase, when part of the Soviet elite was openly preparing for the surrender of the USSR. That is, the army, the security forces did everything they had to do, they did their duty, they fought well. But the decision to surrender Soviet civilization, Soviet power, the USSR and the Soviet Army had already been made. Hence the result.
