Managing Withdrawal: Afghanistan as the Forgotten Example in Attempting Conflict Resolution and State Reconstruction

Abstract

Perhaps surprisingly, given the availability of new Russian memoir material, some excellent individual monographs, and a large variety of declassified documents, a full operational–political account of the Soviet Union's withdrawal strategy from Afghanistan has yet to be written. This article, utilising openly published yet neglected sources, attempts to fill that gap. The final fate of the Najibullah regime, and the contradictory effect of the National Reconciliation Policy in Afghanistan itself, suggests four key lessons for international forces today as disengagement from both Iraq and Afghanistan again becomes a pressing issue, and as questions around re-creating stability within a failed state scenario again occupy the international community.

Keywords:

• Soviet Union
• insurgency
• counter-insurgency
• state-building
• conflict resolution
• Afghanistan

Notes

 1. On the grand strategic level see in particular: Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention, Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy, Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, and Khan, Untying the Afghan Knot. Both Soviet and mujahidin tactics in the war have also been well covered in the past. See, for example, Grau, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, Grau and Jalali, The Other Side of the Mountain. The nearest thing to a consistently operationally-focused history of the war is Urban's War in Afghanistan.

 2. The difference between stabilisation and intervention, and the meaning of ‘humanitarian’ is contested in the existing literature – see Connaughton Military Intervention and Peacekeeping and Wheeler, Saving Strangers.

 3. On this shift with regard to Afghanistan specifically, see Halliday ‘Soviet foreign policymaking and the Afghanistan war’ pp.675–91.

 4. See, for example, Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending, 92, Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe pp.34–55, and Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest' Afgana pp.191–223.

 5. McMichael, Stumbling Bear p.54.

 6. Nikitenko, Afganistan pp.89–90, Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan p.187.

 7. Whitlock, Beyond the Oxus p.126, Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan p.25.

 8. See, for example, the memoirs of Pakistani ISI officer Mohammad Youssaf, in which he gloats over the murder of a Soviet female schoolteacher by mujahidin in Kabul: Afghanistan – The Bear Trap p.146.

 9. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan p.23.

10. Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest' Afgana p.336. The alleged threat to the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz was questioned even at the time, though few chose to listen: Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, pp.32–33, 55. On American perceptions at the time, in retrospect deeply flawed, see Hartman, ‘The Red Template’ pp.467–89. The alleged Soviet strategic threat to the Indian Ocean continues misguidedly to be given credence even today however, especially by American journalists: Margolis, War at the Top of the World pp.19–20.

11. The points iterated here have only now begun to be objectively assessed in the West – see for example the populist work of Magnus and Naby, Afghanistan pp.104–6 for a brief discussion of the issues, and for a more comprehensive approach, consult F. Halliday and Tanin, ‘The Communist Regime in Afghanistan’ pp.1357–80.

12. On recruitment drives during Karmal's reign, see Halliday and Tanin, ‘The Communist Regime in Afghanistan’ p.1363.

13. Ostermann (ed.), ‘Gorbachev and Afghanistan’ p.145.

14. Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending pp.182–7, Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan pp.142–6.

15. Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest' Afgana p.496.

16. Halliday and Tanin, ‘The Communist regime in Afghanistan’ p.1366.

17. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe 62.

18. Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan pp75–7.

19. Nikitenko, Afganistan p.228.

20. Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending p.197.

21. Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan p.146 and Mousavi, The Hazaras of Afghanistan pp.176–7. The long-term results of this policy can be seen even today: http://www.gharjistani.com/NewTrends.php accessed 25 Sept. 2005.

22. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan 160, and Davis, ‘The Afghan Army’ p.136.

23. Ostermann (ed.) ‘Gorbachev and Afghanistan’ p.148.

24. Ostermann (ed.) ‘More East-Bloc Sources on Afghanistan’ p.262.

25. Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending p.196.

26. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe pp.60–2, 141–2, 160–2.

27. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe. pp.175–6, 200.

28. The quote is directly from Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention p.xvi.

29. Liakhovskii, Tragediia i doblest' Afgana p.523. Gorbachev's defenders have for a long time presented a different story, which has traditionally been uncritically accepted in the West – see, for example, Cherniaev, Shest' let s Gorbachevym pp.38–9 and the account given in Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention pp.262–97, which relies heavily, and almost uncritically, on later statements by key Gorbachev allies like Shevardnadze, Cherniaev and Iakovlev. In these accounts the army and KGB are the main villains in creating delay. Varennikov's role in the Afghan conflict remains under-analysed, primarily due to the fact that he was subsequently tarnished with complicity in the 1991 coup bid. However Varennikov's account is persuasively backed by multiple citations from the reports of his OG, and therefore cannot be written off as merely an attempt to re-write history. Moreover, attempts to make Gorbachev the hero orchestrating withdrawal also fail properly to accredit the KGB in the process of engineering Karmal's own retirement and the promotion of Najibullah, the one figure single-handedly most responsible for the subsequent process of National Reconciliation. For the KGB perspective, see Shebarshin, Ruka Moskvy pp.230–36, and Kriuchkov, Lichnoe Delo pp.209–68.

30. The text of the now-famous Politburo session of November 1986 can be found in: P. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente zum Afghanistankrieg pp.434–50. This November 1986 session is still traditionally seen as the starting point of organised withdrawal measures from Afghanistan in much of the general literature.

31. See, for example, Ostermann (ed.), Gorbachev and Afghanistan pp.156, 161–62, 178–79, 183, in which Gorbachev continuously cites Lenin as justification and sanction for both perestroika in the USSR and National Reconciliation in Afghanistan. Gorbachev's inflated sense of self-belief is also evident from some of these materials: Ostermann (ed.), ‘Gorbachev and Afghanistan’, p.182.

32. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada pp.265–66. It was not the content of these conversations per se that irritated Gareev so much as Gorbachev's clearly lacksadaisical, uninterested attitude.

33. This erroneous view of the Stinger as a war-winning weapon is repeated even in recent works: Andrew and Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way p.416, using a CIA memoir as a point of reference.

34. Nikitenko, Afganistan p.217–22.

35. Urban, War in Afghanistan pp.191–92.

36. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe pp.363–65.

37. Bermudez Jr. ‘Ballistic Missiles in the Third World – Afghanistan 1979–1992’ p.51.

38. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada p.75. On supplies provided to the Kabul regime after February 1989 see also the documents in P. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente zum Afghanistankrieg pp.526–44 and Isby, ‘Soviet Arms Deliveries and Aid to Afghanistan 1989–91’ pp.348–54.

39. One of the conditions that Najibullah attempted to impose before the final withdrawal of the LCOSF was that Ahmad Shah Massoud should first be eliminated. Varennikov refused to attempt this, urging instead (without success) that Massoud should be negotiated with and offered a share of power. Varenninkov advocated a political approach on the grounds that ‘In the future Ahmad Shah might grow into an important political figure with whom the Soviet Union, in all probability, will have to cooperate, and it would be to our advantage to have him as an ally and not an enemy’. Ostermann (ed.) ‘More East-Bloc Sources on Afghanistan’ p.264. Following the Soviet withdrawal Najibullah then tried but failed to lure Massoud into government: Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan p.156.

40. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada pp.78, 90.

41. Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic militancy p.144.

42. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada p.163.

43. For these and other notes by Gareev on Afghan army capability, see Gareev, Afganskaia Strada pp.69–77.

44. O'Ballance, Afghan Wars p.187, Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention p.311.

45. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente zum Afghanistankrieg pp.463–66.

46. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada p.192.

47. On Tanai's character, see Gareev, Afganskaia Strada pp.119–20 and Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy p.149.

48. The subsequent allegation by Anthony Arnold that the Tanai-Hekmatyar collaboration may have been the product of a conspiracy by Soviet intelligence is so bizarre and without foundation as to qualify as a serious attempt at strategic disinformation: Arnold, The Fateful Pebble pp.160–1.

49. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada p.126.

50. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan p.80, Gareev, pp.181, 241–42.

51. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan pp.163–64.

52. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan p.233, Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan p.164.

53. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan p.235.

54. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan. pp.235–36.

55. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada p.225.

56. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan pp.210–12.

57. See, for example, Pomper, ‘Don't Follow the Bear’ pp.26–9.

58. Yadav, ‘Failed Great Power War’ pp.353–68. Yadav's key thesis – that intervention by one state into another within an international context that is non-hegemonic is likely to fail – is highly problematic, not least because it is then difficult to point to any one period in world history when the international system has in reality ever been wholly hegemonic. Interventions in other states have nonetheless succeeded repeatedly in the past, even when the international system is multi-polar, as the expansion of nearly all the major European and Asian empires repeatedly demonstrates.

59. Blank, ‘Afghanistan and Beyond: Reflections on the Future of Warfare’ p.228.

60. Harding, ‘Pentagon seeks £215m Russian arms deal for Afghans’. ‘Soviet-era’ is an appropriate description in this case since the majority of equipment to be provided is of precisely that vintage, including T-62 tanks.

61. Various estimates are given in Weitz, Moscow's Endgame in Afghanistan p.30, Rais, Afghanistan after the Soviet Withdrawal p.123 and Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan p.147.

62. The very real gains that were made in 1990 led Anthony Giustozzi to label that year Najibullah's ‘annus mirabilis’: Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan, p.185.

63. http://cnews canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/05/07/1568671-cp.html accessed 18 May 2006

64. On this theme, see Cooper, Goodhand and Pugh, War Economies in a Regional Context. On the Iraqi market-driven reconstruction process see: Yousif, ‘Coalition Economic Policies in Iraq’ pp.491–505.

65. On the Iraqi militias, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4454985.stm and http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id = 8175 both accessed on 9 Sept. 2005.

66. See on this: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp060205.shtml accessed on 20 Sept. 2005.

67. On Vietnam, see Scoville, Reorganizing for Pacification Support and Hunt, Pacification. On Panama: Fishel, ‘The Murky World of Conflict Termination’ pp.58–71.

68. Gareev, Afganskaia Strada pp.232–33, Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe pp.183–84.

69. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente zum Afghanistankrieg pp.734–36.

70. Fishel, ‘The Murky World of Conflict Termination’ p.67.

71. Roy, ‘The predicament of “civil society” in Central Asia and the “Greater Middle East”’ pp.1008–12 and Dorronsoro, Revolution Unending pp.335–36.