Geography and peace

Abstract

Shortly after the Soviet Union’s 1979 southwards military intervention into Afghanistan, diplomat Mikhail Kapitsa warned Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko that this supposedly ‘limited’ deployment would embroil the USSR in a draining war similar to those fought by the British Empire. According to historian Artemy Kalinovsky, Gromyko retorted by asking whether Kapitsa intended ‘to compare our internationalist troops with imperialist troops?’ The latter is said to have replied that Soviet ‘troops are different — but the mountains are the same!’