THE SOVIET ARMY, COUNTERINSURGENCY, AND THE AFGHAN WAR

Abstract

T he military situation that confronted the Soviet army in Afghanistan during its nine-plus years of occupation (December 1979 to February 1989) differed significantly from the Soviets' prewar expectations. Soviet forces were committed into Afghanistan on the false presumption that the the rapidly destabilizing situation could be put right by means of a quick, violent coup-de-main on the model of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Soviet planners were fully aware of the growing resistance movement in Afghanis-tan, yet the Soviet army entered the country expecting little opposition, prepared only to fight a few short, conventional actions if necessary.' Afghanistan, the Soviets found, is not Czechoslovakia. Soviet forces became mired in an extended counterinsurgency campaign against a classic guerrilla force. This article will show how the Soviet army responded to the unexpected dilemma it met. Further, it will analyze how the Soviet ground forces adapted and failed to adapt to the peculiar conditions of counterinsur-gency warfare in a large, dry, mountainous region, and it will draw conclusions on the suitability of the Soviet army for such operations. The Doctrinal Dilemma Aside from the airborne and elite striking forces employed by the Soviets in the initial coup-de-main in Kabul, the Soviet armed forces inserted into the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan were structured and trained for large-scale conventional warfare. Soviet military doctrine envisioned their employment on flat, rolling terrain like that of Europe. This latter kind of warfare is characterized doctrinally by deep offensive operations carried out by heavy tank-mechanized formations, massed and echeloned to conduct breaches of dense defenses, followed by rapid advance into the enemy rear to encircle December 1989 21