#11
Krasnaya Zvezda
No. 141
August 2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
THE LESSONS OF THE AFGHAN WAR
Marshal of the Soviet Union Viktor KULIKOV, chairman of the State Duma committee on veterans' affairs

The events in Afghanistan undoubtedly went down in history as one of the most complex and contradictory pages in 20th- century history whose assessments are yet to be unequivocal for a long time to come. An objective view of these events is formed by the vision of various people - politicians, diplomats and servicemen. It is important that the voice and experience of each participant in the Afghan epic be heard and taken into account in this case. General of the Army Makhmut Gareyev, who was chief adviser to the president of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at that time, is one of them. He told about his war experience in the book entitled "My Last War. Afghanistan Without Soviet Troops." The work of the well-known military commander and prominent military scientist immediately drew the attention of the military public.

The author of the book does not avoid making assessments of the consequences of the decision to bring Soviet troops into the neighboring country. The war in Afghanistan went on for ten years, causing enormous human casualties and economic dislocation in the country, he writes. Although many fatal mistakes were made, the history of this war cannot be reduced to the accusation and denunciation of the actions of one side only.

I share Makhmut Gareyev's view that there are no grounds to consider the Afghan campaign of Soviet troops as a kind of "Russian disgrace." An important point to keep in mind is that the situation there worsened as a result of interference on the part of Pakistan, Iran, the USA and other countries. When external forces started arming the mojahed, attacks on Soviet garrisons and convoys began. Russian president Vladimir Putin said that "... they often talk about the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. However, if we look attentively and professionally, not from the propaganda viewpoint, at what was happening in Afghanistan in those years, we will see that, properly speaking, there was no military defeat of the Soviet Union. It achieved the military aims it had set itself." The chapter on the lessons and conclusions based on the experience of not only the Afghan war but also other six big- and small-scale wars in which Gareyev took part deserves special attention. The conclusion drawn by the author is beyond doubt: "Whatever the wise after the event politicians and journalists may say about what has already happened, it is safe to say that if the new Russian authorities had not turned away from the Najibullah government and his policy of national reconciliation had been pursued, the Afghan people would not have experienced the untold suffering it has lived through in the past ten years and a more reliable security would have been ensured on the approaches to Russia and the borders of the CIS Central-Asian states."

The experience of approaching the solution of the Afghan problem in the past can prompt ways of establishing peace in today's Afghanistan, and other countries and regions for that matter. I will only dwell on one of the conclusions drawn by the author. As General Gareyev aptly puts it, the experience of Afghanistan, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and other conflicts shows that interference by superpowers in the internal affairs of sovereign states has no prospects. In particular, it is obvious for everyone now that the decision to bring Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1979 was an unconsidered and politically wrong step, which caused enormous damage to the Soviet Union and the Afghan people.

However, the Soviet leaders were not acting in vacuum.

Many external circumstances were prompting it to make this fatal step. It is well known how intensively and actively the USA was trying to penetrate and gain a foothold in Iran and Pakistan, creating its bases there. In the conditions of rivalry between the two superpowers, neither side involved in major military conflicts could win the decisive victory, for they relied on the material and military support of these superpowers.

Now, as humankind is going over from a bipolar world to a unipolar one, there is a danger of one of the remaining superpowers turning the course of all military conflicts to suit its interests and establishing its dictate in international affairs. Still, it seems that the future world will be a multipolar, not unipolar one, based on the account of the balance of the interests of the leading countries. In such a situation, in order to ensure that calls for new approaches in politics do not remain just empty words, it is necessary that all states consider, along with their national interests, the interests of international stability in mutual security.

From this point of view, the experience of the Afghan war proves that in case of international interference in regional conflicts and peacekeeping actions, it is important that there should be no biased, obvious support of only one of the conflicting sides. The interests of various public forces and movements should be taken into account.

The conclusions drawn by General Gareyev on the lessons of the anti-terrorist operation underway in Afghanistan are of principled importance. By the beginning of the 21st century, the territory of this country had turned into a huge base of international terrorists, bellicose extremists capable of not only finally exploding Afghan society from within, throwing it back to the Stone Age but also destabilizing the military-political situation in South-West and Central Asia as a whole. A serious threat has also arisen for Pakistan, which acted as a patron of the Taliban movement. The interests of many countries coincided on the need to ward off this common threat.

So far, it is not quite clear how the USA, and the Taliban, who have scattered, for that matter, will behave in Afghanistan when the anti-terrorist operation is over. The most dangerous thing is the inconsistency and unpredictability of the USA's political steps and its striving to see allies and partners in joint actions as temporary fellow-travellers whose interests can be ignored. These apprehensions are based on a too light-hearted attitude of some leading powers to the norms of international law and the international treaties signed.

Over the past decade, as Gareyev correctly writes, not only the Geneva agreements on Afghanistan but also the Yalta, Potsdam and Helsinki agreements (1975), which determined the post-war borders in Europe have been violated and the assurances made by western countries during the unification of Germany with regard to NATO expansion trampled underfoot. They assured us that Kosovo would remain part of Yugoslavia, while separatists are seizing power there with the connivance of peacekeeping forces.

It is to be hoped that the sad story of the creation and armament of the Taliban movement and the September 11 tragedy in the USA will make the West ponder the inconsistency of the policy of double standards.

Some politicians and political scientists, writes Gareyev, after the terrorist act in the USA even believe that the Russians, who have lived through explosions of dwelling houses and the war against terrorism in the Caucasus, have found themselves in the same boat with the Americans, as it were. Insistent calls are being made to use this unique chance and step up integration with the West and cooperation with NATO. It is desirable to use this chance to the utmost, of course. We do not need confrontation.

However, the lessons of the recent past, including the experience of the Afghan war, show that far from contributing to the solution of overdue international problems, unilateral steps are very dangerous for international stability.

At present, radical steps by the leading states to meet each other halfway are especially important in pooling the efforts of the international community to combat terrorism and other modern challenges.

Asked about the political mistakes made in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that they had been predetermined by "the split of the international community according to the ideological principle. Thank God, there is no such split now and we can avoid mistakes of this kind. Properly speaking, herein lies the basic value of the international anti-terrorist coalition."

This circumstance is really encouraging, because if Russia, as some political leaders proposed, had supported the Taliban, the Americans would have found themselves in a no less difficult situation than Soviet troops in the 1980s. However, the same question arises: on what may Russia count? Will it get an adequate support in combating terrorism in its own territory, in its efforts for an equitable integration into the world market and on a number of other problems? Maybe, the West will, say, write off the former debts which Russia did not made, or in reply to the liquidation of the Russian base in Cuba, the USA will close its base at Guantanamo, while NATO curb its appetites in its eastward expansion drive? We would like to hope for this, however, we should not forget about the lessons of history.

Returning to the problem of Afghanistan, I cannot but agree with the author that under any circumstances, it is important that the international community, the USA, Russia and the CIS Central-Asian countries should contribute to the preservation of the integrity of the Afghan state and prevent its Lebanization and another war on ethnic grounds. Russia and other CIS states are especially interested in the stability of the situation in the South and the creation of a neutral friendly state in Afghanistan. The whole world will only stand to gain if the USA, China, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries also contribute to this. By pooling our efforts, we should do everything possible to ensure that peace and tranquillity come to us from Afghanistan and the unsettled Afghan problem does not cause more trouble.

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