Breaking Contact Without Leaving Chaos: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Abstract

There is a literature and a common perception that the Soviets were defeated and driven from Afghanistan. This is not true. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, they did so in a coordinated, deliberate, professional manner, leaving behind a functioning government, an improved military and an advisory and economic effort insuring the continued viability of the government. The withdrawal was based on a coordinated diplomatic, economic and military plan permitting Soviet forces to withdraw in good order and the Afghan government to survive. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) managed to hold on despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only then, with the loss of Soviet support and the increased efforts by the Mujahideen (holy warriors) and Pakistan, did the DRA slide toward defeat in April 1992. The Soviet effort to withdraw in good order was well executed and can serve as a model for other disengagements from similar nations. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979–1989, its occupation force, the 40th Army conducted 220 independent operations and over 400 combined operations of various scales.1 Many of these large-scale operations accomplished little, since this was primarily a tactical commanders' war. Some large-scale operations, such as the initial incursion into Afghanistan, Operation Magistral, which opened the highway to Khowst and the final withdrawal, were effective because the force employed was appropriate to the mission.2 1 The Russian General Staff (translated and edited by Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress), The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2001, p. 73). 2For an account of the initial incursion, see The Russian General Staff, pp. 15–20 and Lester W. Grau. “The Takedown of Kabul: An Effective Coup de Main” in William G. Robertson and Lawrence A. Yates (Editors), Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban Operations (Fort Leavenworth: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2003), pp. 291–324 and Aleksandr Lyakhovskiy. Tragediya i doblest Afgana [The tragedy and valor of the Afghanistan veteran] (Moscow: Iskona, 1995) pp. 61–173. For accounts of Operation Magistral, see The Russian General Staff, 85–88; Lester W. Grau, The Bear Went over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2005) pp. 61–66; and B. V. Gromov, Ogranichennyy kontingent [Limited contingent], (Moscow: Progress, 1994) pp. 298–305.