USSR AND AFGHANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402760021-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: October 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402760021-3
ARTICLE
ON PAGERp
1 October 1985
JOSEPH C. HARSCH
USSR and Afghans
mute through Khost has been the main avenue into
Afghanistan for rebel forces receiving American help. During the summer rebels surrounded Khost. In
mid-September the Soviets reinforced the Khost garri-
son by air and than. launched a counter offensive from
it against the surrounding guerrillas. It is called the
heaviest fighting so far in the civil wac
The Soviets have been attempting to pacify Af-
ghanistan since they invaded it late in 1979, and they
Are still a long way from their goal. Resistance is as vi-
gorous as ever and more successful this year than last.
The Soviets could, if they chose, increase their
physical fare in Afghanistan immensely and prob-
ably decisively, if they were willing to spend the effort,
funds, and manpower. Why have they not greatly in-
creased the forces committed tothe operation?
At the time of the invasion they were estimated to
have put about 100,000 men into Afghanistan. The
latent estimate by the International Institute of Strate-
gic Studies is 115,000. That represents a small in-
crease, but nothing to what the Soviets could do. Their
total nulitary strength is over 5 mullion.
A permissible deduction from the known facts is
that they have a basic policy of attempting to handle
forces
their Afghan problem exclusively with military
from their southern command. They apparently have
not drawn down any other commands to reinforce the
deployment in Afghanistan.
declared the fro idw was "closed forever against the
enemy like an unbreakable wall."
But a lively battle has been going on ever since
around Khost. Khost is a town held by Soviet and
puppet Afghan troops, south of the main road from
Peshawar in Pakistan to Kabul in Afghanistan. The
THE interesting thing about the latest news from
Afghanistan is that the Russians would
apparently rather risk losing than spend more
on their venture.
Russian troops and their local Afghan clients set
out in mid-August to close off their southern border
once and for all to lion of guerrillas and weep-
one from neighboring Pakistan.
The m.litary operation most have gone reasonably
well from the Russians' point of view in the beginning.
On Sept 16 Afghan puppet President Babrak Karmal
ALE ONLY
This policy is in contrast to American policy in
Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson sent half a mil-
lion Americans to that theater by withdrawing forces
from all other areas, including the vital European the-
ater The Russians have not weakened their strength
in Europe or Asia for the sake of Afghanistan.
This in turn makes it relatively any for the US and
China - the main providers of aid to the Afghan re-
sistance forces -to feed in enough weapons, supplies,
and ammunition to keep the resistance alive. A resis-
tance movement that has survived through nearly six
years of often bitter fighting against a vastly better
aimed Soviet Army is vigorous and alive.
Have the Russians learned something from the
American experience in Vietnam?
They have limited their spending on the Afghan
venture. They have never put enough into it to weaken
them on any other front. They can afford what they
are spending. They are not weakening their strategic
position elsewhere. The US spent beyond its home-
front tolerance in Vietnam and had to get out. The
same will not happen to the Russians in Afghanistan.
The other side of the coin is that it continues to look
like a "no win" situation for them. Americans and
Chinese keep feeding enough help to the resistance to
keep it alive and fighting. Moscow does not raise the
stakes. This can go on indefinitely.
Six years of fighting in Afghanistan has led the
Russians into a stalemate. It could be broken in two
ways; either by a big increase in the Soviet invest-
ment, or by a big increase in US and Chinese aid to
the Afghan loyalists. Neither is likely because each
side could escalate to balance off what the other does.
In effect Washington and Peking, working in silent
and unavowed partnership, have produced a situation
from which Moscow can escape only through negotia-
tion and compromise.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402760021-3