STUCK IN AFGHANISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96R01136R002605320041-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: June 14, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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should still be done quietly.
The other way of raising the cost to Russia of another
cold winter in Afghanistan is by squeezing the food and
technology transfers on which the Soviet economy has
come to depend. Like the Olympic boycott, President
Carter's trade sanctions have not been very effective so
far (see page 72) and American exporters have borne
by far the largest share of the, burden. The Russians
seem to have made up most of their lost American
grain from other sburces; and the loss of long-term
industrial projects will take time to hit. This is why a
partial trade embargo will persuade the Russians to
change their strategy in Afghanistan only if they first
become convinced that a quick win is impossible, and
that sanctions will be as prolonged as their own
occupation-and may spread as time goes on.
The costs of remaining in Afghanistan, as the Rus-
sians calculate them today, are unlikely to look intoler-
able. But it is important that they should be able to
Do they hear Jenkins?
read the other side of the ledger. The west, in co-
operation with Afghanistan's neighbours, should re-
affirm its readiness to provide a face-saver in the form
of some version of the Carrington neutrality plan,
enshrined if necessary in a formal Austrian-type treaty.
But if this plan is to be fitted in with recent Soviet-
Afghan proposals, the Russians will have to accept (a)
that nobody can deliver an end to the insurgency, which
will come about only as the result of a political
settlement; and (b) that Soviet troop withdrawals will
have to accompany, not follow, any action to stop arms
aid or restrict guerrilla sanctuaries.
The Russians and their clients are not the only
parties to the Afghan dispute unready for serious.
negotiations. At the end of last month the umpteenth
quest for unity by rebel leaders in Peshawar came to
nothing. The rebels too need reminding that, unless
they can provide a political alternative, they will lose
the war.
No, because the fight to decide the course of Britain's opposition
is still locked inside the Labour party
In 1984, Britain could be faced with an alternative
government committed to unilateral disarmament, na-
tionalisation of commercial banks and pension funds,
the abolition of private education and health services,
and the delegation of economic strategy to the trade
union movement. Such a government would be sup-
ported in office by members of parliament at the mercy
of left-wing constituency cliques, its policy dictated
annually at Labour party conferences dominated by
phoney union majorities.
For those who may be finding Mrs Thatcher's brand
of economic liberalism too crude a brew, such an
alternative is no alternative at all. It is a denial of the
traditional social democratic commitment to freedom
of individual choice in a mixed economy; it is economi-
cally irresponsible and a surrender to precisely the
forces which have so harmed Britain over the past
decade. Hardly surprising, then, that last week eyes
were misting over as once again Mr Roy Jenkins
daintily tripped across the Channel to smile at the
media and tease them with talk of "great and hitherto
untapped reserves of political energy".
Two centres are one too many
Almost everything Mr Jenkins says is true: the incom-
patibilities within the Labour party, the danger of
indentification of parties with sectional interests, the
evils of constant public-sector expansionism. There
may indeed be, as he implies, growing support for a
"radical centre" in British politics-a recoining of The,
Economist's long-ago phrase, the "extreme centre";
though between Mrs Thatcher and Mr Benn a more
appropriate phrase today might be conservative centre.
The sophisticated elector would doubtless love to be
able to debate the nuance of a Howe economy against a
Jenkins one-perhaps a touch more on the accelerator
here, my dear chap, a willingness to turn the steering
wheel there?-and cast his vote accordingly. Such has
been the dream of "moderate men of sound judgment"
since Trollope-and before.
It is all magnificent, but it is not war. Mr Jenkins and
many in the Labour party have long suffered the agony
of wearing a party shoe in which their feet do not fit.
They noticed years ago (to quote Mr Jenkins on
Monday) that there is "mounting evidence from all
over the world that full-scale state ownership is more
successful in producing tyranny than in producing
goods". They were not socialists yet dared not admit it,
and so fell to mumbling about great coalitions and
marriages of interests. Now Mr Jenkins is falling into
the same trap again. His views are better represented
by a party twice the age of Labour, called the Liberal
party. In its strong Europeanism it is balm to Mr
Jenkins's many Brussels wounds. And it was talking
about the "radical centre" when Mr Jenkins was still
bellowing the Red Flag at Labour party conferences.
After so many decades out of power, the Liberals do
now look jejune. Their switch of tactics into community
politics may seem tiresomely parochial to Mr Jenkins
and his friends (whose fastidiousness at the grass roots
is to blame for some of Labour's present plight). But
the section of the electorate to which he is appealing is
broadly that covered by the 15-20% from which Liber-
alism and (more dottily) Scottish and Welsh national-
isms currently draw their support. They are no mean
base on which to build a new radical centre (over 5m
votes at the last election, or nearly half those for
Labour). But, as things now stand, to get that base
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 Approved For Release 2010/08/26: CIA-RDP96R01136R002605320041-7
. The
Economist
JUNE 14 1980
_
'Stuck in Afghanistan
The Russians are in widening and deepening trouble in succe
S~i
li
ssor
et c
ent would not last a day.
Afghanistan. Widening, as the rebels take their hit- So the Russians are left with two choices. One is to
and-run war against the invaders from the Iranian continue reinforcing their troops in Afghanistan until
border to the Pakistani one, and into the capital, they can crush the insurgency-which may be feasible,
Kabul. Deepening, as the resistance is joined by but could take half a million men-and then settle
schoolgirls, shopkeepers and estranged members of Mr down to a permanent occupation. The other is to
Babrak Karmal's communist government. Five months' negotiate a political settlement that would allow them
bitter experience in Afghanistan should have forced to withdraw. Both will involve heavy sacrifices: the
two conclusions on rational Russian minds: first, that a first, of men and resources; the second, of political
clear military victory over the insurgents will be imposs- aspirations. What the seven leaders of the non-commu-
ible with the present level of Soviet forces in Afghani- nist world should be talking about in Venice a week
stan; second, that the Russians can no longer hope to hence is how to influence Soviet cost-accounting in
establish a pro-Soviet Afghan government and army favour of the second option.
capable of surviving the departure of Soviet troops.
This week's airlift of an estimated 10,000 Soviet Stick, carrot
soldiers to reinforce the cordon around Kabul does not This means raising the costs to the Russians of pursuing
prove that the Russians have conceded the first point; their Afghan adventure and at the same time defining
they have been shuttling troops in and out of Afghani- the terms and opening the channels for negotiations.
stan throughout the past five months. But it does The military costs for Russia can be affected from
confirm that the Soviet force is increasingly over- outside only by stepping up arms supplies to the rebels.
stretched. And while accounts of the fighting are more Weapons are undoubtedly getting through to them
confused and conflicting than ever, with reports from now, probably through at least two of the three
the rebel refuge of Pakistan sounding strangely soberer uncloseable borders-with Iran, with Pakistan and,
than those from Delhi (see page 43), what is indisput- maybe, the barely passable one with China-and
able is that the 100,000-strong Soviet army is further probably from several foreign sources. But for all their
today from imposing a Pax Sovietica on Afghanistan disinformation about a foreign-sponsored counter-rev-
than it, was at the turn of the year. olution, the Russians must be well aware that external
The Russians' political failure is just as blatant. This aid has so far played only a marginal role in the Afghan
too was underlined this week with news of a new round resistance; the challenge is so durable precisely because
of executions, of street battles between rival factions of it is spontaneous and indigenous.
the communist party, and of a split between President Th
d
ere are
angers in increasing arms aid to the rebels
Babrak Karmal and his number two. Should-be defend- much beyond the present, admirable, bounds of discre-
ers of the government in the Afghan army were said to tion. It could turn Afghanistan into what 'has already,
be defecting to the guerrillas around Kabul, while inaccurately, been described as a proxy war between
military recruiting teams put out house-to-house drag- the superpowers, and thus diminish support for an anti-
nets to fill the depleted ranks of the Afghan forces, now Soviet stand among non-aligned and Moslem countries.
reckoned to be down to a third of their old strength. It could commit the arms suppliers over-closely to an
Even if enough able-bodied Afghans are eventually Islamic fundamentalist movement that may yet turn out
drafted to reconstitute an 80,000-man Afghan army, to be as inimical to western interests as Ayatollah
the job of turning a reluctant rabble into an adequately Khomeini's in Iran. Furthermore, no amount of weap-
trained and officered force might take years. Even ons would necessarily be enough to prevent the Rus-
then, there is every reason to doubt that it could ever sians from crushing the insurgents if they decide to push
be developed into a politically reliable instrument that for victory at all costs. The aid pipeline should be open
would fight against fellow-Afghans rather than turn wide enough to enable the Afghans to convince the
against the Russians and their local stooges. And Russians that they cannot win without such an open-
without an army to prop him up, a Babrak Karmal or ended commitment, and perhaps not even then; and it
THE ECONOMIST JUNE 14, 1980
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