TALKING POINTS ON SOVIET STRATEGY AND PERFORMANCE IN AFGHANISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R000401650005-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 31, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: October 7, 1986
• Content Type: MISC

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7 October 1986
TALKING POINTS ON SOVIET STRATEGY AND PERFORMANCE IN AFGHANISTAN
The Soviets have settled on a f airly rational counterinsurgency strategy
in Afghanistan after years of illusion and disappointment. This strategy
reflects basic principles of counterinsurgency -- such as trying to isolate
the population from the resistance; and it is being with pursued with typical
Soviet ruthlessness -- such as punitive attacks on villages -- and some
increased skill as the Soviets become more experienced.
Soviet strategy is a strategy for the long haul. They show no real
indication of pulling back from it...yet. Such gestures as the token troop
withdrawal are a sham for external political effect.
However, despite the soundness of their strategy in principle and their
determination to pursue it, the Soviets are not making identifiable, much less
irreversible, progress toward their goals. They are not making gains they can
take "to the bank." They make progress, then lose ground. Or they try a
smart initiative, and it fails.
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Outside observers, including itinerant journalists who see isolated
pockets of the war and hear the anxieties of Peshawar, are sometimes
misled into believing that what the Soviets are trying to do is actually
working when it rarely is.
The core of the Soviet strategy is really political: To build a communist
party and regime that can function and eventually survive without a massive
Soviet military presence. Their latest initiative was selection of Najib to
replace Babrak. Najib has a record of ruthless effectiveness and can appeal,
because of his background, to the Pushtoon tribes.
But in fact his elevation has not made a more effective regime, at least
so far, but rather intensified already severe factionalism in the PDPA.
The next part of the political effort is that to supposedly "broaden the
base," to draw token non-communist figures into the regime. This is purely
cosmetic, but we see efforts being made.
So far they have not achieved anything.
Another aspect of the political effort is to bribe, threaten, or coopt
village or tribal populations into cooperation with the regime and rejection
of the Mujahedin. We see the efforts being made. Here and there they succeed.
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But we see no pattern of success. And the Soviets have been trying this
for years.
Yet another very important aspect of their political strategy -- actually
in support of their military campaign against the Mujahedin -- is to simply
isolate the resistance from sources of popular support, by physically removing
the population, by punishing pro-resistance villages, and by using control of
food as a source of coercion. We see the Soviets trying to do this, and here
they may be having some degree of slow and grudging success. This is what
they did to suppress the Basmachi rebels during the 1920s.
Again, however, while we see the Soviet effort -- and the Mujahedin are
properly worried about this -- we do not see an irreversible pattern of
success on the Soviet part. In fact, we have reports of some refugees
actually going back into Afghanistan, to their home villages, not to
cooperate with the government, but to try to resume their lives there and
to support the resistance.
The purpose of the Soviet military campaign is not to destroy the
resistance outright because, as in all guerrilla wars, this is impossible.
Rather it is to keep the resistance at bay, to grind it down to manageable
levels of activity, and, thereby, to protect the primary task of building a
communist regime on the basis of a few loyalists, a lot of opportunists and a
mass of exhausted Afghans.
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The Soviets have improved their tactics, operations, and command and
control, largely through experience.
They have put more emphasis on interdicting Mujahedin supplies by
ambushing convoys with special forces, with some successes.
They are using more tactical air and artillery
They are giving less emphasis to large-scale sweep operations although
these are still used... and continue to involve heavy casualties.
They are giving more emphasis to security of cities and to creating
security outposts for interdicting the resistance...at great cost in tying
down troops.
Although showing increased ski1l,~Soviet military operations have not
established a clear favorable trend in the war.
Soviet special forces tactics have been impressive, but the Muj are
learning to get around them and occasionally to counter ambush them.
Soviet special forces are impressive only by comparison to relatively
ineffective regular troops. The fact is the Soviets have too few of them
in Afghanistan to make a dramatic difference.
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Increased Muj anti-air capabilities and experience are costing the Soviets
equipment and casualties. Perhaps more important, they disrupt the
aggressive use of air, impose a virtual attrition effect.
Continued Muj attacks within the cities indicate that city security, while
vital to the Soviet campaign, is not really working. The big attack on
the Kabul arms depot is an example.
One has to remember that, although the Soviet military effort is ruthless
and highly destructive, it rests on a troop deployment that is relatively
small for a country of the size and fragmented character of Afghanistan.
To make a real difference with their own forces alone, the Soviets would
have to increase their deployments by three times or more. This could not
be done overnight. And to use such force levels effectively, they would
have to accept for a considerable period, perhaps several years, a much
higher casualty level. This they wish to avoid because domestic
unhappiness with the war, although no threat to the Kremlin's policy, is
already an inhibition on it.
For all these reasons -- both military and political -- the building of a
DRA army is the most vital link in the Soviet strategy.
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In a word, they are trying very hard to build an Afghan communist army and
to shove more of the military burden onto it. But they are not
succeeding. Conscripts desert as fast as they are recruited, and as fast
as ever before.
After regime building and their military campaign, the third element of
the Soviet strategy is the broad political-propaganda effort to crack the
coalition of parties and countries who oppose them in Afghanistan and support
the resistance, first and foremost, of course, Pakistan.
Here the Soviets rely on a combination of cajolery and fakery, on one
hand, -- of which their behavior in the Geneva proximity talks and their token
troop withdrawals [if real at all] are examples -- and outright pressure and
intimidation in the form of military probes on the border
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The bottom line, therefore:
The Soviets are trying harder and we are seeing their increased effort.
They are trying harder because they have to. The resistance is also
becoming more effective, experienced, and skillful. And Gorbachev,
despite the great physical resources of the USSR, does not want an endless
war hanging round his political neck while he's trying to revitalize the
society and Soviet foreign policy.
The Soviets are not making clear, permanent progress.
The resistance has the need, but also the opportunity to respond to the
Soviet strategy, to continue to defeat that strategy. The Mujahedin are
increasingly convinced that, in addition to weapons, and the solution to
logistic problems, this requires more cooperation at the tactical and the
political levels. They are increasingly thinking right about the way to
wage this war. That is their greatest potential asset.
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