NOTE TO DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE FROM BRUCE C. CLARKE, JR.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81B00401R000600230001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 10, 1980
• Content Type: NOTES

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE `--- -_;
Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment
NFAC #2668-80/1
10 April 1980
NOTE TO: Director of Central Intelligence
X1
Herewith the paper on the Soviet Invasion
of Afghanistan: Aberration or Symptom prepared
The paper was
requested from you by Brzezinski. It is solely
the product of the NIO/USSR office and has not
been further coordinated. I recommend that
X1 you send this on to the White House.
25X1
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10 April 1980
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Aberration or Symptom?
SUMMARY
We believe that Afghanistan is neither an aberration which,
when behind us, will see the Soviet Union revert to its previous
pattern of behavior, nor a symptom of a new phase of adventuresome
policy to which the Kremlin is already committed. We believe that
future Soviet behavior will be more contingent, the result of.
conclusions the Soviet leadership reaches after an analysis of
the costs and benefits of the invasion. A generally assertive
Soviet policy will almost certainly continue, but whether it is
more constrained in use of military force or not will depend
importantly on the "lessons of Afghanistan": the outcome of the
situation in that country, its impact on the region, and on US
allies, but, above all, on Soviet perceptions of US reactions.
25X1
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10 April 1980
SUBJECT: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Aberration or Symptom?
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has precipitated a sharp
debate over its significance. On one side, some offer Afghan-specific
explanations to argue that the move is an episodic aberration in an
otherwise generally circumspect pattern of Soviet behavior. On the
other side of the debate are those who hold that the invasion represents
the opening of a new and more aggressive phase in what promises to be
an escalating global competition.
Proponents of the first view concede that the invasion represents
Moscow's first postwar use of combat forces outside the Soviet Bloc.
But they emphasize Afghanistan's status as a Soviet client and ally and
suggest that the invasion was the result of a reluctant decision by
Moscow that it could not permit the collapse of a proto-socialist allied
regime in a neighboring country which was an incipient bastion of anti-
Communist Islamic fundamentalism, if not a potential client of the US
or the PRC.
Proponents of the second view contend that the invasion is
symptomatic of Moscow's growing willingness to play a worldwide
interventionist role and to resort to the direct use of Soviet military
force in the pursuit of otherwise unattainable ambitions. As these
analysts see it, Moscow is convinced that "the correlation of forces"
has shifted to its side, creating a situation in which actions that it
would previously have rejected as "adventuristic" can now be confidently
undertaken. Some analysts of this persuasion even argue that Moscow's
new found confidence has led it to embark on a calculated plan to fill
the unprecedented vacuum of power in Southwest Asia and consolidate a
position of privileged access to Middle Eastern oil and control over
oil supply routes. In this way, the Soviet Union would be assured of
a solution to its own emergent energy problem, and also win immense
leverage against the West -- leverage which, among other things, Moscow
could utilize to forestall the sort of Western military buildup which
could redress the currently favorable "correlation of forces".
Rather different policy implications flow from these alternative
explanations and expectations of Soviet behavior. The first implies
that if the Soviet Union can be induced to withdraw from Afghanistan
in return for suitable "reassurances" it will revert to a more acceptable
pattern of behavior and may even show a heightened appreciation of the
value (and fragility) of "detente". According to this view, the present
Soviet predicament is in large part the product of miscalculation which
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is now recognized as such. This has led to a situation in which the
mutual interests of the West and the Soviet Union lie in fashioning a
face-saving solution which will permit the resumption of normal relations.
The second view holds that the Soviet Union is determined to
maintain a permanent military presence in Afghanistan and will use
it to bolster its geopolitical position in the region, to bring
pressure to bear on neighboring and nearby countries, to discredit
or nullify Western security guarantees, and to highlight Western
weakness and irresolution. With reference to detente, this view
holds that the Soviets are prepared to write off for the time being
what they already perceived before Afghanistan as unsatisfactory
levels of US trade, credits and technology transfers. Simultaneously,
Moscow will seek to preserve and extend its commercial relations with
Western Europe, and Japan through what it believes can be a successful
policy of "differentiated detente".
The relevance of the central and regional military balances for
the Soviet decision to intervene in Afghanistan is also at issue in
these contrasting views of Soviet behavior. Members of the aberrationist
school are inclined to believe that shifts in the military balance over
the course of the last ten to fifteen years were essentially irrelevant
with respect to the Afghanistan intervention. Given the identical set
of circumstances, they contend, the Soviets would have intervened in
Afghanistan ten or fifteen years ago, as they did in Hungary in 1956.
In contrast, those who view the invasion as reflecting a higher Soviet
propensity to take risks hold that it was precisely the shift in the
military balances of the past ten to fifteen years that emboldened the
Soviets for the first time to employ military force directly against a
non-bloc state. As these analysts see it, the shifting strategic
balance has created a military environment in which Soviet recourse
to force became both physically possible and politically attractive.
We believe that each of these divergent viewpoints raptures
important aspects of reality, but that each also omits important
considerations. If taken alone, each has potentially misleading
policy implications. Like those who view the intervention as an
aberration, we believe it was triggered by Afghan-specific events
and did not in itself stem from or reflect a conviction that the
time was ripe for a global offensive, let alone from a belief that
it was a necessary (or even a very sensible) first step in the pursuit
of warm water ports or control of Middle Eastern oil. Like the
aberrationists, we also believe that the timing of the Soviet decision
to intervene was critically affected by fear of an imminent, and
possibly irreversible, disintegration of the established Kabul regime
and its replacement by a regime which might even prove susceptible to
hostile external influence. In addition, we share the aberrationists'
belief that the invasion of Afghanistan was defensive in the sense
that it was motivated by fear that the loss of a country from within
the Soviet sphere of influence would have an extremely adverse effect
on Moscow's credibility as a power determined to brook no challenge
to the integrity of its empire or to the irreversability of "socialist" gains.
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We are also inclined to agree with some of the arguments of those
who see the invasion as an expression of a more fundamental shift in
global Soviet policy. We believe it is probably the Soviet perception
that their enhanced military posture, especially in the strategic area,
has created a more. permissive political environment for the conduct of
foreign policy. It has lowered the perceived risk of Soviet exploitation
of political and social instability in the Third World, and of a more
assertive foreign policy that has included the use of military force,
either directly or through proxies, in some Third World countries.
Growing Soviet military aid efforts have served as the main conveyor
of Soviet influence -- in Angola, Ethiopia, Yemen, etc. The calculations
that informed the invasion of Afghanistan, therefore, were not without
precedent. Afghanistan involved the crossing of an important threshold,
and was recognized as such by the Soviet leadership. But, as we have
also pointed out, it was preceded by a gradual, decade-long escalation
in Soviet political-military involvement in the Third World.
The decision to solve the Afghanistan problem by an unprecedented
massive military intervention in a "Third World" country is a culmination
of this process. It reflects a confidence that the shift in the global
military balance, as the Soviets perceive it, guaranteed the USSR immunity
from Western military retaliation, and has created new possibilities to
demonstrate the apparent inability of the West to deter Soviet self-
assertiveness. The possibility that Afghanistan represents a qualitative
turn in Soviet foreign policy in the region and toward the Third World
is one to be taken seriously. The Soviets recognize that the issue of
super-power involvement in a region that stretches from Morroco to the
Indian subcontinent remains the vital question informing the posture and
policies of the nations in the region.
On balance, we tend to disagree with the argument that ascribes
the USSR's Third World involvement and its involvement in Afghanistan
largely to Soviet feelings of insecurity. We would argue that such
behavior is more the product of confidence in a potentially enduring
shift in the balance of power -- a stronger sense of being a superpower
and being perceived by others as such. This status and self-image has
become an important determinant of Soviet behavior; a superpower would
not let an "allied" regime in a bordering country go down the drain.
At the same time, from the Soviet point of view, Afghanistan probably
appeared an extremely low risk venture precisely because it was preceded
by numerous ventures which, though they did not involve the direct use
of large-scale Soviet forces, did involve an active Soviet military,
presence in countries remote from the borders of the Soviet Union, and
located well within traditional Western spheres of influence. The
Soviet ability to carry out these ventures without incurring drastic
costs enhanced Moscow's confidence that it could intervene with relative
impunity in Afghanistan. Perhaps to Moscow's surprise, this intervention
did finally precipitate the sort of Western reaction that the Kremlin
may well have feared, but tended to discount in view of the relatively
passive reaction to its earlier involvements elsewhere.
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Even if those who see the invasion as an aberration were completely
correct in their explanation, there would be grounds for skepticism about
the policy implications they often tend to draw: namely, that if the
USSR can terminate its Afghan adventure in relatively short order and
without an undue loss of face, it is unlikely to try to expand its
influence elsewhere in Southwest Asia or to challenge Western Third World
interests militarily. However, unlike the symptomists, we do not take
it to be an almost foregone conclusion that the invasion of Afghanistan
will be followed by comparable acts of Soviet military self-assertiveness.
Like the aberrationists, we consider it possible that the termination of
the Afghan adventure will leave the Soviet Union willing and eager to
resume the process of detente. However, as was true before the invasion,
the Soviets will continue to interpret detente as permitting active military
and quasi-military challenges to Western Third World interests.
The real issue of this discussion -- whether the Afghanistan invasion
represents an aberration or a trend in Soviet policy -- is the degree of
restraint which has governed Soviet policy toward opportunities in the
Third World, the nature and sources of that restraint, and changes in it.
Some would acknowledge that while Soviet policies since the mid-1970's.
have been more assertive and probing, such policies-also reflect caution
and risk-avoidance, imposed in part by Moscow's desire to preserve its
detente and arms control relationships with the US. While a combination
of these motives contributed to the Soviet decision to invade, one can
only explain that decision in the broader context of Soviet perceptions
of a more favorable global military position and a greater latitude for
risk. If one subscribes to the idea that the Soviet propensity to take
risks is higher, however, one must realize that an ongoing cost-benefit
analysis will continue to shape Moscow's policies toward the Third World.
While we disagree with those who argue that the Soviets are henceforth
irrevocably committed to the direct use of their own military force to
aggrandize power in the Third World, we agree with them that Afghanistan
could be a precedent if the Soviets conclude it was an appropriate solution
to the Afghan problem, if they perceive that it places them in a position
from which they can exert pervasive leverage in Southwest Asia, and if they
conclude that the West is either incapable or unwilling to frustrate the
effort or to oblige the Soviet Union to pay a counterbalancing military
or political price elsewhere. In short, the answer to the question of whether
or not Afghanistan is a harbinger of things to come will depend importantly
on the "lessons" that are drawn from the Afghan experience by the present
incumbents in the Kremlin and the successors who will shortly replace them.
In sum, we believe that Afghanistan is neither an aberration which,
when behind us, will see the Soviet Union revert to its previous pattern
of behavior, nor a symptom of a new phase of adventuresome policy to which
the Kremlin is already committed. We believe that future Soviet behavior
will be more contingent, the result of conclusions the Soviet leadership
reaches after an analysis of the costs and benefits of the invasion. A
generally assertive Soviet policy will almost certainly continue,.but
whether it is more constrained in use of military force or not will depend
importantly on the "lessons of Afghanistan": the outcome of the situation
in that country, its impact on the region, and on US allies, but, above all,
on Soviet perceptions of US reactions.
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