By Khyber Sarban
The impact of a Russian return to Afghanistan depends on whether it opts to secure its periphery or pursue stability.
Recent developments in Afghanistan, particularly the temporary fall of Kunduz, have worried many in the region, Russia among them. More than ever, the growing presence of regional terror outfits, pushed from their decades-long sanctuaries in Pakistan into Northern Afghanistan, has been a wakeup call. The danger of extremists filtering into Central Asia and upsetting Russian President Vladmir Putin’s lingering Eurasian dream is real. A nervous Russia mainly reliant on its military capabilities, has expressed a willingness to take the fight to the terrorists. While Russia’s concerns are understandable, they do need to be placed within the context of its decades-long engagement in Afghanistan.
Afghans remember Russia (and the former Soviet Union) for two things. First, its huge contribution to the socioeconomic reforms and major infrastructure projects still visible all over Afghanistan. During the 1960s, Afghanistan undertook nationwide socioeconomic reforms, seeking technical and economic aid from the Soviet Union. Some of the major projects included the construction of the famous Salang Pass, the first collective housing in Afghanistan, the Kabul Polytechnic, the Housing Construction Unit, and many more. The developmental aid also included technical training and educational programs for personnel of public and educational institutions. Some of these projects ran until the late 1980s. Russia also provided massive cooperation in training and equipping Afghan security forces.
The second most vibrant memory of Russia’s engagement in Afghanistan is its ill-advised occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. The occupation took place shortly after the Saur revolution (1978) launched by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) with a coup d’état. This changed the nature of the relationship and added a heavy political dimension to the previous cordial people-to-people and state-to-state relations. The occupation, instantly acknowledged as a strategic error, was the result of regular “bear traps” laid by Pakistan with the blessing of its allies to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan. This strategic blunder, engineered by former KGB chief Yuri Andropov, proved life-giving to all but Afghanistan and the former Soviet Union and its communist ideology. One of the main benefactors of the move, Pakistan had by then succeeded in selling its anti-Afghan agenda to the West and Arab states as an anticommunist agenda.
Soviet troops and the allied Afghan regime used a heavy hand to quell the rebels, but in vain. By the mid 1980s, the level of violence had increased viciously. With no end in sight, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decided to reverse course and instead support an intra-Afghan reconciliation, much to the dismay of the installed president Babrak Karmal. Subsequently, the Soviet Union set a plan for a more inclusive political discourse in Afghanistan, one that could eventually lead to an independent country. At the Reykjavik Summit of 1986, Gorbachev assured U.S. President Ronald Reagan that the Soviet Union would withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
The Moscow-endorsed shift started with changes in the PDPA hierarchy, followed by further changes in the Afghan political arena. However, despite the Reykjavik assurance and the changes, the U.S. remained suspicious. The “petrodollar” alliance of the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia continued to provide financial, military, and logistical covert support to the mujahedeen, which ended catastrophically for the Afghan nation.
Read the full story at The Diplomat