Soviet Military Invasion of Afghanistan — December 1979
On December 24-27, 1979, Soviet airborne forces seized Kabul's Bagram airbase and the capital itself; Soviet ground forces simultaneously crossed the Amu Darya river from the north. Within days, KGB and Soviet special forces killed the erratic Afghan communist leader Hafizullah Amin — who had himself seized power by murdering his predecessor just months earlier — and installed the more pliant Babrak Karmal as head of the new Afghan communist government. The Politburo, led by a small group of ageing men including Brezhnev, Andropov, and Gromyko, had authorised the intervention reluctantly, convinced by Karmal's faction that Soviet troops would be welcomed and needed only briefly to stabilise the situation. The invasion shocked Western governments and destroyed the remains of détente. President Carter called it the most serious threat to world peace since World War II, withdrew the SALT II treaty from Senate ratification, imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union, and boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. More consequentially, Carter authorised — and Reagan dramatically expanded — covert CIA support for the Afghan mujahideen resistance. The Soviets had walked into what Brzezinski called a trap: the opportunity to 'give the USSR its Vietnam War.' The invasion committed Soviet forces to a grinding nine-year counterinsurgency that would ultimately cost some 15,000 Soviet lives and contribute materially to the economic exhaustion of the Soviet state.
- Year: 1979 CE
- Category: Military
