America, Standing in the background of everything?

DeletedUser

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onetruth said:
I have to disagree with this. The failure of Moscow's Afghan war probably did much to hasten the reforms later in the decade. The failure was brought about by CIA involvement. As a key objective of the CIA was to stop the spread of communism, their actions in Afghanistan surely must be considered a success.

The fact that little attention was paid to Afghanistan by the US government after the Soviet withdrawal has certainly had its consequences, but nation building was not the job of the CIA - some other department cocked that one up.
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Yes. Arming, training and funding a side that later turned out to be as much an enemy of the United States then the Soviet Union can be considered a failure.

The Soviet Union had been in economic and political decline since the late 70's and although this was a military failure on the part of the Soviet Union it was only because the leadership of the Soviet Union at the time lacked the political will to send a large scale force into the country, the Soviet force in the country was only around 100,000 strong and had to face a force of over a million enemy combatants. How many US troops are in Afghanistan at the moment facing a terrorist force of less then 20,000?
 

DeletedUser

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Boxxy said:
the Soviet force in the country was only around 100,000 strong and had to face a force of over a million enemy combatants.
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source, please? i don#t believe there were anywhere near 1 million mujahideen.

The Soviets did not aim to control Afghanistan - i think they did.
 

DeletedUser

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They wanted Afghanistan to stop the spread of Islam as it was a threat to their control over the minds of the people.

I'm pretty sure they'd have liked to have Afghanistan under their control, they'd have liked the entire world if it had been possible :D

edit - wiki says they had 10,000 trained troops (the afghan resistance movement) so its unlikely they commanded a million. Probably was a number of civillians who also assissted though (but not enough to reach a million :D)
 
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DeletedUser

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doomdealer666 said:
They wanted Afghanistan to stop the spread of Islam as it was a threat to their control over the minds of the people.

I'm pretty sure they'd have liked to have Afghanistan under their control, they'd have liked the entire world if it had been possible :D

edit - wiki says they had 10,000 trained troops (the afghan resistance movement) so its unlikely they commanded a million. Probably was a number of civillians who also assissted though (but not enough to reach a million :D)
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Where are you looking? The Wikipedia links gives no source to the numbers stated as the Mujahideen numbers and I remember when it was even has high as 1.1 million. I'll place it more then 100,000 professional fighters deserted from the Afghan army and at least 300,000 untrained militia troops supporting the movement although it's quite hard to find source unbiased that show the true size of the force.
 

DeletedUser

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Whoops, guess thats what happens when I skim read :D

10,000 was the most a commander successfully commanded. Most resisatnce groups were run by local warlords who'd command about 300 each according to wiki (the significant ones anyway)

Probably was a bit like Vietnam was for America with untrained civillians joining in at points.
 

DeletedUser

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wikipedia says: Strength Soviet:
Afghan Government:

  • 40,000
Mujahideen:
  • 20,000 - 100,000 full time fighters
  • 150,000 part time fighters
 
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