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Unlock This CourseThis lesson is part of the Paper 2 Section B breadth study on the changing nature of warfare, 1919-2011. In the 1960s and 1970s the USA struggled against guerrillas in Vietnam. In 1979 the other superpower, the Soviet Union (USSR), sent its army into Afghanistan and faced the same problem: a very strong army fighting small, mobile groups who knew the land.
Afghanistan is a mountainous country on the USSR's southern border. In April 1978 communists took power in the capital, Kabul. Their reforms, and their harsh treatment of opponents, caused revolts across the countryside, and the government began to lose control. In late December 1979 Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, killed the Afghan leader, Hafizullah Amin, and put in a new communist leader, Babrak Karmal. The USSR wanted to keep a friendly communist government on its border.
Key terms:
At its peak the Soviet force was around 100,000 soldiers, with tanks, armoured vehicles, bombers and helicopters. The mujahideen were poorly armed at first. Remember that guerrilla warfare means fighting with small groups and surprise attacks. Here it was fought in mountains and valleys.
They hid in mountain valleys, ambushed convoys on the few roads, attacked outposts and then disappeared into the hills. Fighters such as Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir Valley beat off several large Soviet offensives. They had the support of many villagers, and neighbouring Pakistan let them use its territory as a base.
Tanks were built for open ground, but in narrow mountain valleys they could be trapped and hit from the slopes above. Soviet forces held the cities and main roads. They tried to take the countryside by using bombers and helicopters to attack villages that helped the mujahideen.
Helicopters were the Soviet answer to the mountains. The Mi-24 helicopter gunship, nicknamed the Hind, could carry troops, fire rockets and strike fighters who could not be reached by road. For several years the mujahideen had almost no defence against them. The bombing drove millions of Afghans from their homes into Pakistan and Iran. The Soviet army controlled the towns, but it could not control the mountains.
The Cold War turned Afghanistan into a place where the superpowers faced each other indirectly. The USA did not send soldiers, but it paid for and supplied weapons for the mujahideen, usually passing them through Pakistan. In 1986 the first Stinger missiles reached the mujahideen.
The Stinger did not win the war by itself, because Soviet forces had already failed to defeat the mujahideen on the ground. But it removed the Soviet advantage in the air, and that made the war much harder to win.
In 1985 a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, came to power. He wanted to reform the USSR and reduce the cost of the Cold War. The war had lasted longer than the Soviet leaders expected. About 15,000 Soviet soldiers had died, many Afghans had been killed, the war was unpopular at home, and it cost money the USSR could not spare. Under an agreement signed in Geneva in April 1988, the USSR agreed to withdraw. The last Soviet troops left on 15 February 1989. The communist government in Kabul survived for three more years.
Afghanistan showed that, in the 1980s as in Vietnam, a superpower with tanks, bombers and helicopters could not beat guerrillas who had local support and outside help. What changed was the weapon: a cheap portable missile could now threaten an expensive aircraft. What stayed the same was that the guerrillas chose where and when to fight. Afghanistan after 2001 is covered in the lesson on High-Tech Warfare and 'Surgical' Air Strikes.
Explain TWO causes of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988-89. [8 marks]
Remember: one cause alone cannot score more than half marks. For each cause, name it, give precise evidence and then explain how it led to the withdrawal.
One cause of the withdrawal was the success of the mujahideen, helped by American Stinger missiles. From 1986 the mujahideen used these shoulder-fired missiles against Soviet helicopters and aircraft. The Soviet army had relied on helicopters such as the Hind to reach fighters in the mountains. Once these were shot down, aircraft had to fly higher and less accurately, and losses rose. The Soviet army therefore lost its main advantage, could not defeat the guerrillas, and had little hope of winning the war.
A second cause was the cost of the war and the policy of Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of the war about 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed, and the war was unpopular at home. Gorbachev wanted to reform the USSR and cut the cost of the Cold War, so he did not want to keep paying for a war that was not being won. This led him to agree to the Geneva agreement of April 1988, and the last troops left in February 1989.
What lifts it to the top level: two different causes, each with precise facts and a clear link showing how it led to the withdrawal.
In a "two causes" question, use one paragraph per cause and end each with a sentence beginning "This led to the withdrawal because...". That sentence is what turns facts into explanation.