It's time we stop Stalin and Marx this topic off the list.
And if you're hoping for something else, well
Soviet.
Oh god what have I done.
Hello and welcome to Feature History.
Brought to you by the Great Courses Plus, more on that later,
and featuring the Soviet-Afghan war.
A war where the battles were won and the war was... lost.
How does that happen?
Well let's find out.
First we must understand what Afghanistan is.
It's a landlocked country that sits in a harsh, almost inhospitable area
between the traditional crossroads of great powers.
Forces from India, the Far East, the Middle East, and the West
have all attempted to pass and fallen before Afghanistan,
the graveyard of empires.
Initially inhabited by many mixed tribal groups,
its people survived in the many valleys of the region
completely isolated from the outside world.
The politics and diplomacy of it, simply irrelevant to them.
In the 19th century, the region was of interest
to the large Russian and larger British empires
who had swooped across Asia, taking as much land as they could.
Constantly cautious of one another.
Afghanistan's borders were rather incidentally
carved as a buffer between the two empires,
leading to many arbitrary mixing and splitting of ethnic groups.
The British would take many tours into Afghanistan
to seize its pivotal central position on the map.
However by 1919, after only managing to slowly chip away at its frontier,
Afghanistan would be affirmed as an independent emirate.
And slightly later, kingdom.
Under their king, Mohammad Zahir Shah,
the country was rapidly pushed into modernizing in the 1960's.
The urban folk of the few cities and highways
rejoiced the establishment of elections, political rights, and women's education.
At the same time, the Cold War had entered into full swing.
Afghanistan once again the interest of two rivaling powers,
the U.S. and the U.S.S.R,
who both sought to gain favor in the country.
All [?]would not remain well though is the king's cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan,
feeling the pleas of the Pashtun people,
long ago split by the Pakistani border,
had gone ignored far too long,
staged a bloodless coup against his cousin.
Soon declaring himself both president and prime minister
of the new Afghan Republic in 1973.
Daoud Khan continued to push for progressive policies.
However, other ethnic groups did not appreciate
his Pashtun nationalism.
His response:
crack down and restrict civil liberties.
Both the left wing and traditionalist groups despised him.
And this would culminate in a revolution in the April of 1978,
ousting Daoud Khan for the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.
That, of course, had full Soviet support.
The PDPA's prime minister, Hafizullah Amin,
radically pushed the envelope of progress.
More women's rights,
more equality,
more socialism.
These top-down changes were very invasive on the
self-sufficient rural people,
who, now being bombarded with tax and land reform
and threats to their traditional power structures,
were very displeased.
Amin, even worse than his predecessor,
responded to dissent with imprisonment and execution.
Apprarently leading to riots in March of 1979.
His president, Nur Muhammad Taraki,
was forced to turn to the Soviets for aid in combating
both the rioters, and secretly,
the radical Amin.
When Amin caught wind that Taraki sought to disempower him,
he had Taraki killed, and took on the vacant presidency for himself.
Further weakening the government stability,
and resolve agains the rebels.
General secretary of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev,
decided the U.S.S.R must take control of the situation themselves.
Remove the uncontrollable Amin and pacify the anarchy.
Brezhnev was anxious that the Iranian revolution
that had seen that country turn Islamic
could spread to Afghanistan,
and further the Muslim areas under Soviet control,
meaning utter collapse of rule there.
This could not, and would not, happen.
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Now on with the show.
On Christmas Eve 1979,
a combined air and land invasion of Afghanistan commenced.
The Red Army quickly seized many urban areas,
roads, and communication lines.
Amin himself was captured and executed
to be replaced by the more moderate Babrak Karmal.
Disputes swiftly erupted internationally on whether this was an intervention
or an invasion.
The West and many Muslim countries decided on the latter.
The tribal warlords had been repulsed to the mountains by the invasion.
But this would only spell a new stage in their struggle.
The foreign atheist/orthodox invader gave credence
to this being a Jihad, or Holy War.
And the warlords were soon united as the Mujahideen.
Committed to combating the Soviets.
The U.S. had had their eyes on things for some time,
and now saw a lovely opportunity to sow shit in the Soviet's backyard.
They began funneling equipment through Pakistan to the Mujahideen.
The U.S. wanted to contain communism, of course.
The Mujahideen wanted Afghanistan independent and Islamic,
and Pakistan didn't mind some pan-Islamic cooperation.
Really, everybody wins.
Oh, except the Soviets, of course.
That wasn't it, though, as the Mujahideen's call for Jihad
had also seen many independent fighters and financiers
come from abroad to join.
One such notable figure was Osama Bin Laden.
You might have heard of him.
In the end, despite all the support,
the Soviets still held a clear upper hand.
Under the guidance of Ahmad Shah Massoud,
the Mujahideen indulged in guerilla warfare.
Initiating a repeated and gruelling effort for the Soviets
to drive away the fighters, and then for them to boomerang right back.
It seemed as if for every fighter they'd killed,
his death aided in the recruitment of five more,
eager to become a martyr.
The Red Army's constant successful search & destroy missions were also in vain.
As no matter how many battles they won,
they continued to lose the war.
It wasn't until 1985, this routine had finally worn on the patience
of Soviet politics and people.
The illusion of the grand communist power
beginning to disintegrate before them.
Mikhail Gorbachev took over as general secretary the same year,
his unique foreign policy and anti-war sentiment
rapidly shifting opinion in the Union.
The next year, the war effort was only further degraded
as Stinger missiles began to be supplied to the Mujahideen.
Accurately downing Soviet helicopters and crippling the army's ability
to scale the high mountains.
An exit strategy would be put in place.
It switched out Karmal for Mohammad Najibullah,
and saw new attempts to transfer the burden
of fighting on the Afghan army itself.
This would be ramped up further in 1988,
when Gorbachev officially signed off on the Geneva Accords,
an agreement that would see the U.S.S.R begin withdrawl
and no further intervention from any power.
This concluded in 1989, when the last of the Red Army left Afghanistan,
ending the Soviet-Afghan war.
But not *the* war.
The Mujahideen continued to resist Najibullah's government well past withdrawl.
For the Soviet Union, it continued to aid that government
until in 1991, the Union itself unravelled,
with fault to the prior involvement and Gorbachev's reforms.
Najibullah disbanded the government, when in 1992
the warlords of the Mujahideen had finally surrendered the capital, Kabul.
At the gates of victory, they sought to reach an agreement
of how things would move forward.
All agreed at Massoud's proposal that they rule
in an Islamic coalition government.
Except for one,
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who sought sole rule.
And so war continued for several years
between Massoud's alliance and Hekmatyar's Pakistani-backed army.
It seemed that in 1994, Massoud had bested Hekmatyar,
until a man by the name of Mohammed Mullah Omar
rallied his followers to futher the fight against Massoud.
They called themselves the Taliban.
Pakistan's favor transferred to this new group,
and in 1996, the Taliban had seized control of much of the country
and took Kabul.
Brutally executing the former president Najibullah
and declaring themselves as an Islamic emirate.
Massoud, however, ignored their taunts
and was unwavering in his resistance,
continuing to fight from the north of the country
with what few of his allies remained.
It unfortunately ended when in September 9th 2001,
Massoud was assasinated by Taliban members
who had claimed themselves to be reporters.
The alliance without the leadership of their national hero
was surely doomed.
Though as I'm sure all viewers are swift to notice merely two days later,
the terrorist [?]cell Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center in New York.
Their leader, Osama Bin Laden, was offered shelter
in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The attacks provoked U.S. president George W. Bush
to declare a war on terror,
and demanded the Taliban surrender Bin Laden.
They refused.
The U.S. had covertly aided the Mujahideen against Soviets,
and with the Soviets gone, the Mujahideen had splintered
into many spiritual successors,
such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The irony of this was not lost on many.
That, however, did not change the fact that in 2001,
the U.S. declared war on the Taliban.
Decades of war, political instability, and virtual anarchy
are not going to be ignorable for any country.
Millions of Afghans died,
and even more millions to live as refugees,
an unfortunate burden on the countries that have held them for so long.
The routes and motives for many Islamic terrorist groups
can be traced back to the Soviet-Afghan war.
It was where their leaders met,
their men were armed, and their resolve hardened.
The fact that most people have forgotten or neglect this war
but still live so heavily under its effects, is rather disappointing.
That does not stop me from trying, though.
Nor you from further delving in on uncovering and surprising yourself
at so many hidden motives behind and repercussions from this war.
If I had a joke to finish on, that would be great.
But instead...
(Russian accent) In Soviet Ru--
As always, I'd like to thank the patrons.
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Your freeloading views are so much filth to me. (spits)