Americans and their friends around the world will forever remember 11 September 2001 as the second “day of infamy” in the modern history of the United States. The brutal killings of more than 3,000 innocent people, hundreds of them from at least 65 other countries, was more than the death toll of Americans killed at Pearl Harbor some 60 years earlier. Played out live on television to millions of viewers worldwide, and rebroadcast time and again in nauseating detail, the events of 11 September 2001 have become permanently seared into the hearts and minds of literally billions around the CNN/Internet-united global village. Despite the horror, the frustration, the anger, and the tears, the question for the United States and its allies remains: What is to be done?
Within hours of the first media reports that Osama bin Laden’s global terrorist network Al Qua’ida was responsible for the attacks, attention shifted to bin Laden’s adopted home, Afghanistan. Despite a widespread desire to capture or kill bin Laden, the actual prospect of pursuing him on the ground in Afghanistan evoked strong memories of a previous superpower defeat in the late 20th century. The policy-making elite in Washington, D.C., quickly agreed that Afghanistan would be punished for its support of bin Laden, but that any such retribution would be limited to cruise-missile attacks, strikes by aircraft, and the occasional commando-style raids against terrorist training camps conducted by elite military units. Because of the “lessons of history,” U.S. decision makers considered banning ground forces in the conventional, “big war” sense out of fear of repeating the most recent historical mistake: the Soviet experience in Afghanistan from 1979-1989 — the “Soviet Vietnam.”
“Learning from history” is part of the decision-making process worldwide. As noted by Stanley Hoffmann during the Vietnam War, US decision-makers have an especially strong inclination for using historical analogies, a propensity that he identifies as a “national style” of American foreign policy. Most troublesome, a wide cross-section of subsequent scholarship suggests that, more often than not, historical analogies misguide policy-makers. In harmony with this body of scholarship, by identifying the important differences between Afghanistan of 1979-1989 and Afghanistan today, I suggest that the analogy of Afghanistan as the “Soviet Vietnam,” may lead to false conclusions if it is not studied with extreme caution.
Scrutinizing the lessons of Afghan history
“Those who don’t remember history are bound to repeat it.” This phrase, attributed to historian and philosopher George Santayana, is correct rhetorically. However, in day-to-day practice it holds little substance since people employ only selected elements of either distant or immediate history in making decisions. A more useful statement might read, “those who fail to scrutinize history closely, remember appropriately, and choose from history thoughtfully are bound to repeat it.”
In the case of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the lessons that have been drawn by America’s top decision-makers can be summarized succinctly. First, like the British, who fought and lost three wars in Afghanistan in the 19th century, the Soviet Union fought and lost a war of intervention in Afghanistan in the late 20th century. Second, although the Soviets were technologically superior to the British in terms of military equipment and firepower, such advanced equipment could not overcome the difficulties of rugged terrain, bad weather, extended lines of logistics, and an extremely hostile foe who was competent in operating in such adverse conditions and was willing to pay the price in blood and human suffering to rid his country of outside invaders. Third, and perhaps most important, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan was equivalent to the United States experience in Vietnam. Thus, the Vietnam analogy adds an additional layer of historical memory and establishes a broader intellectual subtext for highlighting and amplifying the “lessons” of the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan.
Are the historic analogies of the “Soviet Vietnam” correct? Many factors remain unchanged. The essential geographic factors of fighting a ground war in Afghanistan are the same today as those faced by Greek, Turkish, and Persian forces in ancient times, and British and Soviet forces in modern times. The terrain is extremely rugged, the mountains are high and mostly inaccessible by ground transport, and the landscape is severely broken, with endless deep ravines, sinkholes, and caves. Artillery and air bombardment, and motorized vehicles that work well in deserts and open areas are less effective in much of Afghanistan. Many of the Taliban’s forces are battle-tested veterans who fought the Soviet Union. Even younger soldiers have years of battlefield experience gained during the vicious interethnic civil war since the Soviet departure in 1989. If destroying terrorists and those who support them are the ultimate goals, battles in Afghanistan must eventually be conducted with low-tech weapons: soldiers with small arms, fighting on the ground, with the resulting prospect of high US and ally casualties.
Basing rights an additional challenge
The Soviet Union did have one luxury the United States does not — direct land access into Afghanistan from its homeland. The United States requires basing rights in contiguous territory.
Pakistan is the most useful territory for landing supplies and garrisoning troops. However, due to local political sensitivities, this is a difficult option for the Pakistani government. Pro-Taliban religious extremists will use the situation in an attempt to foment revolution against the relatively secular military government in Islamabad. If US forces in Pakistan caused the government to fall, an even more nightmarish scenario might ensue in which a Talibanesque government ruled Pakistan, including control over its recently tested nuclear arsenal.
Basing US troops in the former Soviet Republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan depends upon access to Russian and Kazakhstan shipping ports and air bases in Asia or Europe, and thousands of miles of their rails and roads to supply US forces on the northern Afghan border.
The new political landscape
A close scrutiny of history also reveals significant differences between the past and present. The primary difference between the “Soviet Vietnam” and Afghanistan today is the global political landscape. Both the Vietnam and Afghan wars were fought during the Cold War. In Vietnam, the United States faced not only Vietnamese nationalist forces, but also their powerful patrons. The Soviet Union and China provided vast sums of material goods, finance, and political support for their anti-U.S. allies in Vietnam. Furthermore, the United States felt highly constrained from invading North Vietnam, with the primary historical analogy of Chinese intervention during the Korean war resonating in US presidential memories.
A similar global situation existed in Afghanistan during the Soviet war. Although Afghanistan was not divided as were Korea and Vietnam, the anti-Soviet Afghan forces were backed and supplied by a their own superpower patron. The United States provided billions of dollars worth of finance and war materials to the Mujahideen, as well as organizing political backing in the international community. American largess was supplemented by significant contributions of money and guns from states in the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran, who sought to support their fellow Muslims in Afghanistan. Due to its own antagonism with the USSR, China also lent significant material and political backing to the rebel forces, with the Soviet war helping to solidify a growing U.S.-Chinese anti-Soviet convergence during the 1980s.
In the days after 11 September 2001, the global political situation is radically different than during the Soviet war. The Afghan Taliban regime is severely weakened by the lack of a major patron. The United States, Russia, and China all have denounced the Taliban, and now have no diplomatic relations with that regime. Likewise, the Taliban’s major supporters in the Middle East have all abandoned them in the wake of the terrorists’ attacks, the notable exception to date being Pakistan (which was being encouraged to keep a channel open to the Afghan rulers as this article was being written). Thus, compared to the reality during the Soviet war, the Afghan Taliban regime is isolated internationally, with the important states on its border and beyond actively or passively supporting the position of the United States.
This international isolation is a critical disjuncture when thinking in terms of historical analogy. Without support from the USSR and China, the Viet Cong in the south and nationalist forces in the north could not have prevailed against the United States and its allies in South Vietnam. Likewise, despite their splendid qualities as warriors, the Mujahideen could not have made the occupation of their country a serious “bleeding wound” for the Soviet Union without the money, war materials, and political support provided by outside powers.
Will terrorists’ sanctuaries disappear?
The new international reality magnifies an additional analogical disjuncture between Afghanistan of 1979-1989 and Afghanistan today — the strategic role of territorial sanctuaries during the “Soviet Vietnam.” In Vietnam, the border between north and south was sealed at the 54th parallel by the US military. However, blocking this relatively slim piece of territory did not prevent indigenous southern forces and soldiers from the north from using the famous “Ho Chi Minh Trail” in Laos and Cambodia to run supplies and launch attacks along the western border of Vietnam. The United States chose not to widen the ground war into these countries, primarily for domestic political reasons, thus allowing its enemies relatively safe territorial sanctuaries from which to base operations. (President Nixon did order US troops into Cambodia for a short time. This illegal act was the basis for one of the articles of impeachment brought against him.)
Likewise, in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union never succeeded in sealing Afghanistan’s southern, eastern, and western borders, nor did it conduct air raids into neighboring territories. As a result, like anti-U.S. forces in Vietnam, the Mujahideen could launch attacks and flee counter-attacks vis-à-vis their sanctuaries in Iran, Pakistan, and China. The Soviet Union was constrained from widening the war into these countries, fearing that the United States or China might directly intervene if they expanded the war in hot pursuit of the Afghan rebels. President Carter’s declaration that any threat to the free flow of oil from the Middle East would be considered a direct threat to US national security essentially pledged US military actions if the Soviets widened the war, helping to ensure Afghan rebels the luxury of free movement across borders that enabled them to slowly bleed the Red Army white until the Soviet Union could take no more and withdrew.
In this respect, the military situation in Afghanistan today is significantly different than during the Soviet war. Iran has closed its borders and harbors its own grievances against the Taliban. In 1998, after a number of Iranian diplomats were killed in Afghanistan, diplomats were killed in Afghanistan, more than 200,000 Iranian troops were massed on the border in preparation for an invasion. Although war did not break out, Iran would be highly unlikely to support the Taliban as it did the anti-Soviet forces over a decade ago. The three former Soviet Republics on the Afghan northern border, as well as China, are all on the US side. Thus, the ability of Afghan forces to move freely in and out of these territorial sanctuaries is the same as before, but this works against the Taliban.
Pakistan is key
The key state today, as during the Soviet War, is the “front-line” state of Pakistan. If Pakistan remains neutral, or denies the United States basing privileges, it will be extremely difficult for the United States to conduct all but the most limited military strikes in Afghanistan.
However, if Pakistan sides closely with the United States and uses its own military in harmony with other border states to block the movement of Afghan forces through its borders, then the historic analogy of the “Soviet Vietnam” further loses its accuracy due to the territorial isolation of the combatants today, as opposed to their free movement in yesteryear.
If Pakistan does grant such privileges, and if chosen by the American president, the conduct of a U.S.-led allied ground war in Afghanistan would occur under significantly different circumstances than the Soviet Union faced. This is not to say that the United States would necessarily be more successful than the British in the 19th century or Soviets in the 20th century. Like previous invaders, the United States could indeed lose a war in Afghanistan due to an array of factors, both historical and contemporary, both known and unknown. However, I suggest that predictions of losing such a war, following analogical reasoning alone from the “Soviet Vietnam,” are ill-advised and demand a closer reading of history.