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The Soviet-Afghan War

How a Superpower Fought and Lost

The Russian General Staff

Translated and edited by Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress

Foreword by Theodore C. Mataxis

February 2002
392 pages, 19 photographs, 32 maps, 6 x 9
Modern War Studies
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-1186-7, $17.95

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Foreword

Editors' note: General Mataxis is one of the premier authorities in the United States on guerrilla war. During his illustrious career, he fought as an infantryman in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He was continually involved with the observation and study of guerrilla forces. At the end of World War II, when his battalion was deactivated in Berlin, he was put in charge of a prisoner of war camp for German generals and general staff officers. He supervised historians who recorded the German accounts of their operations in the Soviet Union, including the collection of German accounts of German efforts against the Soviet and Yugoslavian partisans. While en route to the Indian Defense Staff College in 1950, he stopped at Singapore where the British instructed him in their ongoing counter-guerrilla efforts in Malay. At the Indian Staff College, he studied the guerrilla aspects of the British-Afghan wars in detail. He graduated from the Staff College in 1951 and then served for a year as an observer in the guerrilla-plagued Kashmir. On his way to the Korean War, he took personal leave to visit French Indochina to observe France's war with the Viet Minh guerrillas.

General Mataxis put his studies of guerrilla warfare to practical use in Vietnam. From 1964 to 1966, he served as the senior adviser to the South Vietnamese II ARVN Corps. He helped conduct the Vietnamese defense against the lesser known, but more dangerous, Tet Offensive of 1965. When U.S. regular units entered South Vietnam, he took over the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division and swept through key provinces in the II Corps Region, fighting Viet Cong guerrillas and regular North Vietnamese forces. In 1968 to 1970, he was assigned as an adviser to the Military Advisory Group in Tehran, Iran, where he advised the Iranians on their covert plans to assist Kurdish guerrillas in eastern Iraq. He returned to South Vietnam in 1970 where he served as deputy commander and acting commander of the 23rd Infantry Division. The counter-guerrilla war was winding down and American forces were taking increasing casualties from mines and booby traps. General Mataxis was reassigned to Cambodia with one day's notice. He became the Chief of the Joint Military Equipment Team in Phnom Penh with the mission to build a Cambodian military force of 200,000. However, the American ambassador to Cambodia was more hindrance than help in this effort, and the door was left open to the Khmer Rouge. General Mataxis retired in April 1972 after 32 years of uniformed service.

After retirement from the military, General Mataxis continued his study of guerrilla warfare. He served the Singapore Minister of Defense from 1972 to 1975 as a consultant. During this time, he was able to study the files on the Japanese attack on Singapore and the Malayan Emergency. From 1980 to 1990, he advised and assisted Mujahideen freedom fighters in his capacity as Field Director of the Committee for a Free Afghanistan. He was also active in helping raise support for the anticommunist resistance to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. General Mataxis has written extensively about guerrilla warfare and is currently on the faculty of the American Military University where he teaches courses on guerrilla warfare.


As we enter the next millennium, our society is trying to adapt to the impact of an unprecedented and turbulent technological and social revolution. The impact of this revolution is similar to that of the Industrial Revolution on the agricultural society of eighteenth-century Europe and America. The Information Age, with its rapidly expanding technology, has already positioned its guideposts marking our future. Westerners, particularly Americans, love technology. Computers, VCRs, cellular phones, and CD players are commonplace in our homes. Our armed forces reflect this love of technology. We equip our forces with sophisticated equipment and, during times of tight budgets, expect technology to replace expensive manpower. Our view of future conflict is skewed by computer games, popular entertainment, defense contractor pronouncements, and an abiding belief in the omniscience of science. It is prudent for the armed services to incorporate or nullify new technologies as they appear, yet every future war will not be a high-tech war. The military must also prepare for manpower-intensive low-tech wars that may also threaten national interests.

A country or faction within a country can effectively fight a technologically superior state or coalition using guerrilla war. Guerrilla warfare is a test of national will and endurance in which technological advantages are often degraded or negated. In order for a guerrilla war to succeed, a portion of the local populace must support or acquiesce to the presence of indigenous guerrillas in their midst. There must be a willingness to accept considerable casualties–combatant and noncombatant. Guerrillas must have a safe haven and a source of supplies. What guerrillas do not need is military victory. Guerrillas need to survive and endure over the years or decades of the conflict. The guerrillas remained when the French left Algeria and Indochina, the United States left South Vietnam, and the Soviets left Afghanistan. The side with the greater moral commitment, be it patriotic, religious, or ideological, eventually won because of higher morale, greater obstinacy, stronger national will, and the determination to survive.

Guerrilla war does not fit into the popular image of high-tech future war, but it may well be the future war that a high-tech country finds itself fighting. The Soviet Army, a modern, mechanized high-tech force, fought a guerrilla war for over nine years in Afghanistan. Despite their best efforts, the application of overwhelming air power, and the expenditure of national treasure and young lives, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving the field to the defiant Mujahideen guerrilla.

A wise army prepares for future war by examining the lessons of the past. This does not mean that armies should prepare to fight as the last war was fought. Rather, they should draw lessons from the past that will guide the future. The Russian General Staff officers who wrote this book have recorded their experience so that their military can learn from it. Fortunately, their observations are now available to a wider audience. Too many military books only deal with the strategy or tactics of a particular war and ignore the vital issues of force structure, branch missions, combat support, and combat service support. This book examines these issues, as well as dealing with tactics and strategy. It provides a comprehensive look at how a modern, high-tech force attempted to fight a guerrilla war on rugged terrain in the middle of someone else's civil war.

 

This book is the third in a trilogy by Les Grau covering the Soviet-Afghan War. The first two, The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan and The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, the second with coauthor Ali Jalali, covered Soviet and Mujahideen tactics on the battlefield. In this third volume, Les Grau and Michael Gress give the Russian General Staff perspective on the war. They have done a good job in translating, editing, and providing commentary on the text. They have erased much of the awkwardness normally associated with a translation. Their commentary aids the reader without distracting from the main work. This book provides valuable insights for the military professional contemplating the complex issue of fighting or supporting a guerrilla war.

The first two books give an excellent overview of the Soviet involvement in the war and their changing tactics, which they adopted when the Mujahideen resistance failed to collapse (as had the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian resistance after the Soviet invasions of 1956 and 1962). The Soviet invasion shattered the growing detente between the Soviet Union and the West and caused the United Nations to call for "all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan." In the United States, the Soviet invasion was seen as a threat to access of Persian Gulf oil and became a major issue in the presidential election.

With the election of President Reagan, who campaigned on "Peace Through Strength," the United States launched a buildup of conventional and strategic forces and challenged Soviet expansionism. The Reagan administration challenged the Brezhnev Doctrine of "once a communist state, always a communist state," stating that "we do not accept the current expanse of the Soviet Empire as a permanent and irreversible feature of the historic landscape." Shortly afterward, the "Reagan Doctrine" offered support to guerrillas struggling against communist regimes.

The Committee for a Free Afghanistan (CFA) was one of the first Public Volunteer Organizations (PVO) organized following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The administration encouraged the PVOs to back the Reagan Doctrine by assisting anti-communist guerrillas. I was field director of the CFA, and I visited Peshawar, Pakistan, seven times (for one to three months at a time) during the war. Peshawar was headquarters to the seven major Mujahideen factions and was the optimum site to coordinate our activities with these factions and the three million Afghan refugees living in squalid camps along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. When I first visited Peshawar, I studied the map and was struck by a sense of déjà vu from my experiences in Vietnam. This time, however, I was sitting with the guerrillas in the "Eagle's Beak," which juts into Afghanistan menacing Kabul. Before, I was in Saigon threatened by enemy divisions stationed in the Cambodian "Parrot's Beak."

The Russians divide the war into four phases and outline them in their introduction. The Mujahideen have a different perspective, but also divide the war into four phases. Their first phase was the initial nationwide resistance to the invading Soviets and the Afghan communists that led to the proclamation of jihad [holy war]. Their second phase was a reorganization phase in which the Mujahideen structured their headquarters, organized for the receipt and distribution of arms and material, and began training their forces for the prolonged war to drive the invaders out. Their third phase was surviving the Soviet technological onslaught. The Soviets had introduced remote electronic acoustic and seismic sensors that could detect Mujahideen moving some 20 kilometers from Soviet and Afghan communist positions. The combination of sensors and artillery fire was devastating. Soviet radio-activated minefields, night vision devices, and subsonic bullets also decimated Mujahideen ranks. Helicopter gun ships, the "Frogfoot" close air support aircraft, and well-trained Spetsnaz forces were increasingly effective, and Mujahideen morale plummeted as casualties soared. 1985 was the year of decision. Gorbachev ordered his commanders to win the war during that year, and the Soviets launched an all-out effort. The battered Mujahideen held on and began receiving the "Stinger" shoulder-launched air defense missile. "Stinger" changed the dynamics of the battlefield. Soviet jets and helicopter gun ships were forced to fly much higher and lost most of their effectiveness. This signaled the start of phase four for both sides. Gorbachev realized that he had to expand the war significantly or withdraw. He prepared to withdraw. The Mujahideen increased their combat and began organizing and training conventional infantry battalions to fight the Afghan communists after the Soviet withdrawal.

 

There are several issues in this book that jump out at the reader. First is the extraordinary efforts the Soviets had to resort to in order to protect their fragile lines of communication. Second is that the Soviet Army came prepared to fight the war they trained for–high-tempo, high-speed, mechanized warfare on the Northern European plain or Manchurian plateau. They had to re-arm, re-structure, and develop new tactics and new training while fighting the war. Third, the Soviets attempted to win the war with their high-technology-and were totally frustrated. Despite overwhelming Soviet combat power, the Mujahideen learned to dodge Soviet attacks, work around Soviet technology, and fight another day. In the end, the Mujahideen national will was stronger than that of the Soviet leadership, and the Soviet Army withdrew.

High technology has its place, but too often scarce defense dollars are spent on technology fixes that never accomplish what they promise. NATO's recent operations against Serbia provide an excellent example of the danger of depending solely on technology's promise. For months, NATO air forces pummeled an enemy armed with inferior technology but one with the national will to resist and endure the demands of its stronger and more technologically advanced opponent. NATO failed to prepare for the "worst case scenario" and initially field a ground force in case the aerial bombardments failed to cow the enemy. Serbia's military had excellent camouflage skills and withdrew from Kosovo in good order. Their withdrawal was due to Russian diplomacy and attacks on the civilian infrastructure, not aerial damage to their military. Militaries with inferior technology, but smart leaders, will avoid conflicts where technology will provide an edge. They will opt for urban combat, combat in rough terrain or jungle, or guerrilla warfare. These forms of combat all require quantities of trained infantrymen–an increasingly rare commodity in the U.S. armed forces.

This book provides a rare insiders' look at the Soviet war machine in Afghanistan. The lessons derived apply universally to other armies. The military professional will be well served by studying this appraisal by other professionals.

Theodore C. Mataxis
Brigadier General (Retired)

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