For the next decade, Afghanistan vacillated between monarchy and democracy. Political parties were forbidden. Newspapers were allowed but were closely controlled. Parliament was ineffective. The four female members were defeated in the 1969 elections. Drought and famine brought misery to the population. During King Zahir’s visit to Europe in 1973, former Prime Minister Daoud initiated a coup and abolished the monarchy. Within two years, he approved a new constitution that created a one-party government overseen by a president. In an attempt to reduce Soviet influence, President Daoud sought aid from India, Iran, and the United States and removed Russian military advisers from many units. He also improved relations with Pakistan. Daoud’s actions infuriated Communists in Afghanistan. On 27 April 1978, the reactions turned violent as Afghan armored units and MiG-21s attacked the presidential palace. The next day Daoud was killed. Nur Mohammed Taraki became president, and the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan—the Communist Party—took control of the country.
President Taraki’s programs included cleansing Islam of “bad traditions, superstition, and erroneous belief.” He redesigned the Afghan flag, eliminating the color green (the color of Islam), and made the dominant color red to resemble the flag of the Soviet Union. Loan payments, gender equality, female education opportunities, and land reform were dictated by government decrees. The rural villagers considered these Taraki reforms to be anathema because they overturned the traditional ways of social life. Faced by numerous antigovernment uprisings and increased desertions from the army, the president responded by signing a Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborliness with the Soviet Union and invited Russian military advisers to help suppress the rebels. In February 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was kidnapped in Kabul, presumably by a Maoist extremist group, and killed during the rescue attempt.
The U.S. government, absorbed by the Shah of Iran’s overthrow and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, considered Afghanistan a lower priority. In Herat in March 1979, after rebels killed nearly 100 Soviet advisers and their families, more than 5,000 Afghans died when government forces, equipped with substantial quantities of new Russian weapons and armored vehicles, recaptured the city. Traditional Afghan factional infighting erupted in the Communist Party. President Taraki was murdered on 14 September 1979 by his Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, who seized power.
Infighting quickly flared into full-scale civil war. Amid a growing apprehension that Russian communists were dominating Afghanistan, the intelligentsia and well to do fled the country. The Afghan armed forces, whose officers had been trained in the Soviet Union, fell apart. Soviet newspaper, Pravda, announced that the Soviet leadership could not “remain indifferent” to a civil war “in direct proximity to us.” The Russians responded by sending an infusion of advisers to shore up the collapsing ground forces and experienced pilots to fly combat missions against the antigovernment rebels. In October 1979, Soviet-advised forces moved into Paktia Province. Rebel forces retreated, but when government troops withdrew, they returned. Shortly afterward, U.S. intelligence reported heightened Soviet military activity as reservists were called up, bridging equipment was centralized, and an army headquarters was established near the Amu Darya River. In early December, a reinforced airborne regiment sent to Bagram earlier quickly moved to secure the Salang Tunnel and Kabul International Airport.
On the night of 27 December 1979, Soviet troops assaulted Darulaman Palace in Kabul and killed President Amin. Soviet leaders attempted to explain their actions using the pretext that “We are responding to an appeal from the Afghan leadership to repel outside aggression.” General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev had invoked Article 51 of the United Nations (UN) charter that guaranteed “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.” Afghan communists claimed that Soviet assistance was necessary to defend themselves against attacks by the United States, Pakistan, and China. Then, in a clumsy attempt to justify their actions, the Soviets proffered former deputy premier Babrak Karmal as the new president. Karmal broadcast a message to the Afghan people on the Radio Kabul frequency that “the torture machine of Amin . . . has been broken” and to declare a jihad “for true democratic justice, as respect for the holy Islamic religion.” The newly touted president did not mention that he was actually broadcasting from Termez, Uzbekistan. During another broadcast, Karmal claimed that he had requested military assistance from the Soviets.
Careful scrutiny of the invasion timetable of events revealed how inept the Soviets were in their attempts to legitimize the heavy-handed actions. The individuals whom the Soviets claimed had elected Karmal were in prison during the supposed election; announcements that first Amin and then later, Karmal had requested intervention contradicted each other; the propaganda apparatus did not explain why Amin—if he had requested military intervention—was killed and replaced by Karmal; and there were no explanations as to why Karmal did not appear in public in Kabul until 1 January 1980. Efforts to portray Amin as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent had no credence based on his supposed request for a massive Soviet invasion.
Russian scholar Robert Baumann writes, “The motives for a large-scale Soviet military intervention were the subject of exhaustive comment and speculation.” Documents released in the 1990s prove that Taraki and Amin did ask for military intervention at least 16 times between 14 April and 17 December 1979. Soviet military advisers in Kabul, however, had advised against such intervention. Although the real reasons for the Soviet intervention may never be known, a 31 December 1979 article in Pravda provided as good an explanation as any to date. The article spoke of holes in the “strategic arc.” The perception that there were holes in Afghanistan that needed to be plugged may explain why the Soviet army’s nightmare began.
Reaction in the U.S. government was outrage. President Jimmy Carter blocked sales of grain and high-technology equipment to Russia and boycotted American participation in the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow. More ominously, he declined to submit the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II (SALT II) to Congress for ratification. Signed in Vienna on 18 June 1979, SALT II would have limited U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear offensive weapons. In his State of the Union Address of 21 January 1980, the president enunciated a sweeping foreign policy declaration that became labeled the “Carter Doctrine.” Specifically alluding to the Soviet invasion, Carter made clear that “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
Figure 3. Jimmy Carter.
International reaction was decidedly unfavorable as well. The UN General Assembly voted 104 to 18 to “deplore the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan” and called for the “immediate, unconditional, and total withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.” Although voting with the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro was concerned about the implications that the invasion had for Cuba’s future sovereignty. Would Cuba be the next object of Soviet military intervention? Iran was pointedly critical of the invasion of its Islamic neighbor.
A history of tensions with Pakistan concerned U.S. government officials. Remembering the 1959 cooperative security agreement, President Carter’s initiative to establish a “regional security framework” that involved Pakistan, the provision of a $400-million aid package that was substantially greater than previous years, and a visit by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski all raised the level of Soviet hostility toward Afghanistan’s southern neighbor. Concurrent overflights, cross-border incursions, and threats raised concerns about stronger Soviet military action.
The Soviets did not withdraw and soon learned that the Afghans were willing to ignore most ethnic and tribal differences temporarily and unite against a foreign invader. The mullahs’ (religious teachers) call for jihad against the Soviets