Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective, and: Afghanistan: The Soviet War (review)

216 SAIS REVIEW Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective. By Anthony Arnold. Stanford , Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1985. 179 pp. $10.95/cloth. Afghanistan: The Soviet War. By Edward R. Girardet. New York: St. Martin 's Press, 1985. 259 pp. $19.95/cloth. Reviewed by fames Voorhees, Ph.D. candidate, SAIS. The dirty little war in Afghanistan is now the longest in Soviet history, and it shows no sign of ending soon. It has been the subject of summit discussions and UN debates. It has created five million refugees, and may be a source of serious long-term trouble for Afghanistan's neighbors. Bothxrfthese books, written by authors with firsthand experience in Afghanistan, try to add to the all too superficial knowledge of the conflict. Anthony Arnold, an intelligence officer in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion, offers an updated edition of a book originally published in 1981 . His intention is to show that the Soviet approach to Afghanistan has been consistently aggressive. Unfortunately, he undermines his case by approaching the Soviets with a blinding bias. In his eyes Soviet troops are the faceless forces of the evil empire. The Soviets are driven by Marxist-Leninist ideology to press for superiority , for maximum control over everything. These are propositions for which a respectable case can be made, but in Arnold's hands they become motivations like the diabolical urges of monsters in horror films. It does not help that Arnold prefers to make his case for Soviet villainy by insinuation rather than evidence. For example, in February 1979 the U.S. ambassador was kidnapped, then killed when security forces, with Soviet advisers present, stormed the hotel room where he was kept. According to Arnold , "It was obvious that there was only one power that would benefit from the murder — the Soviet Union," which wanted to ensure that it was the only great power with influence over the ruling Marxist-Leninist regime. But surely the possibility of incompetence on the part of the security forces cannot be dismissed so quickly. And could the permanent poisoning of relations between Afghanistan and the United States — the ostensible goal of the Soviet action— have been predicted with assurance? Indeed, relations were not broken off, though aid was suspended and the ambassador was not replaced. Arnold divides Soviet efforts to subvert Afghanistan into several parts. The period 1953 to 1963, when Mohammed Daoud was prime minister, was characterized by a Soviet drive for economic penetration designed to make Afghanistan a client state. Because this failed, political manipulation was tried instead, using the members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), formed by Nur Mohammed Taraki in 1965. The party soon bifurcated into the Khalqi and Parcham factions, with Taraki leading the former and Babrak Karmal the latter. The real differences between the two, Arnold notes, were personal; Taraki and Karmal could not abide each other. As the PDPA proved ineffectual by 1970, the Soviets had to change tactics . Hence the coup launched by Daoud in 1973. Arnold implicates the Soviets in the coup, not by finding evidence of their involvement in it, but by noting that they may have wanted the outcome that occurred. Daoud subsequently BOOK REVIEWS 217 followed policies contrary to Soviet interests, so, Arnold says, it was only a matter of time before they plotted his downfall. Daoud's regime fell in a coup by the PDPA in April 1978. When unrest swelled following that coup, and Daoud's successors, Taraki and then Habibullah Amin, proved unable to quell it, the Soviets had to invade to protect their investment. Yet the costs of that protection, Arnold argues, have been so high that the Soviets are leaving the door open for retreat should that become necessary. Withdrawal may indeed become necessary if the mujaheddin continue to receive support and if their efforts come to shake what Arnold believes to be a fragile Soviet empire. The job of the United States, in his view, is to provide support for the mujaheddin, preparing the way for a liberated but neutral Afghanistan. This picture of a Soviet Union willing to part with a country that, according to Arnold, it has long intended to annex is...