(5 of 5)
Well before Amin's murder, two divisions, specially made up of Farsi-speaking troops from neighboring Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan, had been assembled along the frontier. They all had Afghan uniforms. They were supposed to make our intervention go more smoothly. In retrospect, it was an error. In no time at all they were black-marketeering (including selling army equipment), buying Korans and robbing the local population (for which many were executed). They showed little interest in fighting "their neighbors," the Afghans. European troops were soon brought to replace the Tadzhiks and Uzbeks.
We made two major errors of judgment: we overestimated the willingness of the Afghan army to fight and underestimated the upsurge of Afghan resistance. As a result we sent in too few troops. The trouble is that Moscow cannot correct this error. When we began to get bogged down, of course, the army argued for more troops. The Soviet general staff wanted at least twice as many—to seal off the frontier with Pakistan and get better control along the border with Iran. But the Politburo ruled that out. By then, it feared provoking a serious Western reaction.
Now no one in the U.S.S.R. is happy.
Soviet troops are bogged down. Karmal has not established effective leadership. Like his predecessors, Karmal is proving somewhat truculent in his dealings with Moscow. Given the way he was treated, that is hardly surprising. By the spring of this year, the Politburo was already considering having him replaced—but decided to give him a bit more time.
Nobody can really see a way out.
There is no prospect that the Soviet Union will withdraw from Afghanistan in the foreseeable future. For those of us who know what really happened, it is all a stark reminder of how the Soviet leadership deals with foreign policy.