Sam, you're doing your usual: Asking another to disprove your theory -- that is, to prove a negative. This is almost impossible to do. Even so, I've given you more than enough food for thought. Now, you should find some evidence that proves your theory. That might convince people.
The way I see it, he predicted it in his memo, and it happened. If you're saying it would have happened anyway, you have to show that.
It is uncontroversial that Brzezinski anticipated the Soviet intervention. But the only people who know the real reasons that the Soviets invaded are the Soviet officials who ultimately made the decision. And they aren't telling anyone.
I don't think one needs too much imagination for that. I imagine the Soviets arming a militant group next door to the US would have similar consequences
He predicted it, so he caused it? That's completely illogical. The fact CIA and others were aware the Soviets could invade in no way, shape or form means the assistance they provided forced the Soviets to do so. Sam, you're bias is causing you to oversimplify. That is, there is a complex political situation -- one that involves Afghan govt. and Iran -- that you are ignoring. You are also making a mountain out of a mole hill, in that you think $5 million of WW1-era rifles was a threat to Red Army. It wasn't. The larger threat was that there was chaos in domestic politics there that threatened the Soviet-inspired socialist revolution there. When Amin overthrew Taraki, the Soviets felt like they had to intervene, lest other powers do so (and remember what was happening in Iran at this point).
You're assuming the soviets knew it was just 5 million dollars. Why? Also why would 5 million be too little to overthrow the communist government? How much would be needed?
But we had a policy of arming almost every anti-communist group on the planet, surely the soviets would expect that.
You're assuming the Soviets knew that the US was arming the resistance in the first place. Why? Nor does one need too much imagination to understand that Soviet knowledge of American assistance to the Afghan resistance might actually make their intervention LESS likely. After all, if you know that your enemy is hoping that you will invade some country, and actively working to ensure that said invasion will cause great damage to you, you are likely to think twice about doing so. The Soviets had plenty of borders and plenty of places to worry about American actions. It is certainly not the case that they were compelled to overthrow every neighboring country that the US was involved in, nor did they. Geopolitics is not Newtonian Mechanics. Likewise, the US did not invade or overthrow every neighboring country that the Soviets armed. It's uncontroversial that the Soviet Union was looking to dominate Iran and Afghanistan, and so gain a warm-water naval presence, long before the US was involved in the region in any substantial way (i.e., pre-WWII). This is all hold-over Great Game stuff... and, anyway, only a fool could overlook the most obvious proximate cause of the Soviet invasion: the fact that a widespread revolt was underway, with their erstwhile client state set to fail and/or slip out of Soviet control. The first thing they did when they invaded, after all, was to defeat the Afghan military and then depose and execute their own client leader, who had requested the intervention. It was only then that they set about fighting the (American/Saudi/Pakistani-supported) resistance.
How many anti-communist groups were allies of the Soviets? Very few. But almost all of them were in countries under threat of Soviet interference, and many were on the frontiers of the USSR or Warsaw Pact.
Based on what ZB wrote to Carter: Except of course, that the Afghan government was requesting their aid and arming the mujahideen made it more imperative for the Soviet Union to provide that aid No, but an ally is still an ally. Or they began to suspect that something else was going on.
That quote contains nothing at all about what the Soviets did or did not know about American support or anything else. And I've already read the Wikipedia page. If you'd stick to uncontroversial stuff like what's on there, there wouldn't be any ridiculous fallacies in your posts for me to respond to in the first place. So, you think the Soviet Union would knowingly walk into a trap out of a desire to aid a client state? Do you think that the Soviets would do it again if they knew then what they know now? More like a client but, anyway, an alliance is not a suicide pact. It's funny how you present that as some kind of alternative to what I just said, when I explicitly mentioned fear of a client state slipping away in the post you're responding to. Also note that, according to your source, they were (rightfully) as worried about Chinese and Pakistani support as American. Indeed, ZB has given all of us reason to believe that China played a much bigger role in the conflict than is popularly understood, but which one would expect given the geopolitics of the time and location.
I'd assume their ally would be both interested and keep them informed. Especially since they were the ones asking for military assistance. Do you think the then communist government would have asked for military assistance if the Americans had not been arming and funding the religious militants? I'm not the one making unsupported claims. I merely pointed out that ZB predicted there would be a Soviet invasion if they armed the mujahideen and it happened. Anyone who says it would have happened anyway, should support their claims with why they believe so. Would the Soviets aid an ally if it was under attack by an American funded or aided state or militia? They certainly did it again in South Ossetia. All of which do nothing to take away the role of $2 billion dollars worth of US weapons in the hands of religious militants in the war.
Yes. Afghanistan has always been ungovernable in the sense that it does not produce enough tax revenue to pay for a government that can maintain law and order. And so it is always dependent on outside assistance any time the inhabitants feel like causing trouble for the government. So, when the government initiates a nationwide Soviet-style purge of Afghan society, it quickly finds itself in an untenable position. Also note that the Afghan government had been dependent on Soviet military assistance for generations before American involvement. All Afghan military officers were trained by the Soviet Defense Ministry, for example. And, anyway, why do you assume that the then-government of Afghanistan knew that America was supporting the opposition? Yes you are. This is unsupported. There was no "if they..." He predicted that they would probably invade, liked the idea, and took steps to make it more probable. But that's far short of the "orchestration" and "if we/then they" causality you are describing. From Wikipedia: "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would..." Okay. And anyone who says it would not have happened anyway (i.e., you) should support their claims as well. So far all you've argued is that American support for the resistance increased the likelihood of a Russian invasion. Which is fine and all, but it doesn't address the question of what the likelihood would have been without American support. Funny, I could swear that the Soviets ceased to exist the better part of 2 decades before that event... Which has what to do with anything I've said?
I don't think the Soviets would have launched an all out invasion if the US was not pouring weapons into Afghanistan. It was not in their interest to do so.
Yes, I know. The issue is whether there is any good reason to think that. It was manifestly not in their interest to launch the invasion under the actual circumstances, but they did so anyway. So that doesn't add up to any support for your claim. If anything, it suggests that the Soviets either did not correctly perceive their interests, or did not make decisions based on their perceptions of interest. You first need to demonstrate that Soviet Afghanistan policy was driven exclusively (or at least primarily) by the Soviet interest, that the Soviets knew the extent of the American support for the resistance, and that this factor made the ultimate difference in their calculation of interest. You have have not even attempted the first or third of these, and your efforts on the second have been speculative and unconvincing. In short, you have a lot of work to do before you can single anyone else out for not supporting a claim.
They did not do it in any other country that had a communist government and was not a neighbor/ally that asked for help, even with tremendous amounts of US intervention.
You keep confusing the 2 billion that came in after the Soviets invaded, with the few million at most that Ziggy is responsible for.
How do you know what he was responsible for? He wrote to Carter they can give the Soviets their own Vietnam.
He knows because it's fact, something you should acquaint yourself with sometime. Here's a suggestion: Read a book. Wikipedia is not the answer to everything. I'd suggest Ghost Wars or Charlie Wilson's War if you are interested in this topic. And Robert Gates book From the Shadows talks about what Carter did and didn't do.
