Soviet war in Afghanistan

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was "the most serious threat to peace since the Second World War." (U.S. President Jimmy Carter.) On December 27, 1979, over 700 Soviet troops wearing Afghan Uniforms, invaded Afghanistan, under the control of Leonid Brezhnev. They quickly secured government buildings and the Tajbeg Presidential Palace where the president was currently staying. It didn't take long before president Hafizullah was killed. By the next morning the Soviet troops had successfully taken over all of their targets. The soviets continued to dump resources into the surrounding areas. The first wave of supplies consisted of about 1,900 tanks, 80,000 soldiers, and 2,000 other armored vehicles. The war began and a new president was needed. Babrak Karmal took office and requested that the Soviets units deal with all of the chaos, instead of his army. This part of Soviet troops, the 40th Army, fought against the Afghan soldiers. Soviet planes were able to destroy these groups with little ease. Soviet troops were not just focused on one territory. In many situations they would secretly attack Iranian land to rid the area of mujahideen supplies. The soviet helicopters would occasionally face battles with Iranian jets on these missions. Although most areas in Afghanistan were dealing with heavy violence, some isolated areas were unaffected by the war. These locations were primarily in the central mountains and near Hazarajat. Heavy fighting shook areas surrounding Pakistan. The soviets would take over a region of land and then the mujahideen would reappear after the soviets had moved out. In March 1985, the new Soviet General presented the troops with a difficult task. He wanted them to do whatever needed to be done and be out of the war in one year. In order to achieve this goal, more soviet soldiers were added to the forces. This brought the total number of men to over 108,000. More men meant more fighting and more killing. 1985 quickly became the most tragic year of the war. Meanwhile the U.S. continued to supply anti-Soviet forces in a program called Operation Cyclone. After only just four years of fighting, the mujahideen established over four thousand bases. The mujahideen units frequently blew up government buildings, hotels, and power lines. They would launch around 800 rockets, in one area near the border of Pakistan, a day. In two years they planed and deployed over 23,000 shelling attacks on government zones. The mujahideen also deployed land mines during the ten-year war. Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were the major countries donating money to the mujahideen. The United States alone donated 600 million dollars a year to the cause. Heroin was being used to trade for weapons, causing new problems with addictions. In the end the Soviet Union was forced to leave the war. On February 15, 1989 the remaining soviet units left Afghanistan. Looking back on the war, I feel that there was not much accomplished during this period. For ten years of fighting the two sides accomplished more bad than good. The Soviets lost 451 aircraft, 147 tanks, 11,000 trucks, and over 14,000 soldiers. Somewhere between 100,000 to 1 million Afghan’s were killed. The fighting seemed to do nothing but makes things worse. The war caused many unfortunate events that should not have taken place. After the war, the U.S. led a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The Iran-Iraq war and other activities continued to create problems. I think things would have been better off if the two sides could have worked things out in a different way. Wars never give you what you want without a price. Word count= 601