Summary

Soviets Entering the war

On Christmas Eve of 1979, thousands of Soviet troops poured into Afghanistan in hopes of taking over thier county and government. What they didn't know is that this little attack so to say was already expected and they were surprised to find out that the Afghans were prepared and already had armed resistance in 25 our of their 28 provinces. The U.S. recognized that the Soviets had joined with the PDPA in hopes to control the mujahideen movement and now decided that help will be needed from some of the other neighboring countries. It was reported that President Carter was on the phone with Zia (the king of Pakistan) days after the invasion and was offering them millions of dollars in aid to help the Afghan rebels in this war. Shortly after, the Pakistan, as well as the Saudi and Iran governments accepted these offers. Originally, the CIA had it planned out to take a "backseat" approach in the war by having the other nations supply the weapons and training such as Pakistan and by doing so, this made it to where the U.S. could deny any involvement period. By 1987, the U.S. was providing the rebels with about 700 million in military assistance as well as 65,000 tons of weapons to the mujahideen. By the later months of 1986 however, the Soviets were returning home with all signs of loss and had an all time low morale which then started the withdraw process. On February 11, 1988, the Soviets shocked the world by pubically announcing that they were to withdraw from Afghanistan. With that, the Geneva Accords were signed which meant that both the U.S. as well the Soviets were to stop interfering with any more of the Afghan problems. And finally, on February 15, 1989, the last Soviet soldier crossed back into the Soviet Union, which caused a mass celebration amongst many of the Americans.          

U.s. Involvement

By the 1970's, the U.S was growing as well as many other countries, but with growth it's not always good. In fact, it can be bad and that was the case when looking back at the intentions of the Soviets getting involved in the war with the Afghan. With that being said, the U.S. was becoming more and more suspicious of the Soviets thriving on expanding their country as well as their power. The key factor that helped America realize this was coming directly relates to the Shah of Iran being abdicated from his thrown in 1979. Major Afghanistan issues started to arise when in April of 1978, Mohamed Daud was overthrown and was replaced by pro-Soviet and Socialist-leaning People's Democratic Party. After all that the United States National Security Advisor warned president Carter of the potential threats to world peace that the Soviets could possibly impose. So what does America do? They make a plan to prevent it from ever happening and the main focus of the U.S. was to draw the Russians into an Afghan trap in hopes of defeating them with ease. It's been said that the sole reason of the Soviets invading Afghanistan in the first place was that the U.S. had secret involvement with the Afghan governement and didn't like one bit of it. Getting back to more of the war side, the U.S. had been providing aid to the mujahideen such as arming and training these indviduals to hopefully lower the U.S. casualty rate.

Works Cited

Amy, Z. (2011, N/A N/A). War in afghanistan - - the history behind the u.s. war in afghanistan. Retrieved from http://terrorism.about.com/od/warinafghanistan/ss/AfghanistanWar_2.htm

John, P. (2001, October 9). U.s. analysis of the soviet war in afghanistan: declassified . Retrieved from http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us.html

Katherine, H. (2006, June 5). Wars of liberation: struggle for freedom in vietnam and afghanistan. Retrieved from http://s00.middlebury.edu/GG214A/STUDENTS/Liberation/Ideology/Paper.htm