If you pay attention to international news, friends will surely know that the recent withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has resulted in the Taliban quickly attacking the city and occupying many important cities. It has been 20 years since the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, but 20 years of operation have achieved such results, and Afghanistan is really difficult enough to fight.
Before the United States, the Soviet Union had also invaded Afghanistan, and its momentum was even stronger, directly parachuting down to kill the Afghan president, and a hundred thousand troops cooperated with the rapid attack, occupying all of Afghanistan within a week.
But here's the strange thing, how did the Soviets manage to occupy all of Afghanistan in less than a week? How did it come to be unable to help Afghanistan for ten years on such a good foundation?
Soviet advisers have long been present in the Afghan army
The United States experienced a major loss of national strength after the two defeats of North Korea and Vietnam, and the Soviet Union made a windfall by taking advantage of the rise in international oil prices, and the situation of the Soviet Union attacking and defending the United States began to appear under this circumstance.
At that time, the leader of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev, was a man of great merit, and after taking advantage, he began to think about the road to hegemony, and soon inherited the Tsarist Russia's southward strategy, hoping to control Afghanistan, open up land passages to the Indian Ocean, thus threatening the oil-producing areas of the Middle East and encircling Europe in a roundabout way, and the ultimate goal was of course to dominate the world.
Since 1973, the Soviet Union has been infiltrating Afghanistan, initially they supported President Daoud, and in the early stages they also received a lot of rewards, but When Daoud realized that his country was being infiltrated too much and wanted to alienate the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union immediately turned to support the Afghan People's Democratic Party.
At this time, there were already many pro-Soviet forces in the Afghan army, and under the guidance of the Soviet Union, the pro-Soviet Afghan army combined with the Afghan People's Democratic Party to launch a coup d'état, and Daoud was killed.
The person who succeeded Daoud was called Taraki, but Taraki was very obedient, and the policies introduced were basically Based on the Soviet Union, which inevitably damaged the interests of Afghanistan itself, thus causing the dissatisfaction of many tribal leaders.
The terrain and situation in Afghanistan are complex, and although it is nominally a country, in fact many of the tribal leaders in the local area have the final say, they feel that their rights have been damaged by Taraki, and naturally unite against Taraki.
By 1978, Taraki, the president, had only one-third of afghanistan under his effective control, and seeing his precarious position, Taraki rushed to the Soviet Union for help.
The Soviet Union, of course, was very pleased with such a request, and hastily sent a large number of military advisers, allocated a large amount of equipment, helped Taraki train, formed an army, and also vigorously infiltrated Afghanistan.
After Taraki had an army of more than 100,000 full-scale Soviet weapons, he was momentarily satisfied, and was about to go on a big fight when he was killed by his deputy Amin.
Amin and Tara were basically close comrades-in-arms, but as political disagreements grew farther and farther apart, Amin was a nationalist who repeatedly and publicly declared that he did not want Afghanistan to be controlled by the Soviet Union, winning the support of many young officers but also provoking soviet dissatisfaction.
Originally, the Soviet Union and Taraki were ready to find an opportunity to get rid of Amin, but they did not expect Amin to preemptively launch a coup d'état and kill Taraki.
Although Amin also claimed "the unbreakable friendly and fraternal relationship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union" after coming to power, he was also worried that Afghanistan would become a puppet of the Soviet Union completely, so when he learned that the Soviet Union had conspired to kill him, he summoned the Soviet ambassador, Penov.
At this meeting, Amin warned that he hoped that the Soviet Union would not continue to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, and if the Soviet government did not accept this "advice", he would follow the example of President Sadat of Egypt and expel Soviet advisers, Soviet military delegations and Soviet troops.
At the same time, Amin abolished many of Taraki's pro-Soviet policies and constantly purged pro-Soviet officials, only in the army did not dare to be too anxious.
The Soviet Union was very angry and sent the special envoy Mekhtov to Afghanistan to negotiate with Amin, and as a result, Amin's guards lost their hands and killed Mekhtov during the negotiations, which was equivalent to directly punching the Soviet Union in the face, and Amin was afraid of retaliation, so he immediately asked the United States for help.
This situation was quickly transmitted back home by Soviet advisers, and in order to avoid Afghanistan falling to the United States, the Soviet Union finally decided to send troops.
Afghanistan had more than 100,000 troops at the time, and it was not easy to take it, but the presence of Soviet advisers helped a lot to solve this problem.
A Soviet military adviser who acted as both a guide and a spy
After receiving the news, the Soviet military advisers immediately inspected the Afghan troops in the name of overhauling weapons, and removed many key components of heavy weapons, which led to a great reduction in the combat effectiveness of the Afghan army in the subsequent engagement.
After the Soviet special forces beheaded Amin, the Afghan army was leaderless, and the Soviet advisers took the opportunity to stand up and order this group of soldiers without a sense of war not to move, no one could command in a unified way, and most of those who wanted to resist could only choose to lie dormant first.
After the Soviet army entered Afghanistan, those Soviet advisers who were familiar with the terrain and military deployment guided the direction of the army, so the Soviet army's attack was quick, fast and direct to the point.
This combination of punches, the Soviet Union occupied all of Afghanistan in less than a week, from a military point of view alone, the Soviet action is almost perfect, which also gives them the confidence that they can end the war in half a year.
Unexpectedly, it was caught in the quagmire of ten years.
Where there is oppression, there is resistance
The great man once said, "Where there is oppression, there is resistance," and this sentence is also appropriate in Afghanistan. As mentioned earlier, Amin is a nationalist, and his supporters naturally want Afghanistan to be independent and autonomous, and these actions of the Soviet Union are tantamount to adding fuel to the fire.
So the young men in the army, the fanatical religious elements, the conservative forces in various places were united, and although they could not fight the Soviets head-on, they could use the terrain to fight the attacks. And with the invasion of the Soviet Union, more and more Afghans joined in, and the reserve force was sufficient.
The Soviet army is best at fighting in large corps, but more than ninety percent of Afghanistan is mountainous and hilly, and it is obvious that the Soviet army cannot be used, but it is the most suitable for guerrilla warfare.
The Afghan guerrillas, which numbered more than 300,000, were spread across the country, harassing small groups of Soviet troops from time to time, and familiarizing themselves with the terrain, and quickly evacuated if they could not fight.
The number of Soviet troops stationed in Afghanistan is about 160,000, the number is at a disadvantage, their heavy weapons are difficult to enter the mountains, and they can only rely on infantry, so the Soviet Union has not been able to eliminate the Afghan guerrillas on a large scale.
In backward regions, mechanization is sometimes not an advantage
The Soviets liked to move fast, but Afghanistan could not get him to accomplish this goal, there were no railways in Afghanistan at that time, only two large roads, and the Soviet army relied on these two roads to transport supplies.
Of course, the Afghan guerrillas were not stupid, so they often fought ambushes on both sides of the road, and the Soviet army was overwhelmed by this, and could only send a large number of troops to escort them at a time. In this way, the cost is high, not to mention, there will always be negligence, and an oversight will make the material preparation of the front line unable to keep up and unable to carry out large-scale operations.
So a delicate balance was struck between the two sides, with the Soviets occupying major cities and major transportation routes, while the mountains and countryside were dominated by Afghan partisans.
The Afghan guerrillas had a mass base, as soon as a small group of Soviet troops appeared, the nearby people would convey the news, the guerrillas would attack, and when the Soviet troops moved, the guerrillas who had already heard the news quickly retreated.
Therefore, the powerful Soviet Union could not help these small guerrillas, and eventually paid more than 50,000 casualties.
The continuous transfusion of blood from foreign forces made the Soviet Union bleed continuously
From the moment the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the United States realized that this was a perfect opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union, after all, he himself was deeply involved in North Korea and Vietnam, and understood the horrors of the war quagmire, so he began to vigorously assist the Afghan guerrillas.
When you see the word guerrilla, don't think that their equipment is very poor, in fact, they can completely compete with the Soviet army in terms of light weapons, and they also have poisonous stab missiles and other weapons to restrain the Soviet army.
The Soviet Union once occupied a warehouse of afghan guerrillas, opened a look of instant stunned, the sleeping bag inside came from the United States, medicine from Japan, clothing from the Federal Republic of Germany, other weapons and equipment is 'made in all countries', the Soviet Union knows that behind the guerrillas is the support of various countries, but can only swallow.
The reason why countries want to do this is to weaken the Soviet Union and make it continue to 'shed blood' in Afghanistan, after all, the Aggression shown by the Soviet Union at that time was too strong, threatening this country and intimidating that country from time to time, which naturally made all countries feel fear and thus unite on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Therefore, the Soviet Union is obviously fighting with Afghanistan, in fact, there are many countries behind it, and even if the Soviet Union is strong, it cannot be one-to-many, and finally withdraws after ten years of invasion.
In history, the country of Afghanistan has made Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States all fall into the sand, and it is a veritable "imperial cemetery." The contrast between strong and weak on the surface also tells us a truth: powerful force cannot solve all problems, and the benefits brought by peaceful development are far better than aggression! Hopefully, the United States in the future will remember this.