Begench Karaev
At the heart of Brzezinski’s calculation were conclusions about the distinctive conditions of Europe, whose history shows a number of successful Russian invasions, even a staged Russian parade in Paris. Henry Kissinger, another master of not only American but also world diplomacy, repeatedly mentions this in his popular books. To be more objective, it was the European history of the times of great intrigues and wars that contributed to the emergence of such a thing as the “Russian bear,”
But the mountains of Afghanistan were not for the “bear” of such a historical breed. The tactics of battles since the time of the Seljuks testified that completely different, practically new theoretical concepts of military operations and applied methodologies for achieving success were needed here, with the help of attacks by small groups of soldiers. It was necessary to go even deeper into history and carefully study the reasons for the defeat of the Macedonian phalanxes in the Hundukush mountains. In turn, the Americans could not apply the latest experience here on the example of fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, where, out of ultimate impotence, the Yankees began “carpet” bombing, burning forests with napalm. In addition, “acid sprays” from the air carried out non-stop defoliation of forests over vast areas of Vietnam. And all these methods of fighting the courageous people of this small country were in the end useless.
Now, to the question: “Why did the United States intend to draw the USSR into the Afghan swamp?” after many years and on the example of today’s world events, one can try to answer more or less clearly.
The well-known period of international discharge in the 1970s was accompanied by the strengthening of the energy dominance of the USSR in the European energy market, as evidenced by the success of the so-called gas-pipe deal of the century – a long-term international contract in 1970 between the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Germany .
At that time, analytical articles in the Western press focused on the reasons for the negative attitude of the United States towards the project, the main of which was a radical change in the international situation – the end of the period of “détente”. Under these conditions, according to the United States, it was unforgivable to allow the USSR to develop energy, which was the basis of industrial and military potential.
Agreement on the supply to the USSR of large-diameter pipes and other equipment for the construction of a gas pipeline to Western Europe with payment for the supplied pipes and equipment with gas from fields in Western Siberia, assumed a long-term and close partnership between the two industrial giants of Eurasia. The contract provided for the supply of natural gas to Germany for 20 years in an amount of at least 52.5 billion cubic meters starting from 1973. At the same time, the West German firms Mannesmann and Thyssen signed a separate agreement for the supply of 1.2 million tons of large-diameter pipes for gas pipelines in the USSR. The financial guarantees of the transaction were spelled out in an agreement between the Vneshtorgbank of the USSR and a consortium of West German banks led by Deutsche Bank , which opened a credit line of 1.2 billion marks with a maturity date of September 30, 1982. The first Soviet gas came to Germany in 1973, which turned out to be very timely due to the onset of the global oil crisis.
It should be noted that in this critical situation of a significant deterioration in relations between the West and the USSR, the FRG took a special position. As Der Spiegel recorded, at a time when there was talk in the leading countries of the West about declaring an economic boycott of the Soviet Union, the Germans thought only of business. In particular, immediately after the Afghan crisis, the heads of West German firms reached agreements with the Soviet leadership on the fourth agreement as part of the gas-pipe deal.
The well-known industrialist Otto Wolf von Amerongen, head of the Otto Wolf company, recalled that in the framework of the first major gas-pipe deal between the FRG and the USSR, the West German steel industry supplied the Soviet Union with about six hundred thousand tons of large diameter pipes for the construction of pipelines. The lion’s share of this order fell on the company “Otto Wolf”.
Otto Wolff von Amerongen told reporters: “The Americans were simply terrified of the prospect of interdependence between the Germans, their NATO allies, and the Russians, potential adversaries. The arguments were sometimes downright absurd. In all seriousness, it was asserted, for example, that in the event of hostilities, pipelines from the USSR to the West could ensure the supply of fuel to the Soviet army. Imagine: filling Russian tanks directly from gas pipelines! The oil kings told me, “Go ahead, Otto, don’t mind Washington.” Say, the guys in the White House have their own business, and you and I have our own. They, like us, were convinced that political rhetoric was nonsense. And the gas pipeline across the continent is, if you like, a tool that ties us not only to Soviet supplies, but, on the contrary,
The possibility that the Soviet Union might suddenly stop deliveries was not taken seriously by the West German side, since Moscow had its own reasons for “not turning off the tap”: energy exports ensured the inflow of foreign currency into the USSR budget, in addition, stopping gas transportation through the pipeline would turn a multibillion-dollar project into a pile of scrap metal and would affect not only West Germany, but also France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, as well as Sweden and Switzerland.
In April 1981, Reagan lifted his predecessor’s unsuccessful sanctions, but the Soviets never returned to American wheat. However, Reagan did not abandon the policy of economic pressure on the “evil empire.” The danger of losing the European energy market prompted the US government to take decisive new steps. The formal reason for the introduction of new sanctions was the harsh suppression in Soviet-controlled Poland of the opposition movement led by the Solidarity trade union.
The leaders of the USSR perfectly understood the interest of Western European countries in Soviet energy resources. During a meeting with the leader of the FRG G. Schmidt in 1981, L.I. Brezhnev frankly stated:
“We know that the growth of economic ties between our states does not meet with an enthusiastic reception everywhere. The FRG is under pressure, intimidated by some kind of dependence on the supply of Soviet energy raw materials, some minerals. At the same time, they are dissuaded from supplying equipment to the USSR in the hope of hindering the development of our industry. What can be said about this? There are attempts to revive the Cold War methods in international economic relations. We do not impose our oil and gas on anyone. We have the ability to manufacture equipment that is not inferior to Western models. But we are not supporters of autarky, we are against artificial barriers in the international division of labor. Profitable or unprofitable – this is what business people have been guided by since ancient times. This should still be the only normal criterion.”
The chancellor replied: “As for attempts to put pressure on us, to force us to curtail economic ties with the Soviet Union and with the socialist countries, this is a waste of time. That’s not why we entered into a 25-year agreement. As Federal Chancellor, I declare to you with full responsibility, Mr. Secretary General, that we will not allow anyone to interfere in our trade and economic relations. So it was, so it will continue.”
America’s strength had been sapped by nearly a decade of disaster. The country needed a breather. But it was impossible to conclude a truce at the cost of geopolitical concessions to the USSR – this would be the last straw: the position of the United States as the leader of the Western “free world” would be called into question. The allies would have rushed to look for a new patron no worse than the former allies of the USSR did in the late 80s and early 90s. It was necessary to achieve a respite by linking the forces and resources of the main enemy, the USSR, in a secondary direction.
And Brzezinski did it. It is no coincidence that until his death he proudly recalled the operation he had organized to involve the USSR in the Afghan war. This was a classic choice between two evils. The USSR could ignore American activity in Afghanistan and get an abscess on its southern borders, endangering the stability of the Central Asian republics of the Union. The USSR could send troops and get the guerrilla war that the Afghans are accustomed to fighting against foreign military contingents.
The ideological inspirer of the resistance to the Soviets on Afghan soil, the “grand master of geopolitical chess” Zbigniew Brzezinski, years later, or rather in January 1998, will say in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur that he deliberately and cunningly lured the Soviets into the Afghan “trap”. But his memoirs, especially those written in the early days after the Soviet invasion, make it clear that while Brzezinski was determined to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert operations, he was at the same time very worried about the possibility that the Soviets would gain the upper hand. Recounting this, Steve Coll, author of the American bestselling book Ghost wars, writes in his book that “There is not a hint of satisfaction in these early memos that the Soviets fell for some kind of Afghan lure.”
As Coll further notes, from the very first hours after telegrams from the US embassy in Kabul confirmed the beginning of the Soviet invasion, Zbigniew Brzezinski, considered the most determined “hawk” under the Jimmy Carter administration, began to worry about whether this time they had overdone their undercover games with the Soviets? Nor were Brzezinski and his colleagues aware of the KGB’s fears of a CIA plot. In particular, the chairman of the KGB of the USSR Yu. Andropov, although he expressed some doubts hinting at ambiguity about the outcome of the operation, nevertheless, in the end, supported the decision of the narrow Areopagus of gerontocrats to invade Afghanistan in December 1979.
At first, Brzezinski interpreted the fact of “communist aggression” as a desperate act of support for the Afghan communists and as a possible subsequent throw of the Red Army towards the Persian Gulf. Going through all sorts of options for retaliatory steps, Brzezinski hoped that the Soviet Union would get stuck in the “Afghan quagmire” and be bled dry, as happened to the United States in Vietnam. At the same time, the experienced American had many fears that the Soviets would ruthlessly crush the Afghans and establish tight control over the country, as they did in 1956 and 1968 against the Hungarians and Czechs, respectively.
Following the analytical calculations of Brzezinski, US President Jimmy Carter on July 3, 1979 signed a decree on the financing of anti-communist forces in Afghanistan. Thus, Operation Cyclone was activated – the code name for the CIA program to arm the Afghan Mujahideen during the Afghan war in the period 1979-1989. This program primarily involved the participation of Pakistani intelligence (ISI) as an intermediary for the distribution of funding, supply of weapons and training of the Afghan opposition forces. According to some information, during the years of the Cyclone operation, over 100,000 Mujahideen were trained in military camps and in the course of hostilities. Cyclone became one of the CIA’s longest running and most expensive covert operations, financing of which began with 20-30 million US dollars per year and by 1987 reached the level of 630 million dollars per year. Speaking of the Cyclone, Z. Brzezinski, pleased with himself, in his 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, stated that: “We did not push the Russians to intervene, but we deliberately increased the likelihood that they would do it … The covert operation was a great idea. Its result was to lure the Soviet Union into an Afghan trap… On the day the Soviet Union officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: “Now we have a chance to give the Soviet Union their own Vietnam War.”
Diplomat Sapar Komekov, caught some indirect signals about the appearance of “victorious” notes in the mood of the opposite side, analyzing the materials on the pages of Pakistani and Afghan newspapers in the mid-80s. In addition, he daily “chewed” the American and British press in the original, professionally spoken English.
The cold-blooded Brzezinski’s calculation was based on the effect of the “Pandora’s box” in Afghanistan, and he sought to take into account all the relevant factors that could turn this “box” into an “Afghan bomb”. The fragile Afghan statehood, which united groups of various ethnic (Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara) and confessional (Shiites and Sunnis) tribes, was kept at the expense of the historically established internal political balance, which was on the verge of being violated in the event of foreign intervention.
The introduction of any (not necessarily Soviet) troops into Afghanistan would automatically initiate a civil war there and (as its element) a partisan movement directed against the invaders and their local allies. This “law” of Afghan geopolitics was learned by the British in the 19th century, by the Soviets in the 20th century, and, hopefully, by the Americans at the beginning of the new millennium. Although Z. Brzezinski’s wise recommendations of the last months of his life by the end of the second decade of the new century regarding the “Russian bear” remained unheeded in Washington.
About the author: Begench Saparovich Karaev, defended his doctorate in philosophy in April 1996 in Moscow, published several monographs and dozens of articles on the theory and methodology of political analysis, including in relation to the conditions of the traditional Central Asian society. Starting from 1997, over the next almost a decade and a half, he headed the information and analytical structure of the Foreign Ministry of Turkmenistan. From April 2004 to February 2005, he conducted research and lectures at Indiana University Bloomington (Indiana University Bloomington) as part of the targeted program Fulbright for Visiting Scholars (USA). Currently, he is a senior lecturer at the IIR of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.
To be continued…
///nCa, 27 December 2022