Cold War

[fatman17]

Cold War

The Cold War began after World War Two. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold war got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In such a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. They also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other. Or they tried to make each other look foolish.

Over the years, leaders on both sides changed. Yet the Cold War continued. It was the major force in world politics for most of the second half of the twentieth century. Historians disagree about how long the Cold War lasted. A few believe it ended when the United States and the Soviet Union improved relations during the nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies. Others believe it ended when the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, or when the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991.

The United States and the Soviet Union were the only two superpowers following the Second World War. The fact that, by the 1950s, each possessed nuclear weapons and the means of delivering such weapons on their enemies, added a dangerous aspect to the Cold War. The Cold War world was separated into three groups. The United States led the West. This group included countries with democratic political systems. The Soviet Union led the East. This group included countries with communist political systems. The non-aligned group included countries that did not want to be tied to either the West or the East.

From the Western perspective, during the Second World War, the Soviet Union was an ally of the Western democracies, in their struggle against the Axis Powers of Germany, Japan and Italy. From the Soviet perspective, the Western democracies had provided material assitance to the Soviets during the Great Patriotic War, their struggle to expell the forces of Hitlerite Fascism which had invaded the Soviet Union.

As the War neared its conclusion, the future of Eastern Europe became a point of contention between the Soviet Union and its Western allies. The Soviet Union had been invaded via Eastern Europe in both the First and Second World Wars. In both conflicts, some of the nations of Eastern Europe had participated in those invasions. Both Wars had devastated the Soviet Union. An estimated twenty-five million Russians were killed during the Second World War. The Soviet Union was determined to install "friendly" regimes throughout Eastern Europe following the War. The strategic goal was to protect its European borders from future invasions. Since the Soviet Union was a communist state, the Soviet government preferred to install communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe. The Red Army was liberating the nations of Eastern Europe and therefore, the Soviet Union was in a position to influence the type of governments that would emerge following the War.

The Soviets believed that they had an agreement with the western democracies that made Eastern Europe a Soviet sphere of influence, i.e. the Soviet Union would have dominant influence in that region. In 1945 Joseph Stalin pronounced that any freely elected governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European states would be anti-Soviet and he refused to allow this. In March 1946 Winston Churchill referred to an iron curtain descending across the continent. The cold war began because of this struggle for control of the politics of these nations. By 1948, pro-Soviet regimes were in power in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.

The Western democracies, led by the United States, were determined to stop the spread of communism and Soviet power. While not being able to stop the Soviets in Eastern Europe, the U.S. and Britain were determined to prevent communist regimes from achieving power in Western Europe. During the Second World War, communists parties throughout Western Europe, had gained popularity in their resistance to Nazi occupation. There was a real possibility the communist parties would be elected in both France and Italy.

Harry Truman was the first American president to fight the Cold War. Probably the most important, certainly the most forgotten, and surely the most controversial, was the decision to concentrate on the European theater, rather than the Pacific. Avoiding a two front war has long been a fundamental strategic choice. Germany during the 20th Century was bedeviled by two front wars, and the Allies gave preference to the European theater [where the Soviet Union was engaged with Germany] over the Pacific theater [where the Soviets remained at peace with Japan]. Truman was in a sense re-affirming the geographical preferences of the struggle against the Axis in his priorities in the struggle against Communism.

George Catlett Marshall was chief of staff of the United States Army from 1939 through 1945 and the principal American military architect of Allied victory. Marshall was special representative of the president to China, from 1945 until 1947. He concluded that no describable amount of American aid could save Chiang Kai Chek from the communists, and returned to Washington to propose a strategy that concentrated on Europe. Marshall retired from active service February 1947, and served as Secretary of State from 21 January 1947 until 21 January 1949.

In March 1947, President Truman asked Congress for $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey. “It must be the policy of the United States,” he argued in what became known as the Truman Doctrine, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The Truman Doctrine was a plan to give money and military aid to countries threatened by communism. The Truman Doctrine effectively stopped communists from taking control of Greece and Turkey.

And in April 1948 the Marshall Plan was announced, to provide financial and economic assistance to the nations of Western Europe. This strengthened the economies and governments of countries in western Europe, and as the economies of Western Europe improved, the popularity of communist parties declined.

The conflict came to center on the future of Germany, and the Soviet Union blockaded all surface transport into West Berlin in June 1948. In June 1948 the Soviets blocked all ways into the western part of Berlin, Germany. President Truman quickly ordered military planes to fly coal, food, and medicine to the city. The planes kept coming, sometimes landing every few minutes, for more than a year. The United States received help from Britain and France. Together, they provided almost 2.5 million tons of supplies on about 280,000 flights. Gradually there was a massive build up of an airlift of supplies into that city through until September 1949, although the blockade was officially lifted in May 1949.

The United States also led the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. NATO was a joint military group. Its purpose was to defend against Soviet forces in Europe [or, as the saying went, "to keep Russia out, America in and Germany down"]. The first members of NATO were Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States. The Soviet Union and its east European allies formed their own joint military group -- the Warsaw Pact -- six years later.

Mao’s only visit to Moscow to meet Stalin, which he made following the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949, culminated in the proclamation of a Sino-Soviet alliance in February 1950. The alliance peaked during the Korean War as China intervened for almost three years on behalf of North Korea. Declassified documents show the initiative for the North attacking the South came not from Stalin but from Kim Il Sung, who pleaded with Moscow unsuccessfully in 1947 and 1949 for permission to attack. The attack came only after the North Korean dictator received permission from both Mao and Stalin to attack, essentially daring the Soviets or the Chinese to appear weak.

The passing in 1953 of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave the new American president, Dwight Eisenhower, a chance to deal with new Soviet leaders. In July 1955 Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin met in Geneva, Switzerland. The leaders of Britain and France also attended. Eisenhower proposed that the Americans and Soviets agree to let their military bases be inspected by air by the other side. The Soviets later rejected the proposal. Yet the meeting in Geneva was not considered a failure. After all, the leaders of the world's most powerful nations had shaken hands.

Cold War tensions increased, then eased, then increased again over the years. The changes came as both sides actively tried to influence political and economic developments around the world. For example, the Soviet Union provided military, economic, and technical aid to communist governments in Asia. The United States then helped eight Asian nations fight communism by establishing the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. In the middle 1950s, the United States began sending military advisers to help South Vietnam defend itself against communist North Vietnam. That aid would later expand into a long period of American involvement in Vietnam.

The Cold War also affected the middle east. In the 1950s, both east and west offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. The west canceled its offer, however, after Egypt bought weapons from the communist government of Czechoslovakia. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser then seized control of the company that operated the Suez Canal. A few months later, Israel invaded Egypt. France and Britain joined the invasion. For once, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a major issue. Both supported a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. The Suez Crisis was a political victory for the Soviets. When the Soviet Union supported Egypt, it gained new friends in the arab world.

In 1959 Cold War tensions eased a little. The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khruschchev, visited Dwight Eisenhower at his holiday home near Washington. The meeting was very friendly. But the next year, relations got worse again. An American military plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Eisenhower admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years. In a speech at the United Nations, Khruschchev got so angry that he took off his shoe and beat it on a table.

John Kennedy followed Eisenhower as president in 1961. During his early days in office, Cuban exiles invaded Cuba. They wanted to oust the communist government of Fidel Castro. The exiles had been trained by America's Central Intelligence Agency. The United States failed to send military planes to protect them during the invasion. As a result, their mission failed.

In Europe, tens of thousands of East Germans had fled to the west. East Germany's communist government decided to stop them. It built a wall separating the eastern and western parts of the city of Berlin. Guards shot at anyone who tried to flee by climbing over.

During Kennedy's second year in office, American intelligence reports discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba. The Soviet Union denied they were there. American photographs proved they were. The Cuban Missile Crisis easily could have resulted in a nuclear war. But it ended after a week. Khruschchev agreed to remove the missiles if the United States agreed not to interfere in Cuba.

Some progress was made in easing Cold War tensions when Kennedy was president. In 1963, the two sides reached a major arms control agreement. They agreed to ban tests of nuclear weapons above ground, under water, and in space. They also established a direct telephone line between the white house and the kremlin. Relations between east and west also improved when Richard Nixon was president. He and Leonid Brezhnev met several times. They reached several arms control agreements. One reduced the number of missiles used to shoot down enemy nuclear weapons. It also banned the testing and deployment of long-distance missiles for five years.

When communists were pressing for joint action in 1963, what it had meant was Soviet commitment to the policy of all-out anti-US struggle long demanded by the Chinese; in the context of that time, a call for joint action was a definite anti-Soviet and pro-Chinese move. However by early 1965 the Soviets and the Chinese had both changed their positions. With the new Soviet leadership's decision to go ahead with Khrushchev's plan for a preparatory meeting of Communist parties in Moscow in March 1965, an old issue suddenly became a major point in the Sino-Soviet dispute in 1965 and 1966 -- the matter of joint action of the international Coinmunist movement against imperialism. In a major break with Khrushchev policy, the new Soviet leaders were now trying to reassert their influence with the North Vietnamese, to which end they began to provide substantial military and political support in the war against the US;. the joint action line on Vietnam now served their purposes for several reasons. As Soviet policy under Brezhnev and Kosygin gradually began to meet Communist China's earlier demand for anti-imperialist action, at least in Vietnam, Mao Tse-tung reacted by adopting an even more extreme position. He was unwilling to cooperate with the "modern revisionists" or to admit that they were in fact opposing "imperialism" in Vietnam; there could be no joint action with the USSR on Vietnam, or anything else. As the subject of joint action in Vietnam became more and more a matter of debate in the world Communist movement,

A major change in the cold war took place in 1985. That is when Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev held four meetings with President Ronald Reagan. He withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan. And he signed an agreement with the United States to destroy all intermediate range nuclear force [INF] missiles and short-range [SRINF] missiles.

By 1989 there was widespread unrest in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev did not intervene as these countries cut their ties with the Soviet Union. In less than a year, East and West Germany became one nation again. A few months after that, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.

November 9, 1989, will be remembered as one of the great moments of German history. On that day, the dreadful Berlin Wall, which for twenty-eight years had been the symbol of German division, cutting through the heart of the old capital city, was unexpectedly opened by GDR border police. In joyful disbelief, Germans from both sides climbed up on the Wall, which had been called "the ugliest edifice in the world." They embraced each other and sang and danced in the streets. Some began chiseling away chips of the Wall as if to have a personal hand in tearing it down, or at least to carry away a piece of German history. On December 22, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was opened for pedestrian traffic.

Perhaps the most central conflict of the Cold War, probably the defining conflict, was the division of Germany. Thus, arguably, 09 November 1989 marked the end of the Cold War, as it marked the effective end of the division of Germany between east and west.

The DoD Cold War Recognition Certificate was approved for service during the "Cold War era" from 02 September 1945 to 26 December 1991. By this account, after 45 years of protracted conflict and constant tension, the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is, upon reflection, a rather tendentious reading of history, since it takes the central conflict of the Cold War to have been the struggle between the two competing social systems, which could only end with one or the other being consigned to the ash heap of history.

President Bush presented the Medal of Freedom award to former President Ronald Reagan at a ceremony in the East Room on January 13, 1993. President Bush said that Rreagan " ... helped make ours not only a safer but far better world in which to live. And you yourself said it best. In fact, you saw it coming. We recall your stirring words to the British Parliament. Here were the words: ``the march of freedom and democracy . . . will leave Marxist-Leninism on the ashheap of history.'' Few people believe more in liberty's inevitable triumph than Ronald Reagan. None, none was more a prophet in his time. Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military; not only that, he restored its morale."

Resources
Cold War History
Cold War Timeline
Cold War Bibilography
Cold War Glossary

Cold War: When Did It Start? Why Did It Start? Vito V. Mannino; Albert L. St Clair (Faculty Advisor) Air Command and Staff College 1999 -- The undeclared war between America and Russia that would span a century began with the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Web Sites
Atomic Audit: What the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Really Cost
An Ongoing study by The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project
Swords of Armageddon
Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)
Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) Bulletins
Cold War Policies 1945-1991
Cold War Hot Links
Cold War Studies - Redstone Arsenal's role in the Cold War.
COLD WAR: A CNN television history CNN's landmark documentary series in this award-winning Web site.
Documents
Coming in from the Cold Military Heritage in the Cold War
Report on the Department of Defense Legacy Cold War Project

 

[ice_man]

Spy swap brings swift end to diplomatic problem


WASHINGTON – With the conclusion of the biggest spy swap since the Cold War, the U.S. has defused a thorny diplomatic problem quickly and cleanly — and avoided damaging recent efforts to improve relations with Russia. And Moscow has escaped further embarrassment over a group of spies that over the years apparently had little if any success in ferreting out any useful secrets.

The 10 sleeper agents, who blended into American communities before being arrested two weeks ago, were back on Russian soil Saturday, a day after they were exchanged on the tarmac of the Vienna airport for four prisoners the Russians had accused of spying for the West.

Two of the prisoners were flown to England and the other two landed aboard a chartered jetliner at Dulles International Airport outside Washington late Friday.

The whirlwind exchange, which brought back memories of the Cold War years, was the culmination of an idea hatched more than a month ago within the White House, weeks before the 10 Russian sleeper agents were arrested June 27 after it was learned several of them were preparing to leave the country.

What was known as "the illegals program" had been first brought to the White House's attention in February, triggering weeks of meetings about how and when to proceed and what to do with the spies once they were apprehended, according to two White House officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

On a Friday afternoon, June 11, President Barack Obama was briefed in a meeting in the Oval Office. Among the issues discussed was how the matter could be brought to a swift conclusion so as not to complicate the president's efforts to "reset" improved relations with Russia. The possibility of a spy swap was raised during the meeting, said one of the officials.

While the arrests were not planned to facilitate such a trade, a swap appeared to have the most benefit to the United States. Little could be gained from locking up the Russian agents for years since they long had been under surveillance and appeared never to have obtained any U.S. secrets.

The president approved the swap. Still, the matter was never brought up when Obama hosted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the White House on June 24, three days before the Russian agents were arrested.

Soon thereafter, CIA Director Leon Panetta provided Russia's spy chief, Mikhail Fradkov, the names of four prisoners being held in Russia that the U.S. wanted to free, the officials said. A few days and three phone conversations later, Panetta and Fradkov agreed to the deal, the U.S. officials said.

There was a flurry of bureaucratic wrangling, but the swap would rapidly move forward.

One U.S. condition was that the deal not be accompanied by any retaliatory steps against Americans.

Both sets of prisoners would begin radically different lives.

The 10 Russian agents and their families traded ordinary but fictional American lives for the realities of modern Russia. They were flown to Moscow with no hero's welcome.

Sasha Ivanov, a businessman walking by a Moscow train station, had this assessment: "They obviously were very bad spies if they got caught. They got caught, so they should be tried."

The four Russians accused of spying for the West were sprung from dismal Russian prisons. It was unclear where any of them planned to settle.

Igor Sutyagin, a 45-year-old arms researcher was convicted of spying for the United States via an alleged CIA front in Britain, although he maintained he provided nothing that wasn't available through open sources. Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was found guilty of passing state secrets to Britain and had been sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006.

Both men got off the chartered Boeing 762-200 at an airport in southern England before the jet continued on to the United States with the other two former Russian prisoners.

Alexander Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, and Gennady Vasilenko, a former KGB officer, flew to the United States. Zaporozhsky had faced an 18-year prison sentence for espionage on behalf of the United States. Vasilenko was sentenced to three years in prison for illegal weapons possession and resistance to authority.

All four signed confessions as a condition of their release, although the United States has not acknowledged the espionage charges.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the speed of the swap agreement reflects an improvement of U.S.-Russia relations. "It was done a lot more quickly than ever before," he said, alluding to Cold War-era spy swaps.

___

Associated Press writers Veronika Oleskyn, Vanessa Gera and George Jahn in Vienna; Jim Heintz, Khristina Narizhnaya and David Nowak in Moscow; Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London, and Robert Burns, Kimberly Dozier, Pete Yost, Matt Lee and Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.

 

[Ahmad]

i dont know what russia got from this deal? americans had high profile figures while russia had the spies who might not have done much.

by the way, this cold war has ruined countries and lives of hundreds of milions worldwide, it especially took my country away from us. such a nasty thing it was.

 

[Chogy]

Any American or citizen of the ex-USSR older than about 40 was strongly molded by the cold war... it truly defined our worldviews, and the fear of nuclear war was very real. We had civil defense drills, fallout shelters were a popular back yard addition, and we looked skyward and imagined the trails that the re-entry vehicles of the ICBM's would make prior to obliterating us.

It wasn't entirely cold, either. I don't know the numbers, but over the years it had to be many thousands dead in hundreds of separate incidents. In the late 1940's and early 1950's, guards along West and East Germany often swapped shots. I talked to an older Army veteran who confirmed "Yes I saw men go down under my M1 fire."

The defense of West Germany consumed military planning for decades, and molded the armed forces on both sides. I was part of a REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) unit that was based near the French border. Our mission was to be in place and able to conduct combat operations within 48 hours of notification. Our base had hardened, NBC-proof underground facilities, massive amounts of ordnance stashed away, simply sitting there and waiting for us. The effort and $$ that went into it was astronomical.

And sadly many other countries did suffer in many ways, either as proxies, or as targets for idealogical attack via native guerrilla movements. At one point, probably 1/2 of the countries in South America had active and violent Marxist movements. Criminal gangs also had Marxist ties or ideologies; Baader Meinhoff, etc.

When the Berlin wall fell, I was stunned. I did not expect to see the USSR dissolve in my lifetime. Ultimately it was an economic victory for the US and NATO. The Soviets simply could not compete, and ultimately decided they did not have to.

 

[SQ8]

I still wonder though, Afghanistan was responsible for the broken back of the USSR, from what I gauge t'was part of the economic drain on the Commies.
Now, about two decades later..the US is again roaming around the famed "empire killer" country. And for all the high tech gadgetry and weapons.. The Tali's refuse to go away.
Maybe its time America takes a hint and pulls out as quickly and responsibly as possible. Although America isnt losing as many men as the soviets did, the average American grunt costs a lot more to maintain than the Russian conscript of the 80's.

 

[fatman17]

I still wonder though, Afghanistan was responsible for the broken back of the USSR, from what I gauge t'was part of the economic drain on the Commies.
Now, about two decades later..the US is again roaming around the famed "empire killer" country. And for all the high tech gadgetry and weapons.. The Tali's refuse to go away.
Maybe its time America takes a hint and pulls out as quickly and responsibly as possible. Although America isnt losing as many men as the soviets did, the average American grunt costs a lot more to maintain than the Russian conscript of the 80's.

i dont think we can make that comparison - the US is a economic super-power now and during WW1, WW2. the soviets were not a economic powerhouse - their might was military only and they finally ran out of money or whatever - US may leave a/ghanistan for other reasons but it wont run out of money or their economy will not get crippled even though the have a huge deficit.

 

[nightcrawler]

i dont think we can make that comparison - the US is a economic super-power now and during WW1, WW2. the soviets were not a economic powerhouse - their might was military only and they finally ran out of money or whatever - US may leave a/ghanistan for other reasons but it wont run out of money or their economy will not get crippled even though the have a huge deficit.

I totally agree. I feel somewhat sorry for people who are of view of a poverty stricken USA.
USA will remain rich because they follow the policy

'Get out of bed unless you can make money in bed'

You know what I mean

 

[somebozo]

Soviet union collapsed under its own staunch communism which killed their industry and hence the economy while USA boomed with consumer goods and private industry

 

[gambit]

Any American or citizen of the ex-USSR older than about 40 was strongly molded by the cold war... it truly defined our worldviews, and the fear of nuclear war was very real. We had civil defense drills, fallout shelters were a popular back yard addition, and we looked skyward and imagined the trails that the re-entry vehicles of the ICBM's would make prior to obliterating us.

It wasn't entirely cold, either. I don't know the numbers, but over the years it had to be many thousands dead in hundreds of separate incidents. In the late 1940's and early 1950's, guards along West and East Germany often swapped shots. I talked to an older Army veteran who confirmed "Yes I saw men go down under my M1 fire."

The defense of West Germany consumed military planning for decades, and molded the armed forces on both sides. I was part of a REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) unit that was based near the French border. Our mission was to be in place and able to conduct combat operations within 48 hours of notification. Our base had hardened, NBC-proof underground facilities, massive amounts of ordnance stashed away, simply sitting there and waiting for us. The effort and $$ that went into it was astronomical.

And sadly many other countries did suffer in many ways, either as proxies, or as targets for idealogical attack via native guerrilla movements. At one point, probably 1/2 of the countries in South America had active and violent Marxist movements. Criminal gangs also had Marxist ties or ideologies; Baader Meinhoff, etc.

I still remember the first time I saw a functional nuclear bomb in an F-111E Victor Alert jet. It was a pair of them, actually, but the first one I saw was on the left wing and from behind. The shelter was a 'no lone zone' and each of us had to be in full view of each other at all time. I was surprised on how small and non-descriptive 'the bomb' was. I was awed but in a very subtle and admittedly world view changing way, as in: 'Here is the very thing that destroyed two cities.'

When the Berlin wall fell, I was stunned. I did not expect to see the USSR dissolve in my lifetime. Ultimately it was an economic victory for the US and NATO. The Soviets simply could not compete, and ultimately decided they did not have to.

No doubt. I used to devour science fiction. One of my (still) favorite novels was "The Mote In God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In it was a space warship named after Lenin and the military was represented by an eagle with the classic 'hammer and sickle' in its talons. The strength and longevity of the Soviet Union was never in doubt by many during the Cold War, even long into the future when man finally meet another race.

 

[SomeGuy]

I still wonder though, Afghanistan was responsible for the broken back of the USSR, from what I gauge t'was part of the economic drain on the Commies.
Now, about two decades later..the US is again roaming around the famed "empire killer" country. And for all the high tech gadgetry and weapons.. The Tali's refuse to go away.
Maybe its time America takes a hint and pulls out as quickly and responsibly as possible. Although America isnt losing as many men as the soviets did, the average American grunt costs a lot more to maintain than the Russian conscript of the 80's.

America is reaping what it sowed.

As I remember, the soviets tried to modernise Afghanistan and promote education and equal rights for women.

The militant Islamists did not like this so overthrew the Soviet backed goverment - who then requested help from the soviet allies. That's when the Russians entered.

USA backed the jihadists and people like Osama Bin Laden.

When the soviets left, America left Afghanistan to rot.

Ironic isn't it?! If the Americans never poked their noses into Afghanistan when the Russians where there then the Russians may have sorted that country out and there wouldn't be Americans dying in Afghanistan today.

 

[gambit]

America is reaping what it sowed.

As I remember, the soviets tried to modernise Afghanistan and promote education and equal rights for women.

The militant Islamists did not like this so overthrew the Soviet backed goverment - who then requested help from the soviet allies. That's when the Russians entered.

USA backed the jihadists and people like Osama Bin Laden.

When the soviets left, America left Afghanistan to rot.

Ironic isn't it?! If the Americans never poked their noses into Afghanistan when the Russians where there then the Russians may have sorted that country out and there wouldn't be Americans dying in Afghanistan today.

Aahh...So the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan with noble intentions -- to modernize the country and to liberate women -- but the US interfered. Got it.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

the fall of the USSR was the biggest victory for the US. When the berlin wall fell the German millitery chief sent a block of it to then ISI's cheif Hamid Gull as a Souvenir to mark the victory against the soviets ..!

Though I was just a kid i saw a russian transport plane coming down in flames and then blowing up with my own eyes in Parachinar during the last era of soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was shot down by the Pakistanis. Thats the most scariest thing i have ever seen. All the passengers in that plane died.

But the way US has demonised the world after the soviets just to get the juice out of many weaker counteries, can simply not be stated.Pakistan also came into the fire. The pressler amendments halted all the US aid both economic/military and enforced the embargoes which crippled the economy and specially in those times when Pakistan was bearing a burden of the Afghan Refugees.
haven't been for that the US now would not have faced the problem of trust deficit when dealing with Pakistan.And Afganistan could have become a walk in a park for them. But they acted in shortsightedness.

 

[fatman17]

the end of the cold war put a lot of novelists out of work - its just not the same anymore - tom clancy, john le carre, len deighton etc are out of work. maybe they are writing romance novels now!

 

[Ahmad]

America is reaping what it sowed.

As I remember, the soviets tried to modernise Afghanistan and promote education and equal rights for women.

The militant Islamists did not like this so overthrew the Soviet backed goverment - who then requested help from the soviet allies. That's when the Russians entered.

USA backed the jihadists and people like Osama Bin Laden.

When the soviets left, America left Afghanistan to rot.

Ironic isn't it?! If the Americans never poked their noses into Afghanistan when the Russians where there then the Russians may have sorted that country out and there wouldn't be Americans dying in Afghanistan today.

i dont think the soviets had any desire or intention to make afghanistna a better country, but they did something or might have done more if they had the chance in order to show it to the poeple that the soviets were good for them. but there is one fact that peoplle of afghanistan did make a great mistake by fighting the soviets.

 

[SomeGuy]

Aahh...So the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan with noble intentions -- to modernize the country and to liberate women -- but the US interfered. Got it.

No, their intentions weren't entirely noble.

Modernisation and socialist reforms was one aim.

They also wanted to expand their influence into central asia.

But the fact still remains that the US today is fighting that same backward ideology that it trained and supported in the 80's - and that is the irony of the whole situation.