Gromyko: “Under no circumstances may we lose Afghanistan […] if we lose Afghanistan now and it turns against the Soviet Union, this will result in a sharp setback to our foreign policy.”
5
KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov echoed Gromyko’s sentiments, noting that, “bearing inmind that we will be labeled as an aggressor, but that in spite of that,under no circumstances can we lose Afghanistan.”
6
While the Soviets understood the importance of supplying andaiding the Afghan communists, the decision to provide military aidand invade was hard fought. The leadership was well aware of thereaction that the use of force would provoke in the West and was at
I completely support Comrade Andropov’s proposal to rule out such ameasure as the deployment of troops into Afghanistan. The army thereis unreliable. Thus our army, when it arrives in Afghanistan, will be the
all, and it will have to shoot at them. Comrade Andropov correctly notedthat indeed the situation in Afghanistan is not ripe for a revolution. Allthat we have done in recent years with such effort in terms of détente,arms reduction and much more – all that would be thrown back. Chinaof course would be given a nice present. All the non-aligned countries will be against us. In a word, serious consequences are to be expectedfrom such an action.
7
By the end of the session, on March 19, Leonid Brezhnev summarizedthat the “Politburo has correctly determined that the time is not rightfor us to become entangled in that war.”
8
However, circumstances in Afghanistan quickly deteriorated with the murder of President Tarakiby Amin in October 1979. Soviet fears of betrayal by Amin and the new Afghan leadership were heightened, and in a new twist, the question of who would succeed Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union contributedto the decision to invade Afghanistan.By late October, Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov beganadvocating military intervention. Perhaps hoping “that an energeticaction would make him shine as the successor to Brezhnev,”
9
Ustinov’s
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Wilfried Loth,
Overcoming the Cold War: A History of Détente
(New York:Palgrave, 2002), 159.
17
SOVIETINVASIONOF AFGHANISTAN
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