Aghaninstan Soviet Won

What if the Soviets won there? Say that senator that supplied stuff got arrested on drug charges(possible actually if I'm interprating some things right) and therefore no effort is made to send guns and all there. Combine this with the Soviets not torturing the locals with Spetnaz as much in OTL , and they should win.

With that, what would happen to the Cold War? Would the Soviet Union get a morale boost?
 

nastle

Banned
What if the Soviets won there? Say that senator that supplied stuff got arrested on drug charges(possible actually if I'm interprating some things right) and therefore no effort is made to send guns and all there. Combine this with the Soviets not torturing the locals with Spetnaz as much in OTL , and they should win.

With that, what would happen to the Cold War? Would the Soviet Union get a morale boost?

Soviets lost because of pushing the socialist agenda too far, poor support from local communists and not making alliances with local warlords.

Torturing has nothing to with with it, afghan bandits aka mujahideen tortured too, so did the greek/italian/yugoslav terrorists aka "resistance" in WW2 yet they are seen as heroes.

assuming they won and afghanistan is a stable communist country that means a hasty deal with Iran from the US and more support of pakistan.
My uncle always said fightig the soviets was NOT in pak army's interest but fighting the indians was, if soviets had won there pak fauj would have got MASSIVE US /NATO support and any indian support for a commuist afganistan would have certainly deprived india of western diplomatic support on kashmir
 
About the torture (and other human-rights abuses), read Kaplan's book Soldiers of God about the Afghan-Soviet War.

He recounted tales of Communist goon squads going into the villages and killing the mullahs and landowners, raping the women, and for good measure, defecating on the people's dishes.

And the local Communists liked to bugger people with broken Fanta bottles. Once the Soviets came in, they brought more sophisticated methods, ones that used electricity.

If the United States can't beat an insurgency through military means because bombing terrorists makes more terrorists, than by that logic, the local Communists and the Soviets lost because they made enemies through thuggish, heavy-handed behavior.
 
Atrocities aside, the problem seems to be during the 1970s the Soviets took their sphere of influence in Afghanistan for granted until it was too late. Hardline Communists took over from more moderate, and certainly more locally palitable Islamic Marxists and Moscow backed them without much thought.

Obviously with issues like China, Indochina and Europe is not surprising the Soviets didn't pay too much attention to in Central Asia but if you could some how see Soviet intelligence see the value of more localised socialist movements to keep a finger in the pie you might avoid much of the resistance faced.

However that is much easier said than done. Its one thing to back unorthodox socialist guerillas when they're in Central America over a government in your backyard but I see its the only way to avoid the USSR bleeding out in the mountains. That said, post-Soviet pull out the Afghan government given wiggle room held out and pushed back the Islamists through various strategies. However by the fall of Communism the rebels still had superpower backing and the government did not.

One interesting (in the Chinese sense) idea is South Asia flaring up, with a reinforced Pakistan wedged between Red Afghanistan and pro-Soviet India, could get very tricky. Throw in Iran, China, Kashmir and the Pashtun badlands and you've got quite the powder keg.
 
Perhaps a mix of them not using thug tactics, and making sure that the radical Islam elements don't get traction.
 

nastle

Banned
About the torture (and other human-rights abuses), read Kaplan's book Soldiers of God about the Afghan-Soviet War.

He recounted tales of Communist goon squads going into the villages and killing the mullahs and landowners, raping the women, and for good measure, defecating on the people's dishes.
no different than any insurgency and COIN campaign
And the local Communists liked to bugger people with broken Fanta bottles. .
thats a pashtun classic !
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=852
 
no different than any insurgency and COIN campaign

Wait... so every COIN campaign involves rape and defecation on food done by the counter-insurgents? :rolleyes: Or am I missing something?

Atrocities alienate the local population and spark backlash and support for the insurgents.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
I'm thinking of Full Metal Panic for some reason.....

In all seriousness, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, yet a major morale stabilizer in that it wouldn't show the weakness of the Red Army. Plus, we might have those mujahideen doing constant terror in the USSR, something like what happens in the Caucasus on a regular basis.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Why Phyricc? If the SU play their cards right, they can de-stabilize the terrorists quickly.
I mean the war itself. Even taking out the US help (pre-1986), the conflict was pretty bloody. The casualties would have been high regardless of the outcome.
 
Without US help, I doubt they could've done anything against Soviet attack helicopters for example, unless there is another source of MANPADs for them.
 
Mil-24s won't be able to do much about mujahideen ambushes of Soviet supply convoys. IIRC, that's where the bulk of casualties was accrued.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Without US help, I doubt they could've done anything against Soviet attack helicopters for example, unless there is another source of MANPADs for them.
You seem to be misunderstanding me. Even before the US aid the Red Army had a large casualty number. Even if we assume the Soviets did not have a single casualty after 1986, the losses would still be enough to make it a Pyrrhic victory.

Mil-24s won't be able to do much about mujahideen ambushes of Soviet supply convoys. IIRC, that's where the bulk of casualties was accrued.
Exactly. The main role of the Stingers was to destroy the last trump card of the Soviets, making them think of withdrawing.
 
If the United States can't beat an insurgency through military means because bombing terrorists makes more terrorists, than by that logic, the local Communists and the Soviets lost because they made enemies through thuggish, heavy-handed behavior.
Terrorists these days can get their hands on better weapons than the mujahideen could back then.

The whole thing would end up being a white elephant though.
 
About the torture (and other human-rights abuses), read Kaplan's book Soldiers of God about the Afghan-Soviet War.

He recounted tales of Communist goon squads going into the villages and killing the mullahs and landowners, raping the women, and for good measure, defecating on the people's dishes.

And the local Communists liked to bugger people with broken Fanta bottles. Once the Soviets came in, they brought more sophisticated methods, ones that used electricity.

If the United States can't beat an insurgency through military means because bombing terrorists makes more terrorists, than by that logic, the local Communists and the Soviets lost because they made enemies through thuggish, heavy-handed behavior.

I thought it was the Mujahideen going around raping women to no end? :confused:
 
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