Can the USSR win in Afghanistan

They could, I believe. There are a number of things that have to happen:

1. Obviously, the USSR needs to reform successfully, which it could under a different leadership. I once wrote a TL on the subject. The USSR can't win if it no longer exists.
2. The Afghan communists introduced a number of radical modernization reforms throughout the country that were deeply unpopular, particularly among the more traditional rural population and the established traditional power structures. The USSR needs to compel the Afghan communists to drop or mitigate the policies that were the most unpopular and perhaps introduce further reforms in a more gradualist fashion. In a society that's so deeply conservative and religious, a healthy respect for Islam and tradition is a necessity. You just can't change a society like that to a secular, atheist one overnight by force. That's just going to piss people off.
3. The regime was Stalinist in nature, i.e. extremely oppressive. If step 2 is carried out, 3 likely won't be necessary. That'll make them less unpopular.
4. "Afghanization" of the conflict ASAP. By that I mean that the strong Soviet presence should be reduced as soon as feasibly possible so the regime won't look like a puppet state and more like the legitimate government. Limit support to air support, artillery strikes, providing intelligence, spec ops, training Afghan soldiers and police and providing material and logistical aide while letting Afghan forces man the frontlines.
 
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Najibullah could have been an effective ruler of Afghanistan had he not been given such a shorty hand.

Parcham rule from the start without Khalqist insanity, then you might get some sort of insurgency like Algeria which waves after brutal tactics by Islamists alienate the population.
 
According to the deputy head of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service responsible for training and funnelling support to the Mujahidin, by the end of the 1984 campaign season the Soviet army was winning, and without American covert aid would have broken the back of the resistance and reduced them to a police problem by winter 1986 at the latest.

Preventing the financial and technological aid is the key, and that may have more to do with Washington politics than anything happening on the ground. Otherwise, 40th Army could do it. The Red Army was rather effective at brutal and drastic, on it's good days.
 
According to the deputy head of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service responsible for training and funnelling support to the Mujahidin, by the end of the 1984 campaign season the Soviet army was winning, and without American covert aid would have broken the back of the resistance and reduced them to a police problem by winter 1986 at the latest.

Preventing the financial and technological aid is the key, and that may have more to do with Washington politics than anything happening on the ground. Otherwise, 40th Army could do it. The Red Army was rather effective at brutal and drastic, on it's good days.

From the declassified CIA papers I've read, by the end of the 80s at least some of the CIA thought the Soviets had won even with their aid.

Of course, the Soviet "victory" was basically a regime that depended on their subsidies (not too much subsidy though, and certainly such subsidies weren't expensive compared to fighting the war) and was in full control of the cities and the highways while the tribal lands were basically un-occupiable (but at the same time, the tribes had been pounded so hard by the war most of the leaders had come around to the view that the Communist regime were the people to do business with so long as they were sane and didn't try to occupy the rural areas). So there'd be "communism" in the cities and "feudalism" in the countryside, and so long as everyone accepted that, Afghanistan would be stable.

Which was fine with the Soviets, since the whole point was to ensure that Afghanistan didn't become an American ally.

But the fall of the Soviet Union snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Not only were subsidies cut off, it undermined the credibility of the urban government, so the country slid into renewed civil war.

fasquardon
 
They could easily win if they went full Stalin mode on every one in the country.

If they did that how could the West stop the mass murders and or free holidays to Siberia after all the UN Security Council would be powerless with Russia’s veto.

We could not stop the Russians killing and deporting their own citizens before during and after WW2 same with the Germans before and during WW2. If there was such a hard core communist in power things most definitely would have been different.
 
They could easily win if they went full Stalin mode on every one in the country.

Seeing as part of why the Soviets invaded was to stop Amin from going full Stalin... (Not out of any tender feelings for the Afghan people, just because they didn't want Amin making a mess that would spill over into their country.) ...It's hard to see the Soviets going this way.

I suppose, theoretically, they could have won the war by ruthlessly murdering people until the people either gave up or were all dead, but it's really expensive to go that way. Especially with outside support keeping those people armed. It's not the sort of thing you want to do in the middle of an expensive cold war. Especially not when you think of yourself as being on the side of universal brotherhood.

There's really no need for them to resort to such extreme measures. With reasonable aims, willingness to cut fair deals and some understanding of Afghan culture, everything the Soviets wanted was obtainable. Heck, I'm not sure they even needed to fight the war, except of course, it's hard to justify having the army there to stop the Americans if you aren't rooting out American infiltrators.

fasquardon
 
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