WI: Warsaw Pact Troops in Afghanistan

What if it was not only Soviet troops who were sent to Afghanistan, but also troops from all over Eastern Europe?
 
What if it was not only Soviet troops who were sent to Afghanistan, but also troops from all over Eastern Europe?

1st, the question which needs to be answered is why do the other Warsaw Pact nations become involved? Remember that the Pact's only joint action was the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Additionally, the treaty that permitted the Afghan government to call on Soviet troops for support was with the government of the USSR, not with the Warsaw Pact. There was no role for or need for troops from other East-European nations in Afghanistan.
 
What if it was not only Soviet troops who were sent to Afghanistan, but also troops from all over Eastern Europe?
After losses communist regime will fell even faster. Somtimes shortly after Andropov/ Chernenko deaths.
 
Weren't there some claims of at least some Special Forces troops from the Warsaw Pact active in Afghanistan?

I thought I'd read that too. And on a daffier note, I remember reading about a Soviet claim back then that a pair of American SF troopers were running around Afghanistan like modern Lawrences of Arabia (their exact words, IIRC) and stirring up the locals against them...
 
I thought I'd read that too. And on a daffier note, I remember reading about a Soviet claim back then that a pair of American SF troopers were running around Afghanistan like modern Lawrences of Arabia (their exact words, IIRC) and stirring up the locals against them...
One was called John. John... something with R.
 
I don't think it's true the '68 invasion of Czechoslovakia was the only joint action; I distinctly recall reading that the Polish soldiers involved in that invasion felt it was payback for when Poland had been invaded by coalition troops including Czechs sometime in the 1950s. That earlier intervention might not have been under the label "Warsaw Pact" though.

But I have to agree the odds were against the Soviets inviting, let alone pressuring, their Eastern European "fraternal nations" helping them out in Afghanistan. Early on, the Soviet intervention looked like an easy adventure and no one thought it would turn into an attritional meatgrinder. By the time it did, the "fraternal" regimes would have been very leery of being drawn in, and the Soviet leadership was well aware of how weak their grip on Eastern Europe had gotten, so the appeal of diluting Russian losses by sacrificing some Eastern European troops instead was more than offset by the danger of this being the straw breaking an overburdened and very cranky camel's back.

So, the legalistic arguments upthread have weight mainly because both Moscow and the European regimes would want excuses to leave them out of it.

If Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe had been stronger I daresay they'd have "persuaded" their "allied" neighbors to "volunteer" to help out the cause of progress and enlightenment in Central Asia, pacts and treaties be damned. There might have been a new treaty, or a simple invocation of socialist solidarity, whatever.

Then again, I'm not aware of Eastern Europeans being much involved in the Korean or Vietnam wars, though Russians certainly were, not just as suppliers of arms but in uniforms on the spot, notably as interceptor pilots. I think I might have read about some East Germans roaming around Laos at some point, but by and large the Russians left their Eastern European allies out of their adventures outside of Europe, I think, even when they were strong.

Afghanistan might have been different because first of all it was on the Soviet border, and second because they were losing. But both those considerations are a double-edged sword too unless the Soviets had had genuine allies in Europe, and while I think the Soviet hegemony was a bit more nuanced than simple conquest, involving supporting native factions that otherwise would not have been able to take or hold power and a certain ambiguity about just how bad it was for the "satellites," as we called them in the West, on the whole it's fair to simplify it to "the Russians were unwelcome conquerors" and it would take a massively different timeline for it to evolve to something more genuinely fraternal.

So I'd think a timeline where Soviet Russians would be tempted to consider inviting in some Czechs or Poles or East Germans would also be one where they could win handily in Afghanistan without this help, because it would involve a stronger and richer, more confident Soviet Union.
 
Originally posted by Shevek23
I distinctly recall reading that the Polish soldiers involved in that invasion felt it was payback for when Poland had been invaded by coalition troops including Czechs sometime in the 1950s.

I do not recall any military intervention in Poland in 1950s, with Czechs or without. In 1956 when stalinist rulers were being forced out of power in Poland by less oppressive and more nationalistic faction led by Gomułka, Soviet forces prepared to intervene but backed off after Gomułka mobilized Polish forces showing the Soviets he meant business and at the same time promised Khrushchev Poland would remain socialist. The real armed (and only with Soviet/local forces) interventions in 1953 and 1956 took place in East Germany and Hungary.

Also there was Solidarity movement active in Poland since 1980. It was much more dangerous to Soviet rule, therefore I doubt the Soviets would "ask" their European comrades to engage their forces in Afghanistan. Such units (especially Polish) would have been considered unreliable and they were much more needed at home anyway, to keep Eastern Europeans surpressed.
 
I distinctly recall reading that the Polish soldiers involved in that invasion felt it was payback for when Poland had been invaded by coalition troops including Czechs sometime in the 1950s.
Nope. Last tension between Czechoslovakia and Poland (If we don't count 1968) are dated to 1945, when armies were positioned on both side of the border and probably only Soviet involvement put stop to that. Soviets basically positioned some troops between them and push Polish and Czechoslovak representatives to the table.
There was other tensions in 80-ties. Before Jaruzelski and army declared martial law. I spoke with few former members of Czechoslovak army and they said, their units were on high military alert and some of them actually positioned on the border.

Otherwise in 1968 I heard (not sure if true) but some members of Polish army participating on invasion said, it is pity, Czechoslovaks didn't fight. in that case they would switch sides. ;)
 
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