Andrew Van Cuylenburg

Can we consider American policy in Afghanistan 197989 to have been a success?
Andrew van Cuylenburg
Published by Project GOA: 26 March 2010

van Cuylenburg, “American policy in Afghanistan 1979‐89”
Abstract  This essay will look to assess whether the current negative perception of
American policy during the Soviet‐Afghan War is justified. It will be divided into two
parts. The first part will assess the quality of American policy, irrespective of any actual
consequences. It will identify what US objectives were, how they were to be achieved,
and whether the manner of execution was appropriate. This will allow for a more
measured appreciation of American policy than one solely viewed through hindsight.
The second part of this essay will analyse the direct consequences of American policy,
both short term and long term, in order to consider whether in light of its repercussions,
both positive and negative, it can be considered a success. This essay will show that
American policy was from the outset conceptually flawed, and will conclude that, whilst
it is true that the September 11 attacks have blurred conceptions of the consequences of
US actions during the conflict, by effectively ceding direct control over the management
of the covert action, Washington was indeed guilty of lazily and negligently acquiescing
to the destabilisation and radicalisation of the region, and thus American policy must be
considered a failure

Published by Project GOA: 26 March 2010 2

Zbigniew Brzezinski ‘inspecting a Chinese‐made AK‐47 automatic rifle
at the Khyber Pass, February 1980’
(Source: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor,
19771981 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983))

Regret what?
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the
Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the
Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have
the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10
years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a
conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the
Soviet empire

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, January 19981

1 Le Nouvel Observateur Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinksi, 15‐21 January 1998,
Centre for Research on Globalisation,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
Accessed on 04/12/2009
Introduction 

The Soviet‐Afghan War between 1979 and 1989 proved to be one of the most decisive
conflicts of the Cold War. The episode unbalanced the Russian economy, contributed to
a growing wave of unrest at home and left the Soviets with their first and only major
defeat. In little over two years after the Russian withdrawal on February 15th 1989, the
Soviet Union had ceased to exist. In total, just under fourteen thousand Russian soldiers
had officially been killed in operations, with a further 469,685 wounded.2 Worse still,
over one million Afghans were dead, with roughly one and a half million injured and
anything up to six million displaced and forced into refugee camps in neighbouring
Pakistan and Iran.3 The country had been left shattered, without a meaningful
infrastructure and torn by civil war. What was left was a region rife with unrest, a
perfect breeding ground for militant and fundamentalist Islam; almost inevitably, the
Americans had played a decisive role in shaping events.
From humble origins in 1979, the US programme of assistance to the
mujahedeen – the Afghan resistance or ‘Holy Warriors’ – would grow throughout the
conflict to become the largest, and to many the most successful clandestine operation in
CIA history, with over four billion dollars in aid given by the end of the decade.4 The
‘Afghan mujahedeen were, in effect, America’s surrogate soldiers in the brutal guerrilla
war that became the Soviet Union’s Vietnam’.5 At the time, there seemed to be no doubt
that the policy had been a success.6 Since September 11th 2001 however, a vast deluge of
academic and journalistic literature has sought to re‐evaluate American policy during
the conflict in light of events that day. There is a general consensus that the CIA funded
pro‐insurgency left a negative legacy, bequeathing ‘a bevy of murderous gangs’, armed,
financed and radicalised.7 Some go further, linking the US to the formation and growth
of al‐Qaeda, and propounding that US policy in Afghanistan from 1979 was directly
responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre.8 Whilst a few within the
establishment have sought to defend American actions during the conflict as necessary
and successful in the context of the Cold War, they tend to believe that policy during the
latter stages was lacking in foresight: the almost immediate ‘abandoning’ of the Afghan
situation following the Soviet withdrawal was an egregious error for which the US has
suffered.9
The ‘prism of 9/11’ has shaped our conscious for nearly a decade, but it has
perhaps led to a raft of one‐sided and narrowly focused material.10 Whilst there is little
doubt that American policy has impacted greatly on the subsequent growth of Islamic

2 Geraint Hughes, ‘The Soviet‐Afghan War, 1978‐1989: An Overview’, Defence Studies,
8:3 (2008), p. 344
3 ibid, p. 346; Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New
York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), p. 111
4 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York:
W.W. Norton & Co, 2009), p. 37
5 George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War (New York: Grove Press, 2003), p. ix
6 On the night the Soviets left Afghanistan, Milton Bearden, CIA Station Chief in
Islamabad, sent a cable to Langley that simply read: “WE WON”. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars
(London: Penguin, 2005), p. 185
7 Fred Halliday, Two Hours that Shook the World (London: Saqi Books, 2002), p. 36
8 Johnson, Nemesis, p. 110
9 Charles C. Cogan, ‘Afghanistan: Partners in Time’, World Policy Journal, 25:3 (2008), p.
153; Milton Bearden, ‘Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires’, Foreign Affairs, 80:6 (2001)
10 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. ix; Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and
Consequences of American Empire (New York: Sphere, 2004); Johnson, Nemesis; As′ad
AbuKhalil, Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New War on Terrorism (Canada: Seven
Stories, 2002)
terrorism, the reality is more complex than a simple linear progression. In this essay, I
will attempt to redress this imbalance. This is not with any predetermined desire to
paint American policy in a better light, but with the intent of providing a fairer
assessment than it is currently afforded.
The question will be addressed in two parts. Firstly, I will analyse American
policy in detail in order to understand what its stated objectives were, and how they
were to be achieved. Throughout this section, I will look to assess this policy, focusing in
particular on the clarity of its objectives, the manner in which it was executed, and the
level of effective control held by the Americans. This will provide a strong picture of the
strengths and weaknesses of the policy, irrespective of its actual consequences, thus
allowing for a more measured consideration of American policy than that afforded
through hindsight.11
In the second section I will examine how American policy transpired throughout
the period in question, and will highlight its consequences, both short term and long
term, to see whether it can indeed be considered a success in light of later
repercussions. This part of the essay is the most pertinent with regards to the question
at hand, and as such will be afforded the greatest attention. Considering the nature of
academic debate around the consequences of American policy, it is also the most
challenging area. Importantly, I will strive to avoid attributing cause and effect loosely
and without foundation: only where it is clear American actions led to specific events, or
contributed to certain conditions within the region or indeed beyond, will a causal
relationship be highlighted.
Analysing American policy 
a. Objectives 

Following the release of former CIA Director Robert Gates’ memoirs in 1996, it is now
clear that American involvement in Afghanistan preceded the Soviet invasion by ‘almost
six months’.12 Unsure of Russian motives, the Carter administration ‘sought to reverse
the current Soviet trend and presence in Afghanistan, to demonstrate to the Pakistanis
our interest and concern about Soviet involvement, and to demonstrate to the
Pakistanis, Saudis, and others our resolve to stop the extension of Soviet influence in the
Third World’.13 Chalmers Johnson, the most vociferous proponent of ‘blowback’ – ‘the
tendency for actions to rebound and damage the initiator’ – argues that ‘the Carter
administration deliberately provoked the Soviet invasion’.14 The evidence however
points away from such an absolute statement. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National
Security Advisor, admitted in retrospect that the administration ‘knowingly increased
the probability’ that the Soviets would intervene, but they were not looking to invite an
invasion.15 In fact, there was real worry amongst senior American officials – both in the

11 The limitations of this essay prevent a detailed discussion of the ethical controversies
surrounding covert action; therefore at present the discussion will focus on the practical
and logistical side. See Abram N. Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt, Silent Warfare:
Understanding the World of Intelligence (Virginia: Brassey’s, 2002 3rd Edition), Ch. 4
12 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and
How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 146
13 ibid, p. 144; Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 44‐45
14 John Prados, ‘Notes on the CIA’s Secret War in Afghanistan’, The Journal of American
History, 89:2 (2002), p. 470; Johnson, Nemesis, p. 110; Brzezinksi interview, ibid
15 Brzezinki Interview, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
White House and in Congress – that too aggressive a policy would ‘provoke’ the Soviets
into something more far reaching than that threatened at the time.16
The invasion at the end of 1979 crystallized what had been an overly ambiguous
policy towards Afghanistan. Fears that the Soviets were looking to create a sphere of
influence in South West Asia, coupled with a desire to lock them into a long and drawn
out conflict, prompted Brzezinski to outline US objectives that would stand largely intact
for the rest of the decade: ‘Our ultimate goal is the withdrawal of Soviet troops from
Afghanistan…even if this is not attainable, we should make Soviet involvement as costly
as possible’.17 This lack of a clearly defined objective contributed to the malaise
surrounding the operation in the early part of the decade, which essentially became a
‘spoiling operation’ run almost entirely through the CIA.18 By 1985 however, and
following a huge increase in Congressional pressure, a massive escalation in funding for
the programme was codified in National Security Decision Directive 166 (NSDD 166).
Though the language in the document was necessarily watered down, in effect it ‘set
forth a new American objective in Afghanistan: to win. To push the Soviets out’.19 Thus
Brzezinski’s initial desire for a complete Soviet withdrawal had become official
American policy by 1985, and would continue as such up until the end of the conflict in
1989.
b. Executing policy 

Whilst American policy was firmly behind the idea of a Soviet defeat by the mid‐1980s,
the nature of the operation was in fact firmly established during the early stages of the
conflict, and would remain largely the same throughout the conflict. Fears that overt
support for the mujahedeen cause would provoke a Russian retaliation, coupled with
the logistical problems of having a weak US presence in Afghanistan, prompted the US to
work through the Pakistani government.20 American involvement was essentially two‐
fold: money and weapons. Levels of funding matched administration objectives
throughout, maintaining a level of roughly $60 million a year before 1984 to ‘raise the
costs of Soviet intervention’, and from then on escalating to approximately $250 million
a year in an undisguised effort to ‘win’.21 On top of this, Pakistan was also provided with
over $3 billion in aid from the Americans separate from the covert funding during the
period in question.22 The CIA shipped vast numbers of weapons to the mujahedeen,
starting with hundreds of thousands of Lee Enfield .303s, branching out to Chinese made
AK‐47s and famously culminating in the US made Stinger missile, of which well over
1,000 were – theoretically – provided to the Afghans.23 There are two important
elements to this policy that should be highlighted: firstly, decisions relating to how the
money should be spent were almost entirely at the discretion of the Pakistani
government, or more accurately, its intelligence agency, Inter‐Services Intelligence (ISI);
secondly, for every dollar provided by the American administration, the Saudi
government would match it.24

16 Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 45
17 ‘Memorandum for the Secretary of State’, January 2 1980, quoted in Coll, Ghost Wars,
p. 51
18 Coll 127
19 Gates, From the Shadows, p. 349; Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 127
20 Prados, ‘Secret War’, pp. 467‐8
21 Jones, Graveyard of Empires, p. 37; Gates, From the Shadows, p. 251 and p. 349; Coll,
Ghost Wars, p. 58
23 ibid, p. 66 and p. 11; Prados, ‘Secret War’, p. 471; see p. 20
On the first point, in practice this led to ISI ‘management’ of the covert war
through the dispersal of money and arms to the mujahedeen.25 Thus from the start the
Americans ceded effective control over their own covert campaign, allowing the
Pakistani government to shape the course of the resistance. Considering this policy
apart from its consequences, it represents an obviously flawed strategy and a poor
example of pro‐insurgency in so far as the Americans had no mechanism for ensuring
that: firstly, their objectives were met and; secondly, that the methods deployed by their
agents – the mujahedeen and the ISI – were both conducive to a successful result and
proportionate.26
With regards to Saudi Arabian involvement, there were sound reasons for the
Americans wanting to garner support from the Kingdom: firstly, as noted earlier, a clear
US administration objective was to demonstrate resolve in the region, particularly
towards Saudi Arabia; secondly, it was a financially prudent move to unburden
themselves of full economic responsibility for the action.27 However, in fostering Saudi
support, the Americans were in reality conferring legitimacy on the actions of another
interested party other than themselves. This not only further diluted their already
tenuous control over proceedings, but also allowed for the possibility of Saudi Arabia
pursuing its own, independent agenda.
American policy was therefore fundamentally flawed. This was in part due to the
need, as perceived by the administration at least, to maintain a level of deniability, so as
not to ‘provoke’ the Soviets into retaliatory action.28 Primarily however, it was due to a
lack of a clear and well‐defined objective, with a measured strategy that that would
achieve an unambiguous vision. This was to have serious consequences, both within the
region and beyond. In the next section, I will examine in detail what these consequences
were, and how and why American policy played a role in creating them. This was allow
for a proper assessment of how successful American policy actually was.
The consequences of American policy 
a. The end of the conflict and immediate consequences 

American policy during the latter stages of the conflict lacked foresight: in retrospect it
is hard to see it as anything other than negligent. Two accusations stand out: firstly, the
US was largely ambivalent, even hostile, towards a negotiated settlement; secondly, the
administration failed to act upon the obvious threat of Islamic fundamentalism,
preferring instead to turn a blind eye to the potential difficulties posed to the region,
and indeed to the world. Both point to a failing of American policy that would prove to
have significant consequences.
UN sponsored “shuttle talks” between Washington, Moscow, Kabul and
Islamabad had begun as early as 1982; they made no progress until 1988, when the
Soviet withdrawal was all but a certainty.29 Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet General
Secretary, complained ‘that the Americans didn’t seem to want to negotiate about

25 ibid; ‘CIA officers were even barred by Islamabad from crossing into Afghanistan’,
Hughes, ‘Soviet‐Afghan War’, p. 336
26 James Barry, ‘Why Covert Action can be Just’, Orbis, 37 (1993), p. 387
27 Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 44‐45; By 1990 the Saudis had contributed more than $4 billion
to the mujahedeen, though at their peak private donations were adding approximately
$25 million a month to this figure. Jones, Graveyard of Empires, p. 39; Bearden,
‘Graveyard of Empires’, p. 24
29 Hughes, ‘Soviet‐Afghan War’, p. 336
Afghanistan’, preferring to continue ‘their militaristic jihad’.30 The accepted criticism of
American policy at this time has been that the administration held up negotiations by
refusing to ‘cease arming the mujahedeen’, and indeed this holds some truth.31 However,
there are mitigating reasons for this: firstly, whilst the Soviets had internally prepared
for withdrawal as early as 1983, outwardly they had continued to aggressively fight in
Afghanistan, and their negotiating stance was similarly intransigent; secondly, the
Soviets were still flooding vast quantities of aid into Afghanistan, with no sign of a
potential slow down, so for many intelligence analysts in the CIA it would have been
almost impossible to justify scaling back American involvement.32 The most significant
failing of the peace talks however, was the failure to include the mujahedeen
themselves, therefore not binding the principle rebels to any peace agreement reached;
‘this was an omission which later had grave consequences’.33 Whereas some might argue
this was a UN failing, or would at least divide the blame equally amongst all participants
in the process, the failure represents a wider disinterestedness of American officials in
securing a stable post‐war Afghanistan.
Robert Gates, with a strong undercurrent of sarcasm, neatly sums up the
conclusion of the war in his memoirs: ‘It was a great victory. Afghanistan was at last free
of the foreign invader. Now Afghans could resume fighting among themselves – and
hardly anyone cared’.34 Indeed, it is fair to say that overall, the CIA was content to leave
Afghanistan to its own devices following the Soviet withdrawal.35 As Steve Coll puts its,
the agency believed that ‘the covert action had been all about challenging Soviet power
and aggression; it would be an error to try to convert the programme now into some
sort of reconstruction project’.36 To label this view as representative of American policy
would be misleading; the State department was at the time busy ‘wheedling’ around the
region, taking some interest in the long‐term situation on the ground.37 In truth though,
the administration was largely aloof from the realities in Central Asia, ‘their energies
instead consumed by the stunning denouement of the Cold War’.38 Both Reagan and
Bush officials ignored warnings from the Russians about the threat of Islamic
fundamentalism, discounting them as ‘a way to deflect attention from Soviet failings’.39
‘They never considered pressing Pakistani intelligence to begin shifting support away
from the Muslim Brotherhood‐connected factions and toward more friendly Afghan
leadership’, and avoided confronting President Zia, who up until his death in 1988 had
openly proclaimed that Pakistan would work to install an Islamist government in
Kabul.40 Events were quickly spiralling out of control: almost immediately after the
Soviets left, a violent civil war commenced, with mujahedeen fighting mujahedeen.41 All
this was compounded by the US continuing its supply of guns and money to the fighters,
justified by continued Soviet support for the Communist government in Kabul. This
policy of “positive symmetry” was a needless exercise in Cold War extravagance, and is
hard to fathom considering the evermore‐conspicuous decline in Soviet power.42 Robert
Gates defends the Reagan policy of continued ‘pressure’ on the Soviets as decisive in

32 Hughes, ‘Soviet‐Afghan War’, p. 336; Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 159
34 Gates, From the Shadows, p. 433
36 ibid
37 Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 173‐4
38 Bearden, ‘Graveyard of Empires’, p. 23
40 ibid, p. 168 and p. 175
41 Edgar O’Ballance, The Afghan Wars 18391992 (London: Brassey’s, 1993), p. 204
helping accelerate a conclusion.43 This however seems little more than retrospective
justification for a policy that proved to be superfluous. Considering the evidence at the
time, it is almost impossible to conclude that American policy at the end of the conflict
was anything other than a messy, irresponsible and ill thought out failure.
It should not be forgotten however, that American policy had fulfilled its primary
objectives: the war had been long and costly to the Soviets, and by the end they had
submitted to an embarrassing ‘negotiated withdrawal’, a thinly disguised defeat; by its
own standards, it had been a triumphant success. Furthermore, it seemed patently
obvious to all that the repercussions for the Soviets were more far reaching than the
Americans could have dreamed. In August, Lech Walesa ‘pushed aside’ Communism,
taking power in Poland.44 Later that month, the Hungarians decided to let East Germans
cross their border to escape.45 Finally, in early November, the Berlin Wall fell: ‘it was just
nine months after the Red Army’s humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, and the
dominoes were now falling in central and Eastern Europe’.46 More was to follow, and
Charlie Wilson, the Congressman from Texas who had played a huge part in
appropriating funds for the CIA operation, was right in thinking that the ‘Afghans had
played a decisive role in helping to trigger and hasten the collapse of the Communist
eastern bloc’.47 Aside from the enormous financial strain, the war had proven to be a
serious political liability for the Soviets, both at home and abroad. Supported by CIA
propaganda, unhappiness over the conduct of the war had grown into actual protest
inside the Soviet Union.48
Of course, Afghanistan was not the sole reason the Soviet Union collapsed:
worldwide, military overextension was costing it billions of dollars annually, and the
impact had dislocated the economy; the internal political situation had shifted
significantly, with Gorbachev signalling a dramatic altering of the Russian stance, both
domestically and internationally, with the move towards perestroika – restructuring –
and glasnost – openness – having monumental and unintended consequences for the
stability of the USSR.49 Yet the conflict did play a significant part in the breakup. Indeed,
as we have seen, high level administration figures were keen to acknowledge US
‘success’ in supporting the war right through the 1990s, despite the growing number of
terrorist atrocities directly linked to Afghanistan. For them, the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War, had been a prize worth paying for.50
Importantly, following on from 9/11, such views have become unfashionable.51 Thus it
is fair to conclude that for most, the negative consequences of American policy – defined
earlier as the decisions to both run the war through Pakistan and to foster Saudi Arabian
support – outweigh the benefits reaped. In the next section, I will look to identify these
consequences.
b. Long‐term consequences 
i. In partnership with Pakistan 

The decision by the Americans to allow the Pakistan authorities almost full control in
fighting the war meant that the US was effectively following Islamabad’s self‐destructive

44 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. 510
46 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. 510
47 ibid, pp. 510‐11
49 Gates, From the Shadows, p. 427; Hughes, ‘Soviet‐Afghan War’, p. 342
50 Gates, From the Shadows; See p.6
51 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, pp. 522‐523
and selfish agenda: this proved to be hugely destabilising for the region.52 According to
Geraint Hughes, the situation in Afghanistan presented Pakistan with both a ‘threat and
an opportunity’.53 The threat lay in a destabilized border region to the north, and the
nascent revival of Pashtun nationalism that seemed ever more ominous following the
secession of Bangladesh just a few years earlier.54 The opportunity lay in supporting the
anti‐Communist resistance, thereby creating a vacuum in the region that could
potentially be filled with a ‘pro‐Pakistani regime in Kabul’.55 Furthermore, the benefit of
cooperation with American plans was a lifting of economic sanctions and a massive
boost in military aid, both previously forfeited due to Pakistan’s less than wholesome
human rights record, and its continued nuclear weapons programme.56
Since the early 1970s, successive governments in Islamabad shifted violently
towards conservative Islam as a tool to fight off nationalistic threats to Pakistan’s
sovereign integrity.57 The construction of thousands of madrassas – religious schools
doubling as military training camps – in Pashtun areas ‘emphasized Islam over ethnic
identity’, and were the centrepiece in Pakistan’s efforts to undermine the tribal order in
the border regions and ‘empower radical Muslim extremists’.58 In the short term this
policy helped to create the perfect conditions for recruiting the most potent fighters to
face the Soviets; in the long term, it created an ungovernable and violent region perfect
for harbouring a global jihadist movement.59 Added to this, the madrassas served to
school and train ‘a generation of young Afghan males’ in the strictest fundamentalism, a
fusion of Arab and South Asian (Deobandi) Islamic doctrine that would fuel the
emergence of the Taliban, itself a product of Pakistani sponsorship.60
Using the huge quantities of money supplied by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, the ISI
constructed a ‘vast training infrastructure’ throughout the Peshawar region during the
Soviet‐Afghan conflict. The system ranged from military camps, through to training
manuals and specialised weapons courses, and was ostensibly designed to provide a
more comprehensive format for training the mujahedeen in the art of guerrilla
warfare.61 During the conflict, or more accurately, whilst the Pakistani system was
actively playing a role in achieving American policy goals, it was tolerated, even
supported by the US government. Less than ten years after the war however, the entire
network created by the ISI would be ‘routinely’ referred to by the Americans as a
“terrorist infrastructure”.62 The set up proved not to be just a temporally expedient tool

52 Johnson, Nemesis, p. 113
54 The Pashtun population is almost equally divided between Pakistan and Afghanistan,
following the creation of the Durand Line by the British in 1893. Hughes, ‘Soviet‐Afghan
War’, p. 334; Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, ‘No Sign until the Burst of Fire’,
International Security, 32:4 (2008), p. 67
56 ibid
57 Johnson and Mason, ‘Burst of Fire’, p. 70
58 Johnson and Mason, ‘Burst of Fire’, p. 71; ‘In 1971 there had been only nine hundred
madrassas in all of Pakistan. By the summer of 1988 there were about eight thousand
official religious schools and an estimated twenty‐five thousand unregistered ones’. Coll,
Ghost Wars, p. 180
59 Johnson and Mason, ‘Burst of Fire’, p. 71
60 Bearden, ‘Graveyard of Empires’, p. 26; Halliday, Two Hours, pp. 44‐45
61 Officially, Pakistan trained between sixteen‐ and eighteen thousand Afghans a year,
with approximately eighty thousand farmed through the system by the end of the war;
many more were unofficially trained, or were effectively outsourced away from the more
visible areas of ISI control towards suitable Afghan groups. Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 144‐
145; Jones, Graveyard of Empires, p. 31
for achieving a Soviet defeat, but a lasting instrument for realizing Pakistan’s regional
goals, including both the security of its northern border with Afghanistan, and in its
enduring conflict with India over Kashmir. To both ends, Pakistan purposefully utilised
the situation in Afghanistan, shaping it into an Islamic conflict rather than a nationalist
one.
In no way is this more evident than in its choice of fighters. Following its Islamist
agenda, the ISI funnelled CIA money into the more extreme, fundamentalist mujahedeen
groups. These were not the groups Washington would have selected if it had the choice,
yet despite early concerns, American officials accepted the situation as acceptable as
long as the Soviets were made to suffer.63 Formalised into a seven‐party alliance by
1984, the mujahedeen groups favoured by Pakistan controlled the entire Afghan refugee
population in Peshawar – to receive aid, all refugees had to register with one of these
organisations – and were for the most part unbridled fundamentalists: those moderate
parties that did exist were effectively marginalised by the Pakistan government.64 The
immediate repercussions affected the stability of Afghanistan itself: after the Soviet
withdrawal, the heavily financed and mercilessly focused fundamentalists plunged the
country into a civil war against the increasingly moderate Afghan government, and
eventually merged into the Taliban.65 Intertwined with this, but perhaps a more
insidious consequence from an American perspective, was the type of religious soldier
that emerged from the Pakistani system. It is perhaps overly counterintuitive to argue
that a more moderate policy would have bequeathed a correspondingly moderate army
of trained ‘warriors’, especially considering the combustible economic, political and
religious situation in the region, but it is not beyond reason to surmise that the
particularly geopolitically motivated nature of the armed and trained fighters, who
emphasised Islam over national identity and owed allegiance to Allah rather than an
earthly sovereign, may have been attenuated or even avoided.
Islamic warriors trained in Afghanistan have played a huge role in the
‘explosion’ of terrorism since the early 1990s. As part of Pakistani policy, they have been
used ‘to bleed India’ in Kashmir, fighting an insurgency lasting up until the end of the
last century.66 Partly as a consequence of Pakistani handling of the conflict, these
soldiers are also well armed, with large quantities of CIA supplied weapons having
‘found their way into the Pakistani black market’.67 The most notorious example is the
Stinger missile: only a third of the missiles provided were actually expended in combat,
and by 2001 there were still hundreds unaccounted for.68 Afghan veterans, or groups
associated with them, have been involved in a number of high profile terror attacks: the
1993 World Trade Centre bombings, several bombings of US targets in Saudi Arabia, and
the 1998 attacks outside the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar al‐Salam, are just a
few examples.69
It is important to note however, that whilst these ‘veterans’ of the Afghan
conflict were conditioned to fight in the name of Islam, the cause they ended up fighting
for was bigger than that espoused by Pakistan, itself primarily concerned with regional
security issues. Whilst the Zia government was instrumental in creating the conditions
in which a broader movement could thrive, it was only part of the equation. As Ayman

63 Prados, ‘Secret War’, p. 468; Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 68
64 Jones, Graveyard of Empires, p. 31; Prados, ‘Secret War’, p. 468
66 Chellaney estimates that ISI was routinely siphoning off ‘50% to 70% of the military
resources intended for the mujahedeen’ and using the money and weapons for its own
purposes. Brahma Chellaney, ‘Fighting Terrorism in Southern Asia: The Lessons of
History’, International Security, 26:3 (2001‐2), pp 98‐104
67 Chellaney, ‘Lesson of History’, p. 110
68 Prados, ‘Secret War’, p. 471
69 Chellaney, ‘Lessons of History’, p. 97
al‐Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s right hand man, would later recall, “a jihadist movement
needs an arena that would act like an incubator, where its seeds would grow and where
it can acquire practical experience in combat, politics and organizational matters”:
Afghanistan was that arena, but the movement came from elsewhere.70
ii. Saudi Arabia and Islamic extremism 

In negotiating a deal with Saudi Arabia, the US government found a willing partner in
the fight against Communism. The Saudis for their part were fearful of further Marxist
expansion towards the Arabian Peninsula, though they were also anxious to visibly
support an Islamist cause in order to shore up domestic support.71 Yet if the Americans
had imagined a merely passive financial arrangement, they were to be rudely shocked:
the Saudis, like the Pakistanis, were consciously fomenting Islamic extremism for their
own political ends. Whilst the additional funds brought about by the alliance would no
doubt have produced benefits for the mujahedeen, the impact of Saudi support, from an
American perspective at least, was diluted by the Kingdom’s decision to unilaterally ship
weapons and aid to its favoured mujahedeen groups, in particular its own creation,
Ittihad‐e‐Islami (Islamic Union).72
The benefits of Saudi support were therefore negligible, but the consequences
were immense and far‐reaching. Over the course of the conflict, Saudi charities, with the
full backing of the Saudi government and the acquiescence of the Pakistanis, built
hundreds of their own madrassas along the Afghan frontier, ‘where they taught young
Afghan refugees to memorise the Koran’.73 Wealthy Saudis built schools, hospitals and
roads throughout the Peshawar region, and their influence on the millions of Afghan
refugees was ‘pervasive’.74 Indeed, Saudi influence extended right up into the Pakistani
administration: the collaboration between Saudi Intelligence (GID) and the ISI had by
the time of the Soviet withdrawal transformed the latter into the most powerful
institution in the country; radical, well funded and semi‐autonomous.75 Only a few years
later, the two agencies would work closely together to bring about the rise of the
Taliban, whose leaders had been trained somewhere within the vast network of
madrassas along the border, and were funded through a mixture of private Saudi
charitable donations and GID sponsorship.76
Perhaps the most striking repercussion of Saudi Arabian involvement in the
conflict, and the most misunderstood, concerns the role of the ‘Afghan Arabs’.77 Though
never a significant force militarily during the conflict – ‘there were never more than
three thousand of these outsiders…in the war against the Soviets, and most of them
never got out of Peshawar’ – their influence was to extend far greater than their
numbers would suggest.78 Whilst many did indeed travel for genuine humanitarian
purposes, most were either thrill seekers after adventure, or miscreants shipped out
from countries across the region desperate to rid themselves of undesirables.79 The
result was an ‘explosive organisational mixture’, heavily supported by Saudi

70 Ayman al‐Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, quoted in Coll, Ghost Wars, p.
154
71 Gates, From the Shadows, p. 149; Johnson, Nemesis, p. 118
72 Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: AlQaeda’s Road to 9/11 (London: Penguin,
2006), p. 100; Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 86
78 Wright, Looming Tower, p. 105
79 Wright, Looming Tower, p. 109; Bearden, Graveyard of Empires, p. 24
Intelligence.80 The Americans were keen to allow this panArab recruitment to continue,
despite warnings from agents in the field, and despite the fact that many mujahedeen
considered the ‘Wahhabis’ a nuisance; their seeming irrelevance to the conflict itself,
and their strange obsession with death meant that the Americans largely ignored this
‘brigade of strangers’.81 Indeed, the broader the anti‐Soviet coalition the better as far as
US officials were concerned.82 Yet even after the Soviets withdrew, the Arab volunteers
stayed. They firmly established themselves within the internal dynamics of the region,
playing a destructive and divisive role in the ongoing rivalries between the remaining
mujahedeen factions. Despite the end of the Soviet occupation, they continued to receive
aid and supplies, not least from the Saudis, but crucially, as part of the strategy of
‘positive symmetry’ discussed earlier, from the CIA.83 Out of this insidious melting pot
would arise al‐Qaeda.84
It is certainly not correct to attribute the creation of al‐Qaeda to any conscious
American policy. Some commentators have gone as far as to claim that the CIA actively
supported Osama bin Laden, even building a training complex for his fledgling
organisation; there is little corroboratory evidence to support this.85 In fact, contrary to
popular belief, no contact was made between any American operative and bin Laden, at
least not in any official capacity.86 However, whilst not the product of any explicit
decision by the Americans, the formation of al‐Qaeda is certainly an indirect
consequence of American policy up to 1989: in lazily acquiescing to the radicalisation of
the region, and taking little interest in the flow of thousands of extremists into the
conflict, even indiscriminately arming them, US policy facilitated the conditions in which
an organised, well trained, well funded and inherently violent fundamentalist Islamic
group could be created and flourish.
Conclusion 

Importantly, this essay has deliberately focused on the direct consequences of American
policy during the period in question. Thus, it should be made clear that the rise of ‘the
kinds of autonomous terrorism’ associated with fundamentalist Islam is not a product of
American policy in Afghanistan.87 It is certainly an unwanted by product of
Washington’s Cold War policy of using religion to fight Soviet atheism, and whilst US
policy in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 was perhaps the most visible
manifestation of this ‘misuse of religion for political purposes’, there are other
examples.88 Similarly, whilst American policy can be blamed – indirectly at least – for the
formation of al‐Qaeda, it cannot, and should not, be credited as a direct cause of 9/11.

80 Halliday, Two Hours, p. 45; Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 201
81 Journalists covering the war labelled them a ‘curious sideshow’. Wright, Looming
Tower, p. 107; Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 155‐156
82 Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 86, pp. 155‐156 and p. 201; Wright, Looming Tower, p. 107
83 ‘Throughout 1989 the CIA pumped yet more arms, money, food, and humanitarian
supplies into the Paktia border regions where the Arabs were building up their strength.
They encouraged Prince Turki [Head of Saudi Intelligence] to do the same’. Coll, Ghost
Wars, p. 201
84 Al‐Qaeda was formed in 1988, in the Peshawar region of Pakistan. Wright, Looming
Tower, pp. 132‐133
85 Johnson, Blowback, p. xiv
86 Cogan, ‘Partners in Time’, p. 155; Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 87
87 Halliday, Two Hours, p. 37
88 The defeat of the Yemeni Socialist Party just a few years after the People’s Democratic
Party of Afghanistan fell in 1992 is one example. Halliday, Two Hours, p. 37; Chellany,
‘Lessons of History’, p. 116
Many historians have portrayed American policy during the conflict as a contributing
factor, but have rightly concentrated on the growth of the terrorist group through the
1990s in explaining the causes of the atrocity: this is a sensible and academically
thorough effort to avoid counterfactuals in an area of debate filled with emotive
subjects.89
The ‘prism of 9/11’ should therefore not disproportionately shape our
understanding of American policy between 1979 and 1989.90 Looking at the events that
engulfed the Soviet Union, there is of course some scope to suggest that American policy
was a success, at least with regards to previous Cold War encounters. The Soviets had
been defeated, and at great expense to themselves. Even when taking into consideration
the great internal upheaval that did so much to destabilise the USSR, Afghanistan played
a significant role in undermining not just its structural integrity, but perhaps as
important, its confidence.91 As we have seen though, this is far from a complete picture.
It is fair to argue that one of the reasons the covert action was deemed such a success at
the time, was because nobody really knew what success looked like: American objectives
were at best vague generalities. This in turn led to the disastrous, and irresponsible,
decision to cede direct control over the management of the insurgency to the Pakistanis.
It also led to the seemingly innocuous decision to involve Saudi Arabia in proceedings.
Both stratagems were based upon reasonable assumptions, and a certain level of
mitigation can be allowed when evaluating American reasoning; both however were
poor examples of a logical approach to covert action, and both yielded damaging, and
far‐reaching, consequences.
American policy contributed to the destruction of the infrastructure of
Afghanistan, and left the country a divided mess; it led directly to the radicalisation of
the surrounding region; it left an enduring legacy of weapons, religious schools and
military training camps in a border region deliberately wiped of its own identity; it led
to the creation of ‘a free‐floating transnational army of fighters drawing support from
Pakistan [and] the Arab world…with its base in Afghanistan’; it led to the formation of
al‐Qaeda.92 In pursuing a lazy, acquiescent and short‐sighted policy during the conflict,
the Americans were guilty of a negligent disregard for the potential consequences of
their actions. Islamic fundamentalism certainly predated the conflict in Islam, but in
allowing it to flourish unchecked, in an unstable region with a young and susceptible
population, with access to weapons and opportunities to fight, American policy should
rightly be deemed a conspicuous and far‐reaching failure.

89 Halliday, Two Hours; Wright, Looming Tower; Coll, Ghost Wars
90 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. ix
92 Halliday, Two Hours, p. 45
Bibliography 

Books
• AbuKalil, As’ad, Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New War on Terrorism (Canada:
Seven Stories, 2002)
• Coll, Steve, Ghost Wars (London: Penguin, 2005)
• Crile, George, Charlie Wilson’s War (New York: Grove Press, 2003)
• Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor,
19771981 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983)
• Gates, Robert M., From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents
and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996)
• Halliday, Fred, Two Hours that Shook the World (London: Saqi Books, 2002)
• Johnson, Chalmers, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New
York: Sphere, 2004)
• Johnson, Chalmers, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York:
Metropolitan Books, 2006)
• Jones, Seth G., In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York:
W.W. Norton & Co, 2009)
• O’Ballance, Edgar, The Afghan Wars: 18391992 (London: Brassey’s, 1993)
• Shulsky, Abram N., Schmitt, Gary J., Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of
Intelligence (Virginia: Brassey’s, 2002 3rd Edition)
• Wright, Lawrence, The Looming Tower: AlQaeda’s Road to 9/11 (London: Penguin,
2006)

Journal Articles
• Barry, James, ‘Why Covert Action can be Just’, Orbis, 37 (1993)
• Bearden, Milton, ‘Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires’, Foreign Affairs, 80:6 (2001)
• Chellaney, ‘Fighting Terrorism in Southern Asia: The Lessons of History’,
International Security, 26:3 (2001‐2)
• Cogan, Charles C., ‘Afghanistan: Partners in Time’, World Policy Journal, 25:3 (2008)
• Hughes, Geraint, ‘The Soviet‐Afghan War, 1978‐1989: An Overview’, Defence
Studies, 8:3 (2008)
• Johnson, Thomas H., Mason, M. Chris, ‘No Sign Until the Burst of Fire’, International
Security, 32:4 (2008)
• Prados, John, ‘Notes on the CIA’s Secret War in Afghanistan’, The Journal of
American History, 89:2 (2002)
Websites
• Le Nouvel Observateur Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinksi, 15‐21 January 1998,
Centre for Research on Globalisation,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html, Accessed on 04/12/2009


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