I'm always struck in discussions of Afghanistan of the importance of geography and demography. Soviet control of "the country" was, to my reading, limited to and predicated upon control of Kabul and the Afghan Highway 1 ring road and as the article says: "heavily loaded along the eastern corridor."

The demography I struggle with, and this is a country that I'm responsible for being knowledgeable about in my professional life!

But despite Najibullah being himself a Pashtun, Kabul is not (or at least was not) majority Pashtun, even though Afghanistan is a plurality Pashtun country. It remarks in passing that Ahmed Shah Masood, a Tajik, was a key enemy for Najibullah in event of withdrawal and that the defection of General Dostum, an Uzbek, joined and completed the siege of Kabul. The failure of the Soviet-backed government to create an ethnic coalition that worked in the absence of wider Pashtun support was part of what allowed the Pashtun-dominated Taliban to eventually in the Civil War as other ethnic factions (read: Warlords) could never coalesce around what an Afghan government would actually look like or who would lead it.

I would have preferred some discussion of how some of the Soviet agreements actually worked out in practice. Despite the pledge to stop supporting the Mujahideen, my understanding from Steve Coll's Ghost Wars is that the US was still giving huge numbers of weapons (including heavy weapons abandoned by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait after the Gulf War) to Pakistan with the understanding that they'd be shipped on to the Muj.

I was also struck by the note about the primary import of the Soviet air bridge. It's perhaps nothing revelatory, but the ability of a government to provide cheap bread is an incredibly potent tool of control. In Syria, one of the first things ISIS established in new territories were subsidized bakeries. Bread subsidies are one of the most enduring policies of government in Egypt. Bread price spikes have been attributed as one of the key causes of the outbreak of the Arab spring (the motto of which was "Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice.")

Anyways probably an oversimplification at that, but a very interesting article.

Since no one else has chimed in, I suppose I will. The most interesting thing to me about this report is the context in which it was written. The report says April 2007 — just after another push to clear insurgents, and with the U.S. public, at least, anxious to get out. Congress had even passed a deadline for us to do so, the month before. So it is a very timely analysis of what the Soviets did right that we should emulate, and if it weren't within the 20 year rule, oh there would be a lot to talk about on how we matched up.

The following quotes:

Perhaps the major lesson is that withdrawal from a counter-insurgency should not be viewed as a defeat or a chance to get rid of an unpleasant nuisance.

and

Setting an exact timetable for withdrawal, without tying the timetable to the achievement and maintenance of specific political and military conditions, is a recipe for trouble.

seem particularly on point for the debate on US withdrawal at the time.

Turning to the actual topic at hand, though, Soviet success was very much not the narrative that one heard at the time of this report on the news. I was particularly impressed by the diplomatic coups of getting an agreement that the U.S. and Pakistan would stop aiding the mujaheddin while the Soviet Union would continue aiding the DRA. That's one way to ensure stability even after withdrawal. On the other hand, they sometimes ransomed captured Soviets and paid guerrilla groups for safety during their withdrawal, which does not seem like a very good policy for stability in the country,so I can sympathize with Najibullah's objections.