Did the USSR really intend to attack Pakistan?

[ChineseTiger1986]

I was comparing the ussr with the us of there time and dont tell me you belive us had more war material than ussr

Well, if the modern day USA cannot permanently occupy Iraq, then i don't see how the USSR from 1970-1980s can permanently occupy Pakistan.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

My Opinion of the Russians Has Changed Most Drastically...
Monday, Jan. 14, 1980

So saying, Carter angrily halts grain sales and postpones SALT in a series of retaliations against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan It was as though a time warp had plunged the world back into an earlier and more dangerous era. Soviet divisions had swarmed across the border of a neighboring country and turned it into a new satellite. Moscow and Washington were exchanging very angry words. Jimmy Carter accused Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev of lying, and the Soviets' TASS press agency shot back that Carter's statements were "bellicose and wicked." For Carter, the rapid series of events in Afghanistan seemed to provide a remarkable kind of revelation. Said he, sounding strikingly naive in an ABC television interview: "My opinion of the Russians has changed most drastically in the last week [more] than even in the previous 2 1/2 years before that." He added that it was "imperative" that "the leaders of the world make it clear to the Soviets that they cannot have taken this action to violate world peace ... without paying severe political consequences."
What those consequences might be was the subject of week-long strategy sessions, and then on Friday night Carter set forth his response to the bold Soviet challenge. Appearing for 13 minutes on nationwide television, he delivered the toughest speech of his presidency. Warned Carter: "Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease." He denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as "a deliberate effort by a powerful atheistic government to subjugate an independent Islamic people" and said that a "Soviet-occupied Afghanistan threatens both Iran and Pakistan and is a stepping-stone to their possible control over much of the world's oil supplies."
Carter then announced that he was sharply cutting the sale to the Soviets of two kinds of goods they desperately need: grain and advanced technology. Contracts for 17 million tons of grain, worth $2 billion, are being canceled. Soviet fishing privileges in American waters are also being severely curtailed, as are new cultural exchange programs; Carter further hinted that the U.S. might boycott this summer's Moscow Olympics. To shore up Afghanistan's neighbors, Carter said that the U.S. "along with other countries will provide military equipment, food and other assistance" to help Pakistan defend its independence.
These actions were only the latest in an escalating series of retaliatory moves. Carter officially requested the Senate to postpone any further consideration of the U.S.-Soviet treaty to limit strategic arms, once the chief symbol of superpower detente. The U.S. and nearly 50 other countries then called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to condemn the latest Soviet aggression. That meeting convened on Saturday. And the U.S. summoned Ambassador Thomas J. Watson Jr. home from Moscow for consultations. (Not even during the crisis triggered by the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was the American ambassador recalled from Moscow.)

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to the decade-long Soviet military buildup). Irritating Moscow too was the prospect that while it was not going to get most-favored-nation trading benefits from Washington, it seemed certain that Peking was going to get them. That would violate the principle of'evenhanded' treatment of the two Communist powers, which Carter had promised when he normalized relations with China.
"Taken together, these developments created an atmosphere in which the Soviets felt no particular need to be cautious. Some well-informed Soviet sources privately admit that the Kremlin had become disenchanted with the course of detente and had decided to thumb its nose at the U.S. Had Afghanistan not come along, say these Soviet insiders, something else probably would have happened to permit Moscow to demonstrate that it no longer felt restrained by détente."
Moscow's primary purpose in invading Afghanistan, most experts agree, was simply to tighten its control of that rebellious country. The tide of Islamic fervor, which had already shaken Iran, was now threatening Afghanistan. Unless it were checked, might it not also spread across the border into the Soviet Central Asian Republics and stir unrest among their substantial Islamic populations? Thus Soviet leaders probably felt that they had only two options: 1) to allow a Moscow-leaning socialist state on their border to dissolve into chaos and possibly pass into the hands of Muslim fanatics or 2) to move forcefully to take control of events. A Soviet foreign affairs analyst told TIME'S Nelan that "it was not easy for us to make this decision, but we were committed in Afghanistan from the beginning." Employing a rationale heard frequently in Washington in the 1960s to explain the growing U.S. presence in South Viet Nam, the Soviet official added: "Whether we like it or not, we have to liva up to our commitments. We can't wash our hands of them. There was no other choice." To describe this Soviet use of military force to restore hegemony over Afghanistan, the British embassy in Moscow, in a cable to London, used the strange term defensive aggression.
Besides securing a hold on Afghanistan, the Soviets may have had other reasons to launch their invasion. For one, the invasion could be part of a long-range strategy to gain influence over Pakistan, Iran and other Persian Gulf nations. Says a senior British official: "The Soviets have a vested interest in getting an influence in Iran. The prize in political, economic and military terms would be enormous. It would, place them in a position of being able to turn off the oil tap for Western consumers almost at will when the oil shortage starts to really bite later in the 1980s." It would also put them in a position of having immediate access to the gulf's rich petroleum reserves when, in the next few years, the U.S.S.R.'s domestic output of oil is expected to start falling short of its internal needs.
Beyond any specific and immediate goals, the Soviets may also have intended their invasion of Afghanistan to demonstrate to Pakistan and Iran what happens to unruly neighbors. This is a message that Moscow may be particularly interested in sending to China in an effort to restrain Peking's maneuverings both in Southeast Asia and along the 4,500-mile Sino-Soviet frontier.


For further understanding... Read More...


I guess that answers the questions

USSR has became the crazy warmonger in the late 1970s, they were also responsible for their own demise.

 

[blackops]

Well, if the modern day USA cannot permanently occupy Iraq, then i don't see how the USSR from 1970-1980s can permanently occupy Pakistan.

Well to be frank we can never know you can get ur a$$ kicked from the most un expected people such as vietnam war afghan war etc so you never know what the results could have been

 

[blackops]

USSR has became the crazy warmonger in the late 1970s, they were also responsible for their own demise.

Cant agree more they were just preparing for a war that never happend the way sovits wasted there money was utter stupidity

 

[AAtish]

USSR has became the crazy warmonger in the late 1970s, they were also responsible for their own demise.

Yes they acted just like US is acting right now.. i don't know why people want to dig out old and 'established' facts and question their credibility..

USSR was looking for 'warm waters'.. invasion of Afghanistan (pro-USSR government) was the starting point of it.. we did good in destabilising the white bear and dragging the war as long as it could.. putting enormous pressure on their already stretched economy..

 

[Desert Fox]

Did the USSR really intend to attack/invade Pakistan? Answer is NO!

The BS of the USSR invading Pakistan after Afghanistan was just spread by the US and the Pakistani dictatorship to create mass hysteria and gather support for funding the Afghan resistance against the Red Army in Afghanistan and its backed Afghan government. In reality the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to keep their government of choice in power.

 

[AAtish]

Did the USSR really intend to attack/invade Pakistan? Answer is NO!

The BS of the USSR invading Pakistan after Afghanistan was just spread by the US and the Pakistani dictatorship to create mass hysteria and gather support for funding the Afghan resistance against the Red Army in Afghanistan and its backed Afghan government. In reality the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to keep their government of choice in power.

if they wanted to government of their choice to stay.. they could h\ve given them support.. not invade it

AFGHANISTAN: The Soviets Dig In Deeper
Monday, Jan. 21, 1980

As Soviet forces fanned out to consolidate their hold on Afghanistan last week, the aftershocks of the invasion were causing tremors all over Southwest Asia. In neighboring Pakistan, which must now worry about Soviet incursions across its border in pursuit of Muslim Afghan rebels, the unsteady government of President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq appeared ready to accept emergency military aid from the U.S. and its allies. In India the stunning resurgence of Indira Gandhi, long a friend of Moscow, raised the prospect of an ominous tilt toward the Soviet Union in the subcontinent's largest country. In Iran, Ayatullah Khomeini's chaotic regime now had a Soviet threat on its eastern border as it struggled to cope with rebel autonomists and internal squabbles over what to do with the American hostages.


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They even killed the person who you think they were trying to support...

AFGHANISTAN: Steel Fist in Kabul
Monday, Jan. 07, 1980

It was the most brutal blow from the Soviet Union's steel fist since the Red Army's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In a lightning series of events last week, Afghanistan's President Hafizullah Amin was overthrown, and subsequently executed, in a ruthless coup mounted by the Soviet Union and carried out with the firepower of Soviet combat troops. In Amin's place, Moscow installed Babrak Karmal, a former Deputy Prime Minister long considered to be a Soviet protégé, but not before Russian troops were forced to fight a sporadic series of gun battles in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.

Read More...

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Leonid Brezhnev was a crazy man, this guy has even threatened to nuke China.

I don't believe that these hawks had no intention to control the access road of the Indian Ocean.

 

[Desert Fox]

if they wanted to government of their choice to stay.. they could h\ve given them support.. not invade it



They even killed the person who you think they were trying to support...

The USSR did support the communist gov of Afghanistan, but things began to get out of communist Afghan governments control so as a last resort the Afghans themselves begged the Russians to save their government from collapsing.

 

[AAtish]

The USSR did support the communist gov of Afghanistan, but things began to get out of communist Afghan governments control so as a last resort the Afghans themselves begged the Russians to save their government from collapsing.

By killing the President who was asking for help and was supportive of USSR? interesting logic!!!

 

[Pride]

I have a quick question!

IF USSR was so keen to go to Arabian sea/Indian ocean--Why did not they just ask India because India was their ally and still it?

India might be a mile away from Arabian Peninsula but I think USSR army knew the consequences of the war with Pakistan.

Was the war fought to fill the pockets of Zia and other generals?

Was the hype created to gather people?

Where are the facts, official documents?

What if we did not mess with Soviets in Afghanistan--Did not we make the U.S. most powerful nation?

Facts PLEASE!

IF USSR indeed wanted to attack us, I'd be more than happy to read FACTS.

Good that you raised these points. I raised the same few days back in other thread and then so Called Think Tank and Mods were jumping and attacking based on my nationality.

If you see history, Then USSR never attacked a country to assimilate it in to their territory. There were very strong ally of USSR like Romania, Czeckoslovakia etc. All fights of USSR happened either on border issue like China or then Cold war issues. So called Afghanistan "Attack" (?) was an invitation to USSR to intervene between current regime and rebel groups. They did like any powerful country does. They surely have intentions there to have one more country under their umbrella. All these, After Af, Pak was a case a simple justification to Pak ppl to rest their case like all leaders still do putting Kashmir on top of agenda and not Economic stability or better administration.

 

[Pride]

By killing the President who was asking for help and was supportive of USSR? interesting logic!!!

In reality, President did not invite him but their sub ordinates. Mr President, Amin killed ex President Taraki and even being a part of Communist regime he was playing dangerous game of negotiating with CIA. In Cold war, It was my way or highway. Hence Soviets killed them and made a strong communist leader as president. Question still remains same, How it was associated with Pak?

 

[ptldM3]

The fact is that they can't even crush a tiny Afghanistan.
Man, stop bellittling yourself and over glorifying your enemy!!!

How old are you and what is your education level, the garbage you spew day to day is unbelievable. Afghanistan was steamrolled, the Soviet army had full control of every town in Afghanistan. Almost all casualties the Soviet Army suffered was from ambushes or a lucky stinger/anti aircraft gun hits. The only time the 'freedom fighters' aka Taliban managed to win a fight was when they ambushed supply columns full of 18-19 year conscripts. Having family that was Spetsnaz (special forces) in Afghanistan I can tell you than profession Soviet military forces such as Spetsnaz, paratroopers ect completely annihilated much larger forces.

Yeah, but the military occupation is another matter.

Even the modern USA, which is 30-40 years more advanced than the USSR at that period, even has the troubles to stay in Iraq.

Then do you expect from a weaker and more backward USSR to be?

Wow, and where did you pull those numbers from? Your rear? You do realize that the Soviets had technology such as Supercavitation torpedoes and helmet mounted sights about 20 years before anyone else? You realize that the Soviets had robotic military vehicles in the 1930's correct? Or that the Soviets developed ion thrusters or Hall thruster back in the 1970's, even more interesting is that Lockheed Martin used Russian ion thrusters as well as Russian rocket motors. Plasma propulsion engines were also developed in the 1970's and only recently have other countries began to develop similar engines.

 

[ptldM3]

Leonid Brezhnev was a crazy man, this guy has even threatened to nuke China.

I don't believe that these hawks have no intention to control the access road of the Indian Ocean.

And the Chinese military attacking Soviet troops on Soviet soil was not crazy? There would be little reason to use nukes on China at that time since Soviet troops manhandled Chinese troops, the only casualties the Chinese troops managed to inflict was when they hid machine guns underneath their coats and opened fire on Russian border guards, even worst those border guards were not at all threatening or in any way provocative when they were shot.

 

[coffin]

Just one question weren't Soviets there to end a cold war if yes then why US interfered and why soviets killed the Afghan president.