Why did the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan?
Main reason was to get to warm water port. The strategic location of Afghanistan as a crossroads to East Wets trade was another reason, you would have a wall North to South cutting off India and Pakistan from any land based trade or support and a Russian Naval Base usable in all seasons sitting to threaten sea trade. Pakistan at that time was “friendly” to both China and Russia while Russia was arming the Indians; this put Pakistan between two “enemies” if they ever decided to try to fight India. The Russian troops there walked into a prolonged guerrilla war with forces supported by the United States. Much as the Americans were forced to fight Russian and Chinese armed guerrilla’s in Vietnam; the Russian military was not trained for fighting that type action and took heavy losses which caused morale to plummet. The Afghans have a very long history of fighting foreign invaders, the U.S. is having an easier time there because the common Afghans had not loyalty to the Taliban and, maybe m
Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan b/c they erroneously thought that the US was trying to expand its influence and power to the region. The Afghan Presdient, Taraki, had been killed in a palace shootout, in Sept 1979, and the Deputy Prime Minister Amin seized power. Amin attempted to set up diplomatic ties w/ China and Pakistan and met w/ US officials. This alarmed the USSR and felt he was not loyal to them as his predecessor, Taraki. As a result, the USSR invaded.
The answer from WOLF is so far one of the most interesting but you all forget one of the main points: HAVE ACCESS TO AN OCEAN WHICH DO NOT FREEZE IN THE WINTER !!! Look at the map further and look how close the Soviet Union would have been after having taken over Afghanistan ! So yes the idea of further revolutions and communist uprisings in the south (Iran/Afghanistan) was definitely on the plan to achieve this goal by creating further soviet republics All other Russian harbours either freeze in the winter or have a obstructed access for strategic exchange of goods or the circulation of the soviet fleet (by Denmark, Turkey, Spain, Egypt). The Soviet Empire really lacked of a free port to access all oceans all year round.
The soviets were propping up thier Communist government in Afghanistan just like we are doing with the Karzai government. The United States CIA began contacting Wahabi extremists in Saudi Arabia, who then started training and recruiting religious extremists to fight the godless Communists in Afghanistan. We trained, equipped and financed Al quieda and the Taliban. The Wahabis started schools throughout the Sunni Muslim world and taught Religious Extremism just like we wanted them to.
