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National Security Archive Update, October 30, 2009 Afghanistan Deja vu? Lessons from the Soviet Experience For more information contact: Svetlana Savranskaya: 202/994-7190 http://www.nsarchive.org Washington, DC, October 30, 2009 - The debate over U.S. policy in the Afghanistan war features striking and troubling parallels with the choices faced by Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, according to Soviet documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive. The documents have sparked a series of recent articles by Rodric Braithwaite ("New Afghan Myths Bode Ill for Western Aims," October 15, 2008) in the Financial Times, Peter Beaumont ("Same Old Mistakes in Afghanistan," October 18, 2009) in the Observer, Mark Thomson ("Soviets in Afghanistan ... Obama's Deja vu?", October 19, 2009 in Time, and Victor Sebestyen ("Transcripts of Defeat," October 28, 2009) in the New York Times. The documents obtained by the National Security Archive from the Russian archives show that even if history does not repeat, it almost certainly rhymes--more than 20 years later, U.S. policy makers are encountering very similar choices and analyses as they discuss the options for prosecuting or ending the war. In terms that parallel those offered to President Obama by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Soviet military told their leaders in the mid-1980s that the war was not winnable by purely political means and that the initial analysis on the basis of which the troops were introduced did not take into account the historical and religious context of the country. Most strikingly, the Soviets complained that the top leader they helped to install lacked political legitimacy and probably would need to be replaced. Visit the National Security Archive Web site for more information: http://www.nsarchive.org
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