Atom Heart Mother

In the course of human events, some of the most monumental developments occur in the collapse of an empire. The schism of The Church, the failure of the 1812 campaign, and the fall of the Qing dynasty all come to mind. In 1979, the Soviet Union was on its way to collapse, between the defining reigns of Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev, laid the troublesome reign of Leonid Brezhnev. Although no single event can be attributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Afghanistan goes down as a tributary. 25 years on from the coup that ended a nation, we look back at one of the most disastrous modern military campaign, alongside Vietnam, and the 2003 Iraq war.

On an otherwise normal day Kabul, Soviet soldiers dressed in Afghan uniforms flooded into the country, seizing government buildings and media outlets. Tensions were high in the build up to the invasion, after a kidnapped US ambassador was killed in a Soviet operation to rescue him, as well as various Islamist and communist insurgencies rising in the country. Brezhnev's soldiers quickly occupied urban centres, and sought to neutralise potential rebellion. But the occupation had the opposite of the intended effect. Brezhnev intended the occupation to pacify the population of Afghanistan, but it instead inspired an immense feeling of patriotism and nationalism. By 1980, nearly half the Afghan armed forces had defected or deserted, to fight in resistance groups.

The Soviet camp pushed for the invasion in order to prevent an Islamist regime emerging, especially notable is the emergence of the Taliban during the Soviet occupation, but Moscow also had economic interests, with them cancelling 90% of Afghanistan's debt.

The faliure of the invasion, however, lies in the 10 years after the initial occupation.

Retrospectively, the invasion is referred to as the bear trap, and the USSR's Vietnam. This is becuase of the incredible disregard of the Soviet authorities of the Afghan people. Thousands of civilians died during the invasion to Soviet hands, much like the Vietnamese against America. The hearts and minds of the Afghans had been lost before Brezhnev even sent a soldier over the border, with a growing divide between communist revolutionaries, and supporters of the status quo.

When the Soviets finally left, they had left two nations in shambles. One was war torn, and the other was rotting from the inside out. In just 18 months, the USSR would no longer exist. The manpower and production lost in Afghanistan was negligible to the Soviet Union, but what was painstakingly obvious through the entire campaign, was that the USSR was no longer a superpower. It's own internal struggles had crumbled the nation that stopped the biggest war machine in history.

In Afghanistan was a much starker picture. This was the first major powers intervention in the middle east since the second world war, and although it can be argued that the establishment of Israel was the tipping point for stability in the region, the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the post-Soviet world was a direct consequence of the botched occupation and withdrawal in 1989.