How Russia’s Ukraine invasion echoes Soviet Union’s Afghanistan misadventure

The crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan have been transformed into geopolitically disconnected concerns even as there is much that connects them
Russian aggression in Ukraine serves as a critical reminder of the dangers associated both with the misuse of history and its wilful abandonment

Chayanika Saxena

Published: 3:30am, 24 May, 2022

Why you can trust SCMP

The competition for geopolitical attention is visible in our collective framing of conflicts wherein some crises appear more urgent than the others. Accordingly, the larger picture that has emerged is one of historical cherry-picking when it is crucial for us to recognise the linkages that exist between seemingly disparate conflicts.

In particular, the ongoing crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan have been transformed into geopolitically disconnected concerns even as there is much that connects them. To begin with, the Ukrainian crisis feels like a redux of the Afghan war of the 1980s.

Back then, Afghanistan had become an arena where the two superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union – came face to face. Pitting the US-backed mujahideen against Soviet troops in Afghan territory, the clash between the US and the USSR of the 1980s was a manifestation of their rivalry which, in a way, might have carried over into the present as the Ukraine conflict.

By bringing two historical rivals together once again, the Ukrainian crisis is a reminder of an unsettled ideological dispute, one that is pitting the US’ sense of exceptionalism against Russia’s feelings of revenge and trauma-based nationalism. Thus, while the moorings of the Ukrainian crisis might stretch back to the two world wars, the Soviet war in Afghanistan is not without instructive geopolitical relevance.

The war in Afghanistan, which lasted a decade, transformed what was expected to be a limited Soviet intervention into a full-fledged crisis. The Soviet invasion cost it men, material and morale while accelerating its eventual disintegration.

The Soviet intention to flex its capabilities, fresh on the heels of the US failure in Vietnam, might have partly fuelled its decision to march into Afghanistan. But in doing so, it underestimated the strength of its adversaries, particularly their will to fight, giving the Soviets their own Vietnam.

Yet despite the lessons it offered, Russia seems to have learned little from the errors of its political predecessor. Having underestimated its Ukrainian counterparts just like it did the Afghan mujahideen, the Russian army has begun resorting to ill-conceived tactics such as indiscriminate bombing. Waging a conflict that it refuses to label as war, Russia’s current “special military operation” has destroyed Ukrainian cities while sending more than 6 million people into refuge.

01:42

60 feared dead in Ukraine’s east Luhansk region after Russian air strike levels village school

It is significant to recall here that at the height of its involvement in Afghanistan, which also involved an obscene use of Soviet air power against Afghan cities, more than 1 million Afghans lost their lives while 6 million left to seek refuge in different parts of the world. Hence, expecting different outcomes when the larger Russian military templates have proven to be similar across the two conflicts amounts to wishful thinking.

Simultaneously, the Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan is providing a groundswell of moral support driving Russia’s Ukrainian ambitions. Presently, Russia’s ultranationalist stance is animated by a narrative of retribution and redemption, which seeks to restore the country to its rightful status as a power to reckon with.

It comes as no surprise that the increasing promotion of military-patriotic education among its youth is an ideological outgrowth of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire to undo the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” – the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

In this, the veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war have suddenly found themselves with a sense of purpose and solidarity in Russia’s new-found feelings of injustice and trauma. Like the veterans, the Russian state feels it has been wronged because of geopolitical circumstances which must be redressed. Consequently, the Russian annexation of Crimea in the past and its present aggression in Ukraine have come to be couched in moralising rhetoric, including the right of self-defence.

Latching onto this narrative, the Soviet-Afghan war movement has come to gain currency. Today, ultranationalist organisations are at the forefront of running summer camps that teach young people military discipline, organise youth rallies in support of the Russian military and defend the government and the military against public criticism.

Russian President Vladimir Putin poses for a photograph with veterans and others after a commemoration ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Victory Day, which marks the 76th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, in central Moscow, on May 9. Photo: Reuters

While the entities at the top today are different, it seems that the rhetoric of victimisation has come to connect the Soviet past with the Russian present. As such, the tiny voice of opposition within the movement – one that considers Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as an act of “dishonour” – does not find much resonance. In fact, Russia has criminalised public opposition to its Ukrainian operation under a newly passed law.

The Russian aggression in Ukraine serves as a critical reminder of the dangers associated both with the misuse of history and its wilful abandonment. On one level, the ghosts of the Soviet Union’s misadventure in Afghanistan continue to haunt the contemporary national psyche of Russia. On another, the persisting global tendency to view ongoing conflicts like those in Afghanistan and Ukraine in isolation from each other has created a disjointed geopolitical narrative.

Russia ‘obsessed with owning land’: Chinese scholar calls out flawed war logic

Today, the Ukrainian crisis has very nearly taken over mainstream media coverage, leaving little room for international concern over the humanitarian disaster engulfing countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria. From the disconcerting competition for global media attention to the shortage of wheat – of which Ukraine and Russia used to be major suppliers – the entanglements between conflicts are there for all to see.

In this situation, it is necessary to abandon the compartmentalised, hierarchical rendering of geopolitics in favour of a perspective that recognises it as a web of interconnected actors and actions.

Chayanika Saxena is a president graduate fellow and final year PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Her doctoral research is on the experiences of displacement among Afghan refugees in India