What was the main reason the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan?

Answer 1

In 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan launched a coup known as the Great Saur Revolution and took over the government.

As part of a Cold War strategy, in 1979 the United States government (under President Jimmy Carter and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski) began covertly to fund and train anti-government Mujahideen forces through the Pakistani secret service known as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). In order to bolster the local Communist forces, the Soviet Union—citing the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness that had been signed between the two countries—intervened on December 24, 1979.
So, the main reason was to bolster the local Communist forces which were then the government.

Answer 2

The Russians were convinced that by establishing themselves in Afghanistan and setting up a puppet gov't (shades of Iraq) they could eventually work their way into the middle east and influence the oil production there. Jimmy Carter countered this with the Carter Doctrine...which involved a Rapid Response Force, an entire fleet of warships and arming the Shah of Iran. How was the Shah to pay for all those arms? Ask why suddenly there was an OPEC and why the price of oil moved up from 2 dollars a barrel to 12. But that's only part of the story. We also began to arm the Afghan Resistance and eventually the Soviets were driven out. Carter gets slapped around alot by the the reactionaries of the GOP, but there was only limited choices at the time. Had Carter 'done nothing' as they charge, the Russians probably would have won the Cold War. Of course we've since made the same mistakes as the Russians, but that's the fault of the Bush Junta....and so it goes!

Answer 3

To spread communism. The irony is that in the process of interfering the USA actually set up the process to allow the Taliban take power. In those days the USA thought anything, and I mean anything, was better than communism.
Just imagine if the USA had never stuck its nose in then Afghanistan might have become a democratic republic after the dissolution of the USSR and the Tablian extremists and Bin Laden would never have been trained by the USA to reek havoc on the planet.
Of course Israel would still be a hot point but the Taliban would still be a bunch of primitive, unarmed tribesmen.

Answer 4

Soviet Answer - To answer the call for help from "popularly elected and internationally recognized president" Najibullah

Overzealous American answer - to spread communism

Logical answer - The Soviets didn't want to risk a non - communist/socialist country on their border. The whole history of Russia/Soviet Union has been invasion by her neighbors, so the Soviets didn't want to give up a buffer.

Answer 5

The people were unhappy at the money spent on the military and so Russia needed a war on the ground like any nation to justify the huge expense of maintaining an army and the loss of that labor to produce goods of value and better the society .

During the 90's the growth industry established by Reagan/Bush Bush/Quayle in the defense sector dwindled with huge cuts and base closings . Reduced budgets and government employee's forced to get real jobs .

They rallied back and elected George to once again build jobs for them in the so called private sector making bombs and weapons .

The only real hi tech jobs are building weapons systems or within the government . I remember long ago satellite conferencing equipment I installed was set up for government contractors and State governments back in the early 80's and at the time it was cutting edge along with portable phones that were the size of a loaf of bread . This was all technology used mostly by the government and paid for with tax dollars and created by so called private industry that receives its money from taxes .

Once again I claim that if you are paid in tax dollars you are not a private company and that your workers are federal and state employees just like the police , fire , teachers , and civil service workers and politicians .

As more then a third of all workers receive their pay from uncle sam you can see how politicians manipulate both the government workers and the people who must pay them .

Odds are if you are a real tax payer your position in the community is below that of the people you employ or at best a small % is equal to them .

SO the reason any government has to invade another is working to keep itself in control and provide its supporters with jobs .

The average folks have a hard life living close to poverty and paying taxes to support white Christian men and women of the upper middle class who work and support the government .
Not much different then party members in Russia back in the day .

Answer 6

Popular wisdom says to support a soviet puppet ,my personal opinion is that there was to much Afghan heroin on the streets of soviet cities ,could the profits from this be the real reason behind the taliban and is that the true fuel feeding the insurgents in Iraq .Weapons cost money who pays for the bullets.

Answer 7

after their military staged a revolt against their last king(zaher shah),the head of the revolt (a comunist) asked ussr to send in troops to stop the militias(pro democracy movement)from gaining grounds.united state started arming the opposition which eventually kicked the soviets out.same movement became taliban which turned against U.S. at the end and thats why U.S. went in to get rid of this block(taliban).under taliban some foreign fighters were let to set up training camps in afghanistan and head of these fighters became a block itself(al-gaeda) with" ossama ben laden "at the top.people of afghanistan will one day be free of taliban and al gaeda with help of multi-national forces that are stationed there now.for now their central government only can control kaboul(capital).war lords are more powerful than government and even now some of them run their own provices but in a way are backing the central government.original afghan people are not arabs but most of taliban and al gaeda are arabs who came there after soviet left.average afghani is a peace loving human who deserves to prosper and be happy and be able to provide for their family.

Answer 8

To get closer to the Gulf. The Russians have always wanted a port free of ice all year round and not capable of being blocked easily.

Answer 9

there was a contigency of Communists in control inAfghanistan they came to help..was the pretext..
the political landscape changed with the seasons back then

Jimmy Carter..actually enlisted the CIA to aid the rebels against the Soviet-Afghans..

Osama was a leader of the rebel sect..

Answer 10

They wanted to control it. Simple as that.


Back then, it was a scramble between the Soviet Union and the United States to ensure that as many countries as possible would fall under their influence.

The Soviets wanted to spread communism and the US wanted to spread democracy and capitalism.