Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan

Soviet soldiers returning from Afghanistan, 18 October 1986, in Kushka, Turkmen SSR.

After the death of Leonid Brezhnev, the political will for Soviet involvement in Afghanistan dwindled. The level of Soviet forces in the country was not adequate to achieve exhaustive military victory, and could only prevent the allied DRA from losing ground.[8]^: 238 The Soviet Union began the gradual process of withdrawal from Afghanistan by installing Muhammed Najibullah Ahmadzai as the General Secretary of the Afghan Communist Party, seeing him to be capable of ruling without serious involvement from the Soviet Union. Babrak Karmal, Najibullah's predecessor, was deemed by the Soviet leadership to be an obstacle to both military withdrawal and the diplomatic process.[7]^: 120 Although Soviet military, diplomatic and intelligence agencies were not singleminded about his appointment, Najibullah was seen as a leader that could work with the Soviet Union in order to find a negotiated settlement.[8]^: 238[7]^: 121 Mirroring shifts within the USSR itself, the Soviet effort in Afghanistan placed "a much greater emphasis on pacification through winning over rebel commanders" rather than transforming "Afghanistan along Marxist lines [,] winning over the population through economic incentives and establishing a party and government influence in the cities and countryside".[5]^: 100 As a whole, the policies the Soviet Union and their allies powers in Afghanistan pursued after the transition of power from Babrak to Najibullah were referred to as the Policy of National Reconciliation

To achieve reconciliation, the Soviet Union dedicated a serious effort to helping the Najibullah government establish relations with rebel factions, sent record packages of aid, and promised that "absolutely all of the military infrastructure would be handed over to the DRA armed forces" upon Soviet withdrawal.[5]^: 101 Najibullah achieved considerable success in reinvigorating the government security apparatus, and consolidating his power within the state. This, however, may have encouraged the Soviets to place excessive trust in Najibullah, and did not achieve the primary objective: meaningfully incorporating the opposition into Najibullah's support base. Kalinovsky writes:

Vadim Kirpichenko, deputy chief of the KGB First Directorate, later wrote that Najibullah's success in establishing more control within Kabul and some sectors of the government led them to believe that they had found a solution that could be replicated everywhere in Afghanistan: "Faith in Najibullah and in the dependability of his security organs created illusions on the part of the KGB leadership. . . . These dangerous illusions, the unwillingness to look truth in the face, delayed the withdrawal of Soviet troops by several years." (99)[5]^: 99

The Soviet-led attempts to encourage reconciliation were also complicated by mid-level military commanders, both Soviet and Afghan. While the military and political leadership of the USSR worked with the Najibullah government on raising the level of cooperation with rebel and tribal leaders, Soviet "mid-ranking officers sometimes failed to grasp the political significance of their operations" and the Afghan army had to be convinced "to stop calling the opposition "a band of killers," "mercenaries of imperialism," "skull-bashers,"'.[5]^{: 103–104} Nevertheless, some progress was achieved by Soviet intelligence agencies, military and diplomats in improving relations with rebel factions. The canonical example is the establishment of tentative collaboration with noted rebel commander and Afghan National Hero (posthumously) Ahmad Shah Massoud. Here too, however, relations were complicated by mid-level military realities, and even by Najibullah himself. Although the Soviet military leadership and diplomats had been in contact with Massoud since the early 80's, military operations against his troops, the DRA's insistence on his disarmament, and information leaks about his relations with the Soviets derailed progress towards achieving a formal ceasefire with him.[5]^{: 107, 104} Conversely, Najibullah was in ostensibly regular contact with unnamed rebel leaders "through certain channels", as Cordovez found out during his first meeting with the Afghan leader.[6]^: 239

Political reforms were enacted by the DRA government and their Soviet allies as part of the Policy of National Reconciliation. Generally, these reforms can be characterised as seeking to allow rebel factions to align with the government and state order in Afghanistan by stripping it of its Marxist-revolutionary agenda. Throughout 1987 the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was renamed the Republic of Afghanistan, participation of all political parties in government was permitted conditional on their non-violence towards each other, and Afghanistan's Islamic identity was reassumed.[5]^: 105 These political reforms were met by scepticism from rebel leaders and PDPA members alike, and were generally unproductive. Cordovez and Harrison write:

Najibullah's policy of "national reconciliation" went just far enough to antagonize hard-liners in the PDPA but not far enough to win over significant local tribal and ethnic leaders to support of his government.[6]^: 252

Within the ruling party, the Policy of National Reconciliation was criticised by those who believed it would result in the PDPA losing power over the country, while the opponents of the PDPA and the Soviet Union dismissed the efforts as propaganda. Hampered by the slow pace at which top-level policy decisions were implemented on the ground, and realising that the Policy of National Reconciliation by itself would not result in a favourable outcome, the Soviet leadership began looking for alternate ways to create the necessary degree of stability in Afghanistan for a withdrawal to be permissible.

Beginning in early 1987, Soviet faith in the Policy of National Reconciliation in the format in which it was initially conceived began to falter. While previously the preeminence of the PDPA in leadership, and the desired identity of Najibullah as the party leader was indisputable for the Soviet leadership, now the "emerging consensus in the Politburo was that the PDPA would be but one of the political forces in power after Soviet troops left. Even Vladimir Kryuchkov and Andrei Gromyko agreed that reconciliation would mean accepting that the PDPA would lose its leading position".[5]^: 116 In a personal meeting on the July 20, 1987, Gorbachev again attempted to impress on Najibullah the need to incorporate opposition leaders into the Afghan government, but this effort, like earlier, was weakened by Najibullah's biliateral conversations with Eduard Shevardnadze and Kryuchkov.[6]^: 251 Najibullah retained a strong hold over Kabul and the government apparatus[5]^: 117 – bar internal divisions within the PDPA – but was not able to incorporate the opposition into the government in any meaningful way, instead giving out "relatively powerless posts to prominent non-PDPA personalities who had until then neither supported nor opposed the government."[6]^: 252

Faced by the failure of the Policy of National Reconciliation to stabilise the country by itself, and hoping to benefit from the gradually thawing relationship with the United States, the Soviet Union pushed forward with its effort to attain a diplomatic solution that would limit Pakistani and American interference in Afghanistan. Throughout 1987, Soviet diplomats attempted to convince the United States to stop supplying the mujahideen with weaponry as soon as Soviet forces withdrew, and to reach an agreement on a power-sharing proposal that would permit the PDPA to remain a key actor in Afghan politics.[5]^: 128 Najibullah was receptive to the prior, but the Soviet Union did not manage to come to this agreement with the United States. From statements made by Secretary of State George Shultz, the Soviet leadership came under the impression that the US would cease military shipments to the mujahideen immediately after Soviet withdrawal, with the condition that the USSR "front-loaded" its withdrawal (i.e. withdrew the majority of its troops in the beginning of the process, thereby complicating redeployment).[6]^: 261 This was conveyed to the Najibullah government, managing to convince him that the Soviet-American diplomatic effort would benefit the Kabul government.

This impression made by Shultz was false – though mixed signals were sent by various US officials at and around time of the summit, Reagan could not agree to stop arms shipments immediately .[5]^: 132 In late 1987, when this US commitment was conveyed to the Soviet Union, negotiations came to a halt, but proceeded tentatively as the White House and Department of State continued to make contradictory statements on the issue. The issue dissipated when the Department of State suggested that an immediate cessation of US military aid could occur if the Soviets did the same (prior, the US had agreed to an asymmetric cessation of aid, whereby the USSR would be allowed to continue supporting Kabul).[6]^: 263 On February 8, 1988, the Soviet leadership announced a conditional date for the beginning of the military withdrawal (which the United States had insisted on for years) in an attempt to encourage the US to compromise on ceasing military shipments.[5]^: 137 This announcement failed to change the American position on shipments, and simultaneously decreased Soviet bargaining power at the negotiations.[6]^: 265 Nevertheless, Gorbachev decided that

it was desirable to withdraw within the framework of an international agreement, however flawed, rather than to proceed independently. "We weren't thinking only of Afghanistan," recalled Vadim Zagladin. "There were many processes taking place at that time. The INF agreement on missiles in Europe was particularly important, and all of these things were interconnected."[6]^: 265

This factor complicated convincing Najibullah to agree to the Geneva Accords, but he was eventually placated by Soviet promises to dramatically expand aid and assistance measures post-withdrawal.[6]^: 265 Although the USA was not bound under the Geneva Accords to cease its military aid, Pakistan (through which this aid flowed) was obligated to prevent cross-border armament flows to Afghanistan (Kalinovsky 149). On April 14, 1988 the Geneva Accords were signed between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the USSR and US acting as guarantors, stating provisions for the withdrawal of Soviet forces and mutual non-interference between Pakistan and Afghanistan.