Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

Examples of Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the following topics:

• The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

• A Grinding War Against Iran

  • The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran refers to the Allied invasion of Iran during World War II by Soviet and British armed forces.
  • The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran refers to the Allied invasion of Iran during World War II by Soviet and British armed forces.
  • Following Germany's invasion of the USSR in June of 1941, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union became allies.
  • Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, this Iran's pro-Axis lean was used as a cause for the British and Soviet invasion.
  • On December 12, 1945, after weeks of violent clashes, a Soviet-backed separatist People's Republic of Azerbaijan was founded.

• The Defense Buildup and the "Evil Empire"

  • Reagan initiated a large build-up of the American military with the intention of defeating the Soviet Union in an arms race.
  • Reagan escalated the Cold War during his presidency, accelerating a reversal from the policy of détente which began in 1979 following the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
  • In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) deployment of the Pershing missile in West Germany.
  • Reagan deployed the CIA's Special Activities Division to Afghanistan and Pakistan, who were instrumental in training, equipping and leading Mujaheddin forces against the Soviet Army.
  • President Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, though the US funded armaments introduced then would later pose a threat to US troops in the 2000s war in Afghanistan.

• The Cold War and Containment

  • A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam.
  • Although President Dwight Eisenhower (1953–61) toyed with the rival doctrine of rollback, he refused to intervene in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.
  • President Richard Nixon (1969–74), working with his top advisor Henry Kissinger, rejected containment in favor of friendly relations with the Soviet Union and China; this détente, or relaxation of tensions, involved expanded trade and cultural contacts.
  • President Jimmy Carter (1976–81) emphasized human rights rather than anti-communism, but dropped détente and returned to containment when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
  • President Ronald Reagan (1981–89), denouncing the Soviet state as an "evil empire", escalated the Cold War and promoted rollback in Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

• September 1, 1939

  • The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, was a joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Free City of Danzig, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent, that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe.
  • The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty.
  • The Soviet Red Army's invasion of Eastern Poland on 17 September, in accordance with a secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, rendered the Polish plan of defence obsolete.
  • On 6 October, following the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet forces gained full control over Poland.
  • The Soviet Union incorporated its newly acquired areas into its constituent Belarusian and Ukrainian republics, and immediately started a campaign of sovietization.

• Foreign Policies

  • Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union, reached an agreement on the treaty in 1979 despite opposition in Congress to its ratification, as many thought it weakened U.S. defenses.
  • Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan late in 1979, however, Carter withdrew the treaty from consideration by Congress and the treaty was never ratified (though it was signed by both Carter and Brezhnev).
  • Carter insisted that what he termed "Soviet aggression" in Afghanistan could not be viewed as an isolated event of limited geographical importance but had to be contested as a potential threat to U.S. influence in the Persian Gulf region.
  • He terminated the Soviet Wheat Deal in January 1980, which was intended to establish trade with the Soviet Union and lessen Cold War tensions.
  • The United States, via the CIA, purchased all of Israel's captured Soviet weapons clandestinely and then funneled the weapons to the Mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan.

• Détente and Human Rights

  • The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1971, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War.
  • The SALT II pact of the late 1970s built on the work of the SALT I talks, ensuring further reduction in arms by the Soviets and by the US .
  • The Soviet Constitution directly violated the declaration of Human Rights from the United Nations, and this issue became a prominent point of dissonance between the United States and the Soviet Union.
  • Détente ended after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which led to America's boycott in the 1980s Olympics in Moscow .
  • After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, many countries boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games, held in Moscow.

• The End of the Cold War

  • By the later years of the Cold War, Moscow had built a military that consumed as much as 25% of the Soviet Union's gross national product at the expense of consumer goods and investment in civilian sectors.
  • However, the size of the Soviet armed forces was not necessarily the result of a simple action-reaction arms race with the United States.
  • Instead, Soviet spending on the arms race and other Cold War commitments can be understood as both a cause and effect of the deep-seated structural problems in the Soviet system, which accumulated at least a decade of economic stagnation during the Brezhnev years.
  • (Petroleum exports made up around 60% of the Soviet Union's total export earnings.)
  • In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan.

• "The Hour of Maximum Danger"

  • Some of the most notable events that stemmed from tenets of JFK's foreign policy initiatives in regard to containing the threat of communism were the Kennedy Doctrine, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
  • In this policy, Kennedy voiced support for the containment of Communism, the reversal of Communist progress in the Western Hemisphere, and sought to prevent the spread of communism and Soviet influence in Latin America following the Cuban revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in the 1950s.
  • On April 17, 1961, Kennedy ordered what became known as the "Bay of Pigs Invasion:" 1,500 U.S.
  • In July 1963, Kennedy sent Averell Harriman to Moscow to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets.
  • It quickly became clear that a comprehensive test ban would not be implemented, due largely to the reluctance of the Soviets to allow inspections that would verify compliance.

• The War on Terrorism

  • The origins of al-Qaeda as a network inspiring terrorism around the world and training operatives can be traced to the Soviet war in Afghanistan (December 1979–February 1989).
  • The United States supported the Islamist mujahadeen guerillas against the military forces of the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
  • Bush delivered an ultimatum to the Taliban government of Afghanistan to turn over Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders operating in the country or face attack.
  • Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, fell by mid-November.
  • The remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants fell back to the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, mainly Tora Bora.