Talk:Soviet–Afghan War

Afghan civilian death count includes conflicting info

The numbers in these two sentences do not agree. 11.5% of 13.5 million isn't close to 3 million. "The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Approximately 6.5% to 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people (per the 1979 census) is estimated to have been killed over the course of the conflict." Sdfoltz (talk) 17:13, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The Guardian

@Seoul1989, describing Peter Beaumont as a "columnist" is clearly misleading. Remsense ‥ 论 07:16, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Move to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan?

Most sources seem to call it "Soviet invasion of Afghanistan" (google scholar: 25,000) as opposed to "Soviet-Afghan war" (google scholar: 6,000). Remsense any thoughts? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 15:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I always thought the title being "Soviet–Afghan War" was weird. Most sources I've engaged with describe it as the "Soviet invasion of Afghanistan". Without prejudice on motivations, this was not a war between the states of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, but Soviet troops did unilaterally enter and occupy much of Afghanistan's territory on behalf of the new revolutionary government. Yue🌙 22:43, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I think you have a point. The title makes it look like the Soviets were fighting Afghanistan as a state, but in reality they were fighting alongside the DRA against the Mujahideen who were being funded by numerous foreign countries. The Afghan government, under the Khalq, made 9 requests for the Soviet Union to enter our country but this was rejected. One request even involved Taraki asking for Soviet soldiers to dress up in Afghan Army uniforms but this was also rejected. The USSR reportedly did not want to enter Afghanistan because they knew it was a bad decision, but after the death of Nur Muhammad Taraki (at the hands of Hafizullah Amin) changed their minds.

This is all according to The Great Gamble: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mj45URQ1lpIC&pg=PP5&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ovdme=1&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false AfghanParatrooper19891 (talk) 07:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Date?

The infobox has the war starting on 24 December 1979, but the text seems to indicate either 25 or 27 December - it gives both dates for Soviet troops entering Afghanistan. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:01, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

It was on 25 December 1979.

At midday on 25 December Ustinov issued the formal order to move: ‘The state frontier of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is to be crossed on the ground and in the air by forces of the 40th Army and the Air Force at 1500 hrs on 25 December (Moscow time)’. The Soviet intervention had begun.

--Jo1971 (talk) 20:18, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jo1971 Thanks - I've updated the infobox. There's still a bit of a muddled section in Soviet–Afghan War#Soviet invasion and palace coup - second paragraph has 25 December, sixth starts "Soviet ground forces, under the command of Marshal Sergey Sokolov, entered Afghanistan from the north on 27 December...". I've not changed that for the moment in case there's a subtlety I'm missing. Andrew Gray (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

References

Result of war

Several issues with leaving the result as "Mujahideen victory" and why I think it should be changed to "See aftermath" or removed entirely. 1. The claim that the war is universally accepted as a Mujahideen victory is FALSE. I have given sources that contradict this statement, and I can give more, you could say an overwhelming amount of sources claim that, but saying universally is false. 2. The Soviet Union itself didn't view this war as a war against Afghanistan, rather seeing it as an intervention at the request of the Afghan government (which is true in a way), which makes the result of "see aftermath" make more sense. Officially, the Soviet Union announced that it completed its responsibilities signed at the Geneva accords of 1988 after fully completing its withdrawal, and that it had ended the operation on providing direct military assistance(boots on ground) to the Afghan people and government, rather than admitting defeat.(https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/57911/files/A_44_131_S_20472-RU.pdf?ln=es) Of course, it didn't win either, so a more detailed Aftermath section than the one I provided is better. 3. The war continued until 1992, and the Afghan government that the USSR supported outlived the Soviet Union itself. The soviet intervention in Afghanistan ended in a military stalemate, and the reasons for the withdrawal are disputed. If the Afghan Civil war (1989-1992) was included in the Soviet Afghan war, I would have no problem with the result being Mujahideen victory. But as it only refers to the period of Soviet intervention, a see aftermath result with a detailed explanation of the result to me seems like the best result to put. Grechkovsky (talk) 05:07, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

@Dushnilkin

@User:StephanSnow Grechkovsky (talk) 05:09, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

@Noorullah21 Grechkovsky (talk) 05:10, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't mind, it sounds quite reasonable. Dushnilkin (talk) 09:20, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I see. I think changing the result to "See Aftermath" is fine. I also noticed the aftermath section in here is almost completely empty with only a link to another article, so this information in here can be added there. StephanSnow (talk) 10:46, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

@Grechkovsky Nope. What you're suggesting goes against sources, and also WP:OR (since you're arguing against sources)...

"Babrak’s claim to have widespread popular support was soon shown to be a delusion and all the Soviet intervention did was precipitate a full-scale civil war and internationalize the Afghanistan crisis, turning it into a proxy war between the USSR and USA-NATO. The Soviet Union now found itself condemned to fight an unwinnable war on behalf of a government that was unsustainable." [1] pg 605-606

"Just two months after Najib Allah became president, Gorbachev accepted that a military victory in Afghanistan was impossible and ordered his chiefs of staff to plan an orderly withdrawal." pg. 618

[2] Page 368-369.

"By late 1985, the Soviets realized that they were not going to win the war. They negotiated a settlement and completed their withdrawal in February 1989." [3]

"But the Afghan struggle was more than an embarrassing colonial defeat for the world's last multinational empire." [4] Pg. 228

A lot more to go off of here.

Also, please don't ping your friends who haven't been involved in the discussion for them to weigh in their own opinion. See WP:INAPPNOTE and WP:MEATPUPPET (as it is block able on Wikipedia). Their userboxes/userpages make it seem fairly obvious that you're attempting to votestack in this regard. Noorullah (talk) 12:38, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I'll respond to your first point later as I have irl shit to do atm. Regarding the meat puppet accusation, you asked me to seek consensus on this subject, so I pinged 2 editors I believed would contribute to the conversation. As without pinging other people it would just be you and I arguing over this. I never asked them to agree with me on this topic, nor did I have guarantees that they would do so. I have had disagreements with both of these editors on a number of issues. Grechkovsky (talk) 13:34, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

You don’t need other users to come to a consensus alone. You can still discuss with me and see the aforementioned points.

Moreover, you were involved in numerous discussions with said users. Not that this means anything warranting meatpuppetry alone, but the interactions and then a jump to here is suspicious at best. (Hence why I said it looks like votestacking)

WP:RS and WP:HISTRS all point to the war being a Soviet failure and Mujahideen victory, which is the end of it. A see aftermath is not justified here since all sources are in line with this narrative. Noorullah (talk) 15:16, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I didn't expect a ping in this issue at all, since I wasn't at all interested in this topic in order to add at least something worthwhile. But please note that only one of your sources puts the outcome of the war as a victory for the Mujahideen, while others claim that the USSR cannot win the war - this is a dead end situation described by the user above. Dushnilkin (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

...And are there any WP:RS sources that state otherwise? Nothing about sources say the USSR was ever in a favorable position when they withdrew. All the sources clearly say the war was a Mujahideen victory.

Cause there's more: [5]

[6]

To quote further... "The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing decade-long unsuccessful military action to control the country became Moscow's longest foreign war of the 20th century."" [7]

""The Red Army had fought their war to a military draw but that was not enough to stave off political defeat at home.""

"While a number of conditions in Afghanistan contributed to Soviet defeat, it is essential to take account of the decisions made by Soviet political leaders before and during the war." [8] (Page 5) Noorullah (talk) 17:53, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Again, you probably didn't understand what I meant. I did not state anywhere that it was a Soviet victory or anything, I just noted that your sources ("the Soviet Union understood that it could not win" and so on) are a statement of a stalemate, not a victory for the Mujahideen. Consider that this is just a tip to quote more specific sources. It is better to wait for a response from @Grechkovsky. Dushnilkin (talk) 20:53, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Are we being serious? Sources universally agree this was a Mujahideen victory. Your small number of sources to disprove this is worthless. Don't think bringing people you often discuss these things with strengthens your point, it does not. This is straight up delusional and forceful. Setergh (talk) 23:27, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I think a “See aftermath” result is reasonable for this article, as the aftermath of the war overall is complex and cannot be dubbed down to as “Mujahideen victory”. The mujahideen themselves were not a united body but rather numerous factions united under a single umbrella term. The unification of certain mujahideen factions comprise of groups such as Peshawar Seven and Tehran Eight. Additionally, the Soviet-Afghan war did not end the war in Afghanistan overall, as the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan still remained in the country as a force that fought the Mujahideen (until 1992) after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, with battles occurring such as the Battle of Jalalabad directly after.

However I am also in favour of leaving it as “Mujahideen victory” and then adding bullet points underneath like many other articles do in their results tabs. ;) AfghanParatrooper19891 (talk) 00:24, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Nope, that violates WP:RESULT (for bullet points). Your proposal also doesn’t make sense. “…as the aftermath of the war overall is complex and cannot be dubbed down to as “Mujahideen victory”. The aftermath of the war saw the collapse of the DRA and a Mujahideen victory, how is it complex? Noorullah (talk) 00:46, 12 March 2025 (UTC)