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Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Sarah E. Mendelson
Sarah E. Mendelson
Affiliation:
International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University
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Studies explaining the end of the cold war and change in Soviet foreign policy tend to emphasize the role of the international system: decision makers “learned lessons” about the international system, and this learning brought about Soviet accommodationist policies. Such systemic and cognitive learning approaches tend, however, to mask the political and highly contingent nature of the policy changes. To understand these changes, one must explore how certain ideas got placed on the political agenda and how others were forced off.

This essay stresses the role of ideas about both the foreign and the domestic scene, as well as the role of a network of specialists that helped put these ideas on the national agenda. Ideas alone cannot explain any one outcome. They must be understood in terms of the political process by which they are selected. Ideas are more likely to be implemented and epistemic communities are more likely to be influential under three conditions: (1) access to the leadership, (2) salience of the ideas to the leadership, and (3) the ability of the leadership to control the political agenda.

One critical example of great change in foreign policy was the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. This study examines the interplay of ideas and politics over time and explains how the decision to withdraw was implemented and why it occurred when it did. It focuses on (1) the mobilization of an epistemic community before Gorbachev came to power, (2) massive personnel changes within Soviet institutions in the 1980s, and (3) the empowerment of the epistemic community once Gorbachev had consolidated his power.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , April 1993 , pp. 327 - 360
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Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1993

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References

1 For an example of a learning approach, see Legvold, Robert, “Soviet Learning in the 1980s,” in Breslauer, George W. and Tetlock, Philip E., eds., Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991).Google Scholar For an example of a domestic politics approach, see Snyder, Jack, “The Gorbachev Revolution: A Waning of Soviet Expansionism?” International Security 12 (Winter 1987–88).Google Scholar

2 From September 1, 1990, to January 15, 1991, I conducted interviews in Moscow with participants in and observers of the foreign and domestic policy process. All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted. From these interviews, I have tried to use only information that has been corroborated by at least one other source. In most cases, I verified information from two independent sources.

3 The focus on timing and nature of specialist advice draws on Solomon, Peter, Soviet Criminologists and Criminal Policy: Specialists in Policy Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Gustafson, Thane, Reform in Soviet Politics: Lessons of Recent Policies on Land and Water (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Solomon adapted the criteria of “scope and quality” of specialist advice for measuring influence from Zbigniew Brzezinski's and Samuel Huntington's comparative study of American and Soviet policy-making in the early 1960s, Political Power: USA/USSR (New York: Viking Press, 1963).Google Scholar I am modifying these indicators and applying them for the first time to a foreign policy case. As Solomon notes, the test provides the analyst with independently verifiable criteria with which to compare the role specialist advisers played in policy-making in different countries and different issue-areas.

4 See also Meyer, Stephen M., “How the Threat (and the Coup) Collapsed: The Politicization of the Soviet Military,” International Security 16 (Winter 1991–92), 8–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the role of nontraditional institutions in the defense decision-making process in the late 1980s.

5 What follows, I argue, is the most plausible explanation for the withdrawal given available information.

6 An important exception is a 45-minute television interview with Alexander Yakovlev on December 27, 1991, on the decision to withdraw troops: Central Television, First Channel; Foreign Broadcast Information Service-Soviet Union (hereafter FBIS-SOV), December 31, 1991, pp. 3–5. For a discussion of the intervention in Afghanistan in the Soviet press, see Belyaev, Igor and Gromyko, Anatolii, ”Tak my voshli v Afganistan” Literaturnaya gazeta, no. 38 (September 20, 1989), 14.Google Scholar For a discussion of the withdrawal in the U.S. press, see Oberdorfer, Don, “Afghanistan: The Soviet Decision to Pull Out,” Washington Post, April 17, 1988Google Scholar; and Dobbs, Michael, “Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Start of Empires Unraveling,” Washington Post, November 16, 1992.Google Scholar This last article, based in part on “newly declassified documents” from the Kremlin's archives, offers somewhat different interpretations of people and events associated with the withdrawal. For a full discussion of the different interpretations, see Mendelson, Sarah E., “Explaining Changes in Foreign Policy: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia UniversityGoogle Scholar, forthcoming).

7 An epistemic community may be understood as a group of experts in different fields who share common understandings and beliefs about certain issues as well as some idea of how best to implement their beliefs. Some scholars have found the notion of epistemic communities fruitful for explaining how American and Western European specialists influence policymakers to act on specific issues, such as the environment. For the most recent example, see the special issue of International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), edited by Peter M. Haas and entitled “Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination.” For a slightly different version of the epistemic communities argument, see Haas, Ernst B., When Knowledge Is Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).Google Scholar

8 In my discussion of the explanations, I limit the treatment of psychological approaches mainly to the complex cognitive learning approach; this particular approach to learning discusses change in ways that are not fundamentally different from most theories of belief systems.

9 For the classic works of neorealism, see Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar; and Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of the inability of neorealism to explain change, see Ruggie, John Gerard, “Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity: Toward a Neorealist Synthesis,” World Politics 35 (January 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nye, Joseph S. Jr, “Neorealism and Neoliberalism,” World Politics 40 (January 1988), esp. 236–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 See Deudney, Daniel and John Ikenberry, G., “The International Sources of Soviet Change,” International Security 16 (Winter 1991–1992), 74–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Oye, Kenneth A., “Explaining the End of the Cold War: Morphological and Behavioral Adaptations to the Nuclear Peace,” in Lebow, Richard Ned and Risse-Kappen, Thomas, eds., International Relations Theory and the Transformation of the International SystemGoogle Scholar (forthcoming).

11 Deudney and Ikenberry (fn. 10), 76–78, 117. These authors distinguish between the sources of the crisis in the Soviet Union, which they argue was caused by domestic factors like the inefficiency of the economy, and the response to the crisis, which was shaped by external factors.

12 As Philip E. Tetlock notes, “What excites the attention of investigators working at one level of analysis may well be invisible to investigators working at other levels of analysis.” For a discussion, see Tetlock, , “Methodological Themes and Variations” in Tetlock, , et al., eds., Behavior, Society and Nuclear War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 1:339.Google Scholar

13 For a discussion on Soviet interpretations of U.S. foreign policy in the 1980s, see Blum, Douglas, “Soviet Perceptions of American Foreign Policy after Afghanistan,” in Jervis, Robert and Snyder, Jack, eds., Dominoes and Bandwagons: Strategic Beliefs and Great Power Competition in the Eurasian Rimland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

14 For a similar argument, see Janice Gross Stein, “Cognitive Psychology and Political Learning: Gorbachev as an Uncommitted Thinker and Motivated Learner,” in Lebow, and Risse-Kappen, (fn. 10), 8–11.Google Scholar

15 See, for example, Legvold (fn. 1); Herrmann, Richard, “The Soviet Decision to Withdraw from Afghanistan: Changing Strategic and Regional Images,” in Jervis and Snyder (fn. 13)Google Scholar; Breslauer, George W., “Ideology and Learning in Soviet-Third World Policy,” World Politics 39 (April 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar An exception in the learning literature is in Stein's essay where she emphasizes lessons learned from the domestic context (fn. 14).

16 For a discussion, see Tetlock (fn. 12), 366.

17 For a discussion, see Tetlock, Philip E., “Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy: In Search of an Elusive Concept,” in Breslauer and Tetlock (fn. 1).Google Scholar

18 For an example of a complex cognitive learning explanation applied to Soviet foreign policy, see Legvold (fn. 1). See also Bennett, Andrew Owen, “Theories of Individual, Organizational, and Governmental Learning and the Rise and Fall of Soviet Military Interventionism, 1973–1983” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1990).Google Scholar For a study using a modified version of this approach specifically on the case discussed in this essay, see Herrmann (fn. 15).

19 The psychologist Milton Rokeach was a pioneer in the study of the structure of belief systems. See Rokeach, , The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1960).Google Scholar International relations scholars have elaborated on his ideas of “central,” “intermediate,” and “peripheral” beliefs.

20 Legvold (fn. 1), 687–88. For Nye's discussion of learning, see Nye, Joseph S. Jr, “Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes,” International Organization 41 (Summer 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Breslauer (fn. 15), 430–33, for another differentiation in the levels of the belief system. Note that several authors in the Breslauer/Tetlock volume distinguish between adaptation and learning. Adaptation may be seen as similar to the tactical learning discussed by Legvold and Nye.

21 Etheridge, Lloyd, Can Governments Learn? (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985), 143Google Scholar; and Haas, Ernst, “Why Collaborate? Issue-Linkage and International Regimes,” World Politics 32 (April 1980), 390CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as cited in Legvold (fn. 1), 687, 727.

22 Indeed, much of cognitive political psychology attempts to specify the conditions under which this does and does not happen. See Tetlock (fn. 17).

23 It should be noted that there could be other types of cognitive explanations to elucidate the withdrawal: one where tactical lessons were learned but core beliefs were left untouched. For example, the antiaircraft Stinger missiles could have raised the cost of staying in the war, thus altering military calculations of how to “win”—or at least not lose—the war. In this case, withdrawal would have been based on reassessed costs of prevailing with little or no change in overall beliefs about the nature of the international system or the adversary. I wish to thank George Breslauer for bringing this point to my attention.

24 See Herrmann (fn. 15) for an example of this argument.

25 Herrmann (fn. 15) does not argue that U.S. policy caused a change in Soviet behavior and warns against “cold war motivational assumptions” that lead one to argue as such (p. 223). He does not, however, account fully for why a decrease in Soviet threat perception of the U.S. would change when U.S. policy was aggressive.

26 From 1980 to 1984, U.S. aid averaged $50 million per year. By fiscal year 1986, it was up to $470 million and by fiscal year 1987, $630 million. Roy, Olivier, “The Lessons of the Soviet-Afghan War,” Adelphi Paper 259 (Summer 1991), 34.Google Scholar Between September 1986 and August 1987, 863 Stingers and Blowpipes were received by the mujahideen. Karp, Aaron, “Blowpipes and Stingers in Afghanistan: One Year Later,” Armed Services Journal (September 1987), 40.Google Scholar

27 Author's interviews: January 4, 1991. This view was shared by Andrey Kokoshin (deputy director, ISKAN), November 11, 1991.

28 While Soviet helicopter pilots generally flew at higher altitudes following the deployment of the Stingers, Soviet combat tactics had actually changed in 1986 before the deployment of the SAMs. See Urban, Mark, “Soviet Operations in Afghanistan: Some Conclusions,” Jane's Soviet Intelligence Review 2 (August 1, 1990), 366Google Scholar; and Roy (fn. 26), 20–23.

29 For a discussion, see Roy (fn. 26), 23, 36.

30 For positive or neutral accounts of the Stingers, see “Army Lauds Stinger Effectiveness in Afghan War,” Defense Daily, July 6, 1989; and Isby, David, “Soviet Surface-to-Air Missile Countermeasures: Lessons from Afghanistan,” Jane's Soviet Intelligence Review (January 1, 1989), 44.Google Scholar For critical assessments, see Kemp, Ian, “Abdul Haq: Soviet Mistakes in Afghanistan,” Jane 's Defense Weekly (March 5, 1988), 380Google Scholar; and Urban (fn. 28).

31 The highest casualties were sustained in 1984 with 2,343 dead. Rates for the following years were: 1985, 1,868; 1986, 1,333; 1987, 1,215; 1988, 759; and 1989, 53. Pravda, August 17, 1989. On this point, see also Urban (fn. 28).

32 Abdul Haq, the military commander of the Hizb-i-Islami, claimed that the impact of the missiles on the war had been exaggerated. “‘How could we stop all the Soviet aircraft because we have 25 or 30 Stingers? No, it is impossible.’ ” Kemp (fn. 30). See also Urban (fn. 28).

33 Reports on Soviet aid amounts in 1990 vary from $400 million a month to $250 million. See New York Times, May 12, 1991, and September 17, 1991. Olivier Roy (fn. 26), 34, the Afghan specialist, writes that the Soviets were sending “huge amounts of economic and military aid” through 1990.

34 See, for example, Peter M. Haas (fn. 7); and Ernst B. Haas (fn. 7).

35 See, for example, Snyder (fn. 1).

36 For different approaches linking politics and ideas in different issue-areas, see Goldstein, Judith, Ideas, Interests and American Trade Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University PressGoogle Scholar, forthcoming); and Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., eds., Ideas and Institutions (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University PressGoogle Scholar, forthcoming).

37 In this sense, the usage is similar to one used by contributors to the special edition of International Organization. For a discussion, see Haas, Peter M., “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” in Peter M. Haas (fn. 7), esp. 3.Google Scholar

38 Ernst B. Haas (fn. 7); Adler, Emanuel, “The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Snyder (fn. 1).

40 See, in addition to the work of Solomon and Gustafson (fn. 3), Hauslohner, Peter A., “Managing the Soviet Labor Market: Politics and Policymaking under Brezhnev” (Ph.D diss., University of Michigan, 1984).Google Scholar

41 Neither the epistemic communities nor the specialists that Sovietologists studied constituted interest groups. As Peter Solomon noted (fn. 3), 13, 170, the specialists tended to have different intellectual and technical backgrounds. The ideas that bound them were neither institutional nor bureaucratic, but largely conceptual and linked to their expertise. In the case discussed here, many of the ideas that specialists expressed went against career interests.

42 For examples from domestic policy, see Solomon (fn. 3). He examines the role of criminal law scholars in changing criminal policy and finds that even under Stalin there was some participation. In the 1960s, the scope and impact of their influence was greatly increased through institutionalization. Gustafson, Thane (fn. 3), and in Crisis Amid Plenty: The Politics of Soviet Energy Under Brezhnev and Gorbachev (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, examines the impact of specialists on land, water, and energy policy and finds that if the leadership's interests match the specialists' recommendations, then experts wield substantive influence. In the foreign policy literature, there have been many studies of the impact of Soviet scholars on Soviet-Third World policy. Eran, Oded, in Mezhdunarodniki: An Assessment of Professional Expertise in the Making of Soviet Foreign Policy (Tel Aviv, Israel: Turtledove, 1979)Google Scholar, traces the institutionalization and professionalization of Soviet scholars in the 1950s through the 1970s. In The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind (New York: Praeger, 1983), Elizabeth K. Valkenier describes what may be considered a foreign policy epistemic community and traces its influence in transforming Soviet aid and trade policies to reflect economic realities and not ideological constructs. Hough, Jerry F., in The Struggle for the Third World (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1986)Google Scholar, traces several debates among Third World specialist advisers. Griffiths, Franklyn, in “Images, Politics and Learning in Soviet Behavior toward the United States” (Ph.D diss., Columbia University, 1972)Google Scholar, examines the role of Americanists in policy and charts the progression of their ideas and the changes in Soviet policy towards the U.S.

43 For a discussion, see Gustafson (fn. 3), 92–93, and idem (fn. 42), 296, 330. See also Ted Hopf, Peripheral Vision: Deterrence Theory and Soviet Foreign Policy in the Third World (forth-coming), for an extended discussion of advisers influencing leadership. On limitations of specialists' advice in foreign policy, see Hough (fn. 42), 257, 263; and Valkenier (fn. 42), x.

44 Gustafson (fn. 3), 86.

45 On the Third World, see, for example, Simoniya, Nodari, Strany vostoka: puti razvitiya (Countries of the East: Paths of development) (Moscow: Nauka, 1975).Google Scholar Simoniya at the time was a researcher at the Oriental Institute (hereafter IVAN) and is now deputy director of the Institute of World Economics and International Relations (hereafter IMEMO).

46 Author's interviews: Viktor Sheynis (senior researcher, IMEMO, and deputy, Russian Parliament), December 24, 1990; Dyuk, Elizaveta (assistant to Tatyana Zaslavskaya, National Center of Public Opinion), November 27, 1990Google Scholar; Arbatov (fn. 27).

47 For a discussion, see Solomon (fn. 3), 4–7, 107–25; Gustafson (fn. 3), 83–95.

48 For a slightly different definition, see Solomon (fn. 3), 113–14.

49 For a discussion on how intellectuals and specialists can change the environment, see Brown, Archie, “Power and Policy in a Time of Leadership Transition, 1982–1988,” in Archie&Brown, , ed., Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 190CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gustafson (fn. 3), 83; Valkenier (fn. 42), x; Lynch, Allen, The Soviet Study of International Relations (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989), xxxvi.Google Scholar

50 Arbatov (fn. 27) states that Gorbachev's contact with foreign policy institutes began in 1983 before his trip to Canada. There was much contact between Gorbachev, Zaslavskaya, and Aganbegyan in 1983. See also Dyuk (fn. 46); Brown (fn. 49), 186; and Smith, Hedrick, The New Russians (New York: Random, 1990), 5–16Google Scholar, 68–78.

51 The practice of consulting with specialists on policy matters was not newly instituted by Andropov or Gorbachev. The critical character of the consulting, however, was new. Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of ISKAN, states that “since the 1970s the institutes (ISKAN, IMEMO, IVAN) have all been involved in foreign policy but in a marginal way.” The institutes were involved in sending reports (zapiski), which were “very polite and restrained,” and in consulting for the Central Committee. Author's interview, November 1, 1990.

52 For example, see Doder, Dosker and Branson, Louise, Gorbachev: Heretic in the Kremlin (New York: Viking, 1990), 35–39Google Scholar; and Smith (fn. 50), 62–78.

53 Specifically, Georgii Arbatov, Alexander Bovin, Fëdor Burlatski, Oleg Bogomolov, and Georgii Shakhnazarov all worked for Andropov and were prominent voices of perestroia. For a discussion, see Brown, Archie, “Political Science in the Soviet Union: A New Stage of Development,” Soviet Studies 36 (July 1984), 319CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brown (fn. 49), 169.

54 Author's interviews: Vadim Zagladin (former director, Information Department, Central Committee [hereafter CCID]), December 12, 1990; Valerii Sidorov, former aide to Alexander Yakovlev and Evgenii Primakov, November 15, 1990; Arbatov (fn. 27); and Dyuk (fn. 46).

55 Gorbachev, M., “Sovershenstvovanie razvitogo sotsiolizma i ideologicheskaya rabota partii v svete resheniy iyunskogo (1983) plenuma TSK KPSS,” in Gorbachev, M. S., Izbrannye rechi i stat'i (Selected speeches and articles) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo “Politicheskaya literatura,” 1983), 2:75–108.Google Scholar See also Brancoli, Rudolfo, “Mikhail Gorbachev's Secret Report,” La Republica, March 27, 1985Google Scholar, in FBIS-SOV, March 28, 1985, pp. 1–4.

56 Brancoli (fn. 55).

57 Pravda, February 26, 1986, in FBIS-SOV-Supplement, February 26, 1986.

58 Pravda, January, 7, 1989, in FBIS-SOV, January 9, 1989, 50–59. Arbatov (fn. 27) and Zagladin (fn. 54) confirmed that most of the people listed above as key members of the epistemic community had written reports for Gorbachev between 1983 and 1985 on many topics concerning domestic and foreign policy.

59 Author's interviews: Vitalii Korotich, former editor of Ogonëk, December 14, 1990, January 9, 1991; Arbatov (fn. 27).

60 For a particularly compelling example of this among Soviet Americanists, see Griffiths, Franklyn, “The Sources of American Conduct: Soviet Perspectives and Their Policy Implications,” International Security 9 (Fall 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Kremenyuk (fn. 51).

62 Sheynis (fn. 46).

63 Sidorov (fn. 54); Arbatov (fn. 27).

64 Jerry Hough argues that no radical policies could be launched before Gorbachev consolidated his power. See “Gorbachev Consolidating Power,” Problems of Communism 36 (July-August 1987). For a contrasting opinion, see Cockburn, Patrick, Getting Russia Wrong (London: Verso, 1989).Google Scholar

65 Author's interviews: Akhromeev, Sergey (former chief of the Soviet armed forces, 1984–88Google Scholar, and former senior military adviser to Gorbachev), January 3, 1991; Tabeev, Fikryat (former Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, 1980–86Google Scholar, and former deputy chairman of Committee on International Affairs, Supreme Soviet, USSR), December 4, 1990; Arbatov (fn. 27); Zagladin (fn. 54). Arbatov told Gorbachev that he was against the war, and he believes that Yakovlev and Primakov did too. Korotich (fn. 59) says he knows that Yakovlev was very much against the war and that they talked about it many times. On December 27, 1991, Yakovlev (fn. 6) publicly discussed Gorbachev's early opposition to the war and both men's attempts to get the withdrawal on the political agenda. Doder and Branson (fn. 52), 46, claim that on Gorbachev's trip to Canada in May 1983, in an off-the-record comment, Gorbachev told Eugene Whelan, his host and then the Canadian agricultural minister, that the invasion of Afghanistan had been a mistake.

66 In May 1989, Arbatov also told Janice Gross Stein about this policy review. See Stein in Lebow and Risse-Kappen (fn. 10), 46 (September 1992 manuscript). I am not arguing that Andropov necessarily wanted or needed to withdraw for the same reasons as Gorbachev. Andropov may have felt that the war had to end for strategic reasons unconnected to domestic policy: that fighting a war on the southern flank was a waste of resources when major battles with the main opponent would likely come on the central front in Europe. I am arguing that these reasons did not include a changed conception of the international system, but involved specific judgments about the war itself. As long as his motivations for withdrawal are ambiguous, I will treat Andropov's desire to end the war as not contradictory to later motivations for withdrawal.

67 Akhromeev (fn. 65); Arbatov (fn. 27). See also Harrison, Selig, “Inside the Afghan Talks,” Foreign Policy 72 (Fall 1988).Google Scholar

68 Tabeev (fn. 65).

69 Author's interview, Bogomolov, January 2, 1991.

70 Gustafson, Thane and Mann, Dawn, “Gorbachev's First Year: Building Power and Authority,” Problems of Communism 35 (May-June 1986).Google Scholar

71 Hough (fn. 64), 21.

72 At the February 17, 1988, plenary session of the CPSU, Gorbachev spoke of this early policy review. Pravda, February 19, 1988, pp. 1–3.

73 Author's interviews: Artëm Borovik (former correspondent in Afghanistan for Ogonëk), October 29, December 6, 1990; Andrey Grachev (former deputy director, CCID), December 25, 1990; Korotich (fn. 59); and Kremenyuk (fn. 51) all confirmed this. Arbatov (fn. 27) and Akhromeev (fn. 65) said they had no memory of this, and Zagladin (fn. 54) had no comment.

74 Akhromeev (fn. 65); Zagladin (fn. 54); and Korotich (fn. 59). Despite the fact that Arbatov was engaged in a polemic with Akhromeev (they were not on speaking terms), Arbatov also confirmed that Akhromeev told the political leadership that he opposed the intervention. If military leaders actively opposed the war, it was for different reasons than the specialist network, including judgments about the difficulty of fighting a guerrilla war. In any case, as Bruce Porter has pointed out in “The Military Abroad: Internal Consequences of External Expansion,” in Timothy J. Colton, and Gustafson, Thane, eds., Soldiers and the State: Civil-Military Relations from Brezhnev to Gorbachev (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 307–16Google Scholar, whatever protestations were made by the top military leadership, promotion rates were not affected. For example, Akhromeev was promoted to chief of the general staff in 1984.

75 Korotich also claimed that Varennikov was very helpful. For an English translation of Borovik's articles, see The Hidden War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991). Highlevel approval was needed and granted to research and to publish these articles, which appeared in OgonëK in the summer of 1987 and the spring of 1989.

76 Given available information, the precise role of the military leadership in the decision to intervene and to withdraw remains a matter of debate. Certainly it is ambiguous. For example, Yakovlev (fn. 6) has recently called into question the military leadership's willingness to withdraw troops. He implies that, despite what members of the military leadership have said, many, including Akhromeev and Varennikov, passively resisted the withdrawal. Yakovlev discusses the tactics used as late as 1988 by these men to stop the withdrawal, against the intentions of Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, and himself. For a lengthier discussion of the ambiguous role of the military in the intervention and the withdrawal, see Mendelson (fn. 6).

77 Kremenyuk (fn. 51). Yakovlev (fn. 6) also speaks of these groups. According to Borovik (fn. 73), many in the military at this time argued for sixty to seventy thousand more troops in order to win the war.

78 Akhromeev (fn. 65); and Arbatov (fn. 27). Also, Arbatov, Georgii, “Iz nedavnego proshlogo” Znamya, nos. 9 and 10 (1990).Google Scholar See also his memoirs as they appear in English, The System (New York: Random House, 1992). In addition, Karen Brutents, first deputy director of the CCID, emphasized that the withdrawal could only take place after certain “conditions” had been fulfilled. (Author's interview, December 7, 1990).

79 Hough, Jerry, Russia and The West: Gorbachev and the Politics of Reform (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 151.Google Scholar For an extended discussion of personnel selection patterns, see Helf, Gavin, “Gorbachev and the New Soviet Prefects: Soviet Regional Politics 1982–1988 in Historical Perspective,” in Analyzing the Gorbachev Era: Working Papers of the Students of the Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet Studies (Berkeley, Calif.: Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet Studies, 1989), 10–12.Google Scholar

80 Hough (fn. 64), 28.

81 Ibid.; and Hough (fn.79), 165.

82 By the end of the Congress there was a smaller Central Committee with 307 members, down from 319; 40 percent (125) of them were new. Hough (fn. 79), 171. The changes in the Central Committee were matched by equally sweeping personnel changes in the Politburo. Between March 1985 and March 1986, eight new men were added, all with ties to Gorbachev or to Andropov. Two were promoted, and five were removed. See Gustafson and Mann (fn. 70) for a discussion. Of the original nine full members on the Politburo when Gorbachev came to power, three were dismissed and one was put in a ceremonial position. None of the remaining men were promoted. Hough (fn. 79), 171. By June 1987, one of the main architects of perestroika and a strong voice in the specialist network, Alexander Yakovlev, was a full member of the Politburo.

83 Gorbachev, M., “Politicheskiy doklad tsentral'nogo komiteta KPSS xxvii s“ezda kommunisticheskoy partii Sovetskogo Soyuza,” Kommunist, no.4 (1986), 58–59.Google Scholar

84 For the first usage of the “hand of imperialism” image, which was the dominant image of the war until February 1986, see Brezhnev, L., “Otvety na voprosy korrespondenta gazety ‘Pravda’,” Kommunist, no. 2 (1980), 13–16.Google Scholar

85 Shevardnadze described the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a violation of “the norms of proper behavior.” As Keller, Bill noted in the New York TimesGoogle Scholar, Shevardnadze's characterization of the Soviet's role in the war as “illegal and immoral was the harshest yet uttered by a top official.” New YorK Times, October 24, 1989, pp. 1, 14. For the speech, see FBIS-SOV, October 24, 1989.

86 Shevardnadze, Eduard, The Future Belongs to Freedom (New York: Free Press, 1991), 47.Google Scholar

87 Pravda, February 17, 1987, CDSP 39, no. 7 (1987), 11.

88 Stephen M. Meyer, implicitly criticizing cognitive learning approaches, goes so far as to state that, when looked at in terms of economic revitalization, “Gorbachev's agitation for new political thinking on security is more a product of instrumental necessity than of military-strategic enlightenment.” Meyer, , “The Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev's New Political Thinking on Security,” International Security 13 (Fall 1988), 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

89 Pravda, February 26, 1987, in CDSP 39, no.8 (1987), 14.

90 Borovik (fn. 73).

91 Roy (fn. 26), 23, 34, 36.

92 For example, the policy of “national reconciliation” was introduced in mid-January 1987, following the trip of Mohammad Najibullah (head of the Peoples' Democratic Party of Afghanistan) to Moscow in mid-December 1986. Under pressure from the Soviets, Najibullah agreed in principle to begin talks on sharing power with opposition forces. National reconciliation served the purpose of portraying the Kabul government as capable of handling the opposition without Soviet help and thus laying the groundwork for troop withdrawal.

93 See, for example, Pravda, statement by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesman, March 25, 1987, in CDSP 39, no. 12 (1987), 10, and Pravda, statement by MFA spokesman, July 8,1987, in CDSP 39, no. 26 (1987), 14.

94 Akhromeev (fn. 65); Arbatov (fn. 27); Borovik (fn. 73); Zagladin (fn. 54); Sidorov (fn. 54); and author's interview, Nodari Simoniya (Third World specialist and deputy director, IMEMO), Moscow, October 18, 1990.

95 Kremenyuk (fn. 51). Zagladin (fn. 54) corroborated this statement, noting that the leadership paid much more attention to zapiski after 1985.

96 Kremenyuk (fn. 51). One specific result of this new approach was that one senior scholar at ISKAN provided a frank appraisal of Soviet-U.S. policy that, according to sources, proved quite important in redirecting Soviet policy toward the U.S.; it represented the kind of innovative thinking Gorbachev wanted.

97 For example, see the write-up of the meeting in Pravda, February 14, 1987.

98 Sidorov (fn. 54). For a discussion of how Gorbachev ran meetings with the Central Committee that is in sharp contrast with Sidorov's description of meetings with the press, intelligentsia, and specialist network, see Yeltsin, Boris, Against the Grain (New York: Summit, 1990), 143–45.Google Scholar

99 For examples of pre-glasnost work critical of Soviet-Third World policy, see Mirsku, Georgii “Menyayushchiysya oblik ‘tret'ego mira,’” Kommunist, no. 2 (1976), 106–15Google Scholar; Primakov, Evgenii, “Nekotorye problemy razvivayushchikhsya stran,” Kommunist, no. 11 (1978), 81–91.Google Scholar For a discussion, see Valkenier (fn. 42); and Hough (fn. 42).

100 See, for example, Gorbachev's comments on regional conflicts when he announces the withdrawal. Compare the usage of the bleeding wound metaphor he used at the Twenty-seventh Party Congress with the usage during the announcement in which he said bleeding wounds were “capable of causing spots of gangrene on the body of mankind” (Pravda, February 9, 1988). The shift from active to passive voice is representative of a change in the climate of ideas. In 1986, the imperialists caused the pain, whereas in 1988, the action and not the actor is emphasized.

101 Oberdorfer (fn. 6). See also Oberdorfer, , The Turn: From the Cold War to a New Era (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991).Google Scholar

102 Gankovskii, Yuri, “A Soviet View of Afghanistan,” At the Harriman Institute 1 (April 19, 1988).Google Scholar For a first-hand account of the Geneva process that corroborates Gankovskii's statement, see Khan, Riaz M., Untying the Afghan Knot: Negotiating the Soviet Withdrawal (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

103 Simoniya (fn. 94); corroborated by author's interview with Gankovskii, Yuri (Afghan Specialist, IVAN), Moscow, November 5, 1990.Google Scholar

104 New York Times, July 22, 1987.

105 Pravda, December 12, 1987, pp. 3–4.

106 For a discussion of policy entrepreneurs and opening policy windows, see Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).Google Scholar See also the discussion in Evangelista, Matthew, “Source of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy,” in Tetlock, Philip et al., eds., Behavior, Society and Nuclear War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 2:275–77.Google Scholar

107 For a discussion of coverage of the war in the popular print press in the years 1980–87, see Mendelson, Sarah E., “Change and Continuity in Soviet Explanations of Resistance in Afghanistan: The Hand Uncovers the Wound” (Paper presented at the Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., April 1988).Google Scholar It should be noted that the Soviet press was not monolithic in its approach to the war. On the one hand, articles criticizing aspects of the war did appear in the military press prior to the announcement of withdrawal. For a discussion, see Porter (fn. 74). On the other hand, in the scholarly journals there was no discussion of the war in direct, critical terms until after the withdrawal was completed. Television coverage of the war changed substantially in 1987 (more corespondents, more stories); but, unlike the print press, television was never as critical and was always more closely monitored through 1990. Yakovlev (fn. 6) states that the use of glasnost on the war was part of a reformist plan to mobilize the public for the withdrawal. On Soviet televison coverage of the war, see Helvey, Laura Roselle, “Political Communication and Policy Legitimacy: Leadership, TV and Withdrawal from War” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1993).Google Scholar

108 Korotich (fn. 59); Borovik (fn. 73).

109 Akhromeev (fn. 65), who accompanied Gorbachev to the summit as the senior Soviet arms control negotiator; Zagladin (fn. 54).

110 For an account, see Garthoff, Raymond L., Detente and Confrontation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985), 887–965Google Scholar; Belyaev and Gromyko, (fn. 6); Borovik (fn. 75), 4–10. Confirmed in author's interview, Igor Belyaev (foreign affairs editor, Literaturnaya gazeta), October 23 and 24, 1990; Bogomolov (fn. 69); Zagladin (fn. 54); and Arbatov (fn. 27).

111 Akhromeev (fn. 65); Brutents (fn. 78); Sidorov (fn. 54). See also Yakovlev (fn. 6).

112 Akhromeev (fn. 65). Brutents (fn. 78) corroborated this claim, stating that scholars were important in the decision to withdraw.

113 Gankovskii (fn. 103).