Saturday, November 15, 2014

Paper - "Blind Leading the Blind"

The United States is not the first nation that has attempted to wage a counterinsurgency campaign, train up a host nation army, and conduct nation-building in Afghanistan for a decade. The Soviet Union attempted this very feat from 1979 to 1989 - and were far from successful. The Soviets were quick to realize that the insurgency would not be defeated through military means alone; and that development and governance needed to improve to provide stability, popular support for the Afghan government, and pull support from the insurgents. The paper provides insight into the lack of training and preparation of Soviet advisor prior to deployment to Afghanistan; to include little cultural training, knowledge of the country's religion, and the aspects of the human terrain. Read The Blind Leading the Blind: Soviet Advisors, Counter-Insurgency and Nation-Building in Afghanistan, by Artemy Kalinovsky, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Working Paper #60, Cold War International History Project, January 2010.
www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/WP60_Web_Final.pdf

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