Conclusion

The resources of Western Siberia and Soviet Central Asia have drawn Soviet extraction industries into the region; and the mineral and fuel deposits of Afghanistan discovered likely become the object of new extraction activities. The evident economic and strategic importance of Central Asia can be expected to complicate the announced Soviet attempt to disengage from Afghanistan. The Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in the face of material conditions indicates how costly the Afghanistan invasion has been. The withdrawal from Afghanistan has introduced an important perspective on the Soviet Union, for it reveals the severity of its internal problems. The true nature of the war—that is, the anti-Soviet feelings of most of the Afghanistan people, the intransigence of the mujahedin, the deceptive claims by the Soviet government that Americans had directly intervened, and the high incidence of casualties—has become known to the Soviet peoples.