ABSTRACT
Once they had realised the extent of the quagmire into which they had stumbled, it was not long before the Soviet leadership began to look for ways to extricate themselves. Following the uprisings in Kabul in February 1980 and the need for the LCSFA to undertake operations, the Politburo discussed the possibility.1 They had, however, a number of concerns, principally the loss of prestige that a withdrawal would entail, and the need not to be seen to be conceding anything to the United States and other opponents of the invasion. They also continued to fear the possible destabilisation and loss of Afghanistan, and the consequent risk of a growth of Muslim extremism on the Soviet Union’s borders. It was, therefore, concluded that a decision should be put off to a later date. When, nevertheless, the following month, they had before them an offer from Fidel Castro to try to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan, this appeared to them to have some merit, if perhaps only as window-dressing.2 Brezhnev’s reply was encouraging, but the initiative turned out to be a non-starter, given his insistence that any negotiations should be bilateral, between Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly Iran, in order to avoid ‘internationalising’ the issue, and that they should address only the question of ‘external interference’ in Afghanistan.3 In April, a report by the Politburo’s four-man Afghanistan committee concluded that a withdrawal could only be considered ‘when the situation in Afghanistan stabilises, and the situation around the country improves, and only upon a request from the [Afghan] leadership’.4 Again, however, this did not prevent the Politburo from prompting Karmal the following month to put forward, ostensibly as his own initiative, a ‘programme of political settlement’.5 Because it continued to insist on direct negotiations, it again went nowhere, but it did contain key elements of the settlement that was ultimately achieved, non-interference in Afghanistan’s affairs, backed by Soviet and United States guarantees, the return of refugees and the withdrawal of Soviet troops ‘in the context of a political settlement’. The question of Afghan selfdetermination was sidestepped, in order not to prejudice the survival of the Soviet Union’s Afghan clients, but this helped, rather than hindered, the later negotiating process, it being the conviction of the Pakistanis and others that the regime would inevitably fall once the Soviet troops had gone. The absence of a commitment to some process of self-determination thus suited both sides.
