Afghanistan in the Cold War - Research Paper Example

After the withdrawal of the soviet in the year 1989, a fierce civil war broke out among the local rival factions which ultimately lead to the emergence of the Taliban who seemingly ruled until the year2001 only to be stopped by the United States led invasion of Afghanistan. The Afghanistan war veterans have been reported to have played a big role in restructuring the soviet society. This they did through political activism though not directly related to party politics. However, it should be noted that not all Afghans contributed to this occurrence.

However it was the potency of the actions of those who participated that registered their contribution. In the veterans mindset there was a great short of ideas on exactly what political and societal transformations needed to be implemented. This in return led to a wide spread societal activism that is said the Afghans contributed to. The Soviet Union began getting involved in Afghanistan in the month of December in ninenetten seventy nine. They regarded it a small scale invasion that would take only a couple of months to be accomplish.

Contrary to this, the war lasted for quite a long span that saw the killing of several thousands and wounding of the soviet soldiers. As the year 1980 began, the government media of the Soviet Union issued a statement that that it was the Afghanistan government who had requested the soviet army to assist them in combat unrelated activities and humanitarian aid. Soon to follow the press statement were more soviet soldiers that were maimed as war casualties. Most theorists front the idea the main cause of cold war in the Afghanistan was as a result of ideological differences between factions.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union have been said to have actively participated in this war in order to advance their supremacy and influence. The soviet having realized that they were no longer able to control the entire of Europe embarked on exerting its influence on other regions. How the United States got into the war was rather complex after being a neutral state in world affairs for so many years. The Soviet Union on the other hand was exploiting the decolonization process to its advantage aiming to exert more influence to the newly liberated countries.

The United States had as soft spot for the developing countries that were just struggling to attain self rule from colonialists. Some scholars suggest that Afghans were rebellious to the United States for what they say was their increasingly dominate nature which made every state uncomfortable. In addition, leaders of several revolutions that had been weary of oppressive nature of capitalist during colonization found themselves naturally aligned to the communist ideas. This to a great deal have put the United States in a compromising situation since it was regarded with a lot of suspicion among several states.

However, self interest’s theorists have countered this assertion. They have argued that the United States was not driven by any ideology and that is why they did not support any revolution that took place earlier in Afghanistan. That if the United States was genuine enough as it claims in its role in Afghanistan, it would have supported earlier forms of revolutions and not only in later years to counter the Soviet Union. They assert that the United States failure to support these revolutions and take a back bench when they were needed most drives home the fact that they wanted to either maintain or gain economic and political allies.

This school of thought has also questioned some of the strategies used by the United States