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The CIA estimated in 1987 that the costs amounted to about 2.5 percent of the Soviet military spending per year. [5] According to historian Sergey Radchenko there is no evidence that the Afghanistan war bankrupted the USSR. The Soviet Union spent about $7.5 billion between 1984 and 1987 but this number was negligible compared to the annual ...
The third five-year plan ran for only 3½ years, up to June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union during the Second World War. As war approached, more resources were put into developing armaments, tanks, and weapons, as well as constructing additional military factories east of the Ural mountains .
Between 6.5 and 11.5% [31] of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people (per the 1979 census) is estimated to have been killed over the course of the Soviet–Afghan War. The scale of destruction has been characterized as a genocide of Afghans .
The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001, as Operation Enduring Freedom. It was designed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda militants, as well as replace the Taliban with a U.S.-friendly government. The Bush Doctrine stated that, as policy, it would not distinguish between al-Qaeda and nations that harbor them.
In 2001, Afghanistan had been at war for over 20 years. [1] The communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in 1978, and its policies sparked a popular uprising. [2] The Soviet Union, sensing PDPA weakness, intervened in 1979 to support the regime. [3]
The civil war in Afghanistan was guerrilla warfare and a war of attrition between government and the mujahedin; it cost both sides a great deal. Up to five million Afghans, or one-quarter of the country's population, fled to Pakistan and Iran, where they organized into guerrilla groups to strike Soviet and government forces inside Afghanistan.
The plan for the operation was prepared in secret by a small number of 40th Army officers. In order to deceive the mujahideen a diversionary attack up the Ghorband valley was planned. This was presented as the real attack to the Afghan Army staff, which included mujahideen sympathizers, and who then leaked the plan to the resistance.
This operation in the memoirs of many military men and in the works of military historians is often referred to as the 'Caravan war'. [4] The operational group at the command post of the 40th Army, for the coordination and organization of the fight against caravans, received the same name "The Curtain" [ 5 ]