Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the response was the Carter Doctrine -- a threat to oppose, with U.S. troops, Soviet encroachments on the Persian Gulf. Carter's successor had a better idea: he would provide arms to guerrillas battling pro-Soviet regimes. "Support for freedom fighters is self-defense," the President declared in his 1985 State of the Union address. The Reagan Doctrine was born...
...months later Gorbachev came to power. The most significant act of his tenure has been his decision to pull the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. To hear some enthusiasts for the Reagan Doctrine tell it, Gorbachev was merely yielding to vigorous and effective containment: the U.S. gave Stinger missiles to the Afghan freedom fighters, enabling them to blow enough Soviet helicopters out of the sky for the pragmatic new man in the Kremlin to order a tactical retreat...
However, in the broader context of what is happening elsewhere in the world as well as inside the U.S.S.R., the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan may turn out to be part of something much more welcome. It may mark the beginning of the end of Soviet imperialist outreach. And it may have come about not just because of American counterpressure but also because of ferment within the Soviet power structure itself. In short, Kennan's original prediction of the eventual "mellowing" of Soviet power may finally be coming true...
...near tragedy exposed some operational flaws in a Soviet space program that, in manned flight at least, has far outstripped its U.S. counterpart. American experts said the Kremlin had precipitately scheduled the mission as a gesture of Soviet-Afghan friendship before Soviet troops complete their pullout from Afghanistan early next year. The hurried launch gave the three- man crew only six months to prepare as a team for a voyage that normally requires a full year of intensive training. Soviet space officials later conceded that the cosmonauts may have "lost vigilance" during the flight...
...time in an athlete's career, and eight years at a world-class level of competition is almost an eternity. Yet it is a dozen years since U.S. and Soviet teams met at a Summer Olympics. Historians will long debate President Carter's 1980 decision following the invasion of Afghanistan to snub the only Olympics ever held in the Soviet Union. They will debate as well whether the Soviets avoided Los Angeles four years later out of fear about security, as claimed, or as retaliatory tit for tat. To most athletes, the underlying stratagems do not matter: to them...