Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Still, there have been rocky moments. Earlier this year Moscow charged that Washington's renewed production of chemical killers threatened to torpedo the talks. For its part, the U.S. has charged that the Soviets have been involved with the use of poison gases in Laos, Kampuchea and Afghanistan, allegations that the Soviets strenuously deny. Nonetheless, when the ninth round of bilateral talks concluded in Geneva last month, the U.S. described the negotiations as "cordial, very serious and nonpolemical...
...Russian wheat aphids, which thrive on dry wheat and barley fields, are rampaging through 15 Western states, from California and Arizona to Montana. The tiny stalk suckers (size: 0.1 in.) have nearly wiped out harvests in some fields. The bugs are natives of the Soviet Union, Iran and Afghanistan, but were transplanted to Mexico by unknown means in 1980 and have been moving north ever since. Last year the insects caused $36 million in damage across ten states. Experts predict losses at least that heavy this year. By fall the aphids may reach Canada...
Though the war in Afghanistan gave Soviet troops valuable combat experience, it exposed an array of equipment deficiencies. Machine-gun fire and U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles brought down heavily armored helicopter gunships. In a move reminiscent of the U.S. defeat in Viet Nam, Moscow called a halt to the fighting after nine years of frustration and began withdrawing its troops in May. Says David Isby, a U.S. military expert and author of Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army: "The vaunted Soviet military was basically fought to a standstill...
...during the 1970s, for throwing its military weight around in the world. The principal examples -- what Chinese officials call the Three Obstacles to normalization of relations between the two countries -- are the Soviet Union's deployment of more than 50 divisions along the Chinese northern border, its occupation of Afghanistan and its support for Viet Nam's occupation of Kampuchea. Gorbachev, who is eager to hold a summit with the 83- year-old Deng, has been making, or at least hinting at, concessions on all three issues. Last year the Kremlin removed one division from the Mongolian People's Republic...
...sense," since the division that was withdrawn could return on short notice. General Chai Chengwen, first deputy chairman of the Beijing Institute for International Strategic Studies (BIISS), a think tank connected with the National Defense Ministry, says, "The Soviet Union is looking for excuses to delay its withdrawal from Afghanistan." From Deng on down, Chinese spokesmen say that Kampuchea, still occupied by Moscow's Vietnamese allies, remains the main obstacle...