Word: sovietism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...policy met with violent resistance from the country's Islamic tribesmen, who make up some 85% of Afghanistan's 17 million people. Loyal to their old feudal leaders and enraged by the new, "godless" regime in Kabul, Muslim guerrillas launched a civil war that has kept the Soviet-backed Khalq government tottering on the brink of collapse ever since. Western diplomats in Kabul estimate that the rebels control 22 of the country's 28 provinces...
Both President Leonid Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei Kosygin signed Moscow's telegram of congratulation to Amin, who is most unlikely to steer Afghanistan from its Marxist, pro-Moscow course. The Soviet leaders may be less happy with the erratic Amin than they profess. DeVoss has learned that on two occasions the Soviets advised Taraki to distance himself from Amin and reduce his power. Taraki responded by replacing Amin as Defense Minister last March. But he was unable to reduce Amin's influence with the top Khalq military officers; their support enabled him to repossess the defense portfolio...
...Washington some Administration officials believe that Afghanistan may become a Viet Nam-like quagmire for the Soviets. They must soon face the critical choice of disengaging or going in with thousands more troops to prop up a tottering regime that has been unable to communize an ancient feudal society with profound religious, geographic and ethnic divisions. Even with Soviet advisers on hand, the war against the rebels is not going well. The effectiveness of Kabul's largely conscripted 80,000-man army has been diminished by a string of mutinies and defections: since the beginning...
...bitterness of the civil war was illustrated last March by violent riots in Herat, where Muslim peasants and 2,000 defecting Kabul troops went on a bloody rampage, killing hundreds of Khalq officials, army soldiers and foreigners, including at least 20 Soviet advisers and their families. Kabul responded with an all-out attack by helicopter gunships and jets, leaving some 20,000 Afghans dead in the streets. Though it crushed the riot, the massive retaliation reinforced the tribesmen's conviction that the Khalq regime is an atheistic puppet of the Soviet Union. Said one unrepentant factory business manager...
...problem with U.S.-Soviet relations is not only that there are two competing bureaucracies with their assumptions and guesses; there are also conflicting conceptions of negotiation. Americans tend to believe that each negotiation has its own logic, that its outcome depends importantly on bargaining skill, good will and facility for compromise. Critics demand greater flexibility. No position is ever final. The other side has the maximum inducement to stand rigid to discover what else we may offer...