President Ronald Reagan is often credited with defeating the Soviet Union, in part by helping Afghan rebels, but it was the administration of President Jimmy Carter that laid the groundwork.
Considered a foreign policy novice by many when he entered the White House, Carter made the early decision to provide covert aid to Afghan insurgents months before the Soviet invasion. The move offers a window into one of the defining issues of his presidency, showing a president unafraid to confront the Soviets while pursuing a policy of détente.
“I think people’s image of Carter as a deeply religious man, a deeply moral man, is very much influenced by the activities he’s done after he left office. [But] he definitely had a ruthless side to him, and he had a side that was very willing to use force, including nuclear weapons,” said David Gibbs, a history professor at the University of Arizona.
The covert aid program initiated under Carter became the backbone of the Afghan insurgency, setting the stage for the Soviet Union’s eventual withdrawal in 1989.
In a bold move six months before the Soviets’ December 1979 invasion, Carter signed a secret directive known as a “presidential finding” that authorized the CIA to provide nonlethal aid to rebels fighting Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed communist government.
That finding stayed under wraps for nearly two decades, coming to light only when several Carter administration officials, including former CIA Director Robert Gates and national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, disclosed its existence in the 1990s, suggesting the Carter administration aimed to lure the Soviets into a Vietnam-style quagmire.
‘Afghan trap’
Brzezinski’s revelations were the most striking. In a 1998 interview with a French magazine, Carter’s Polish-born, ardently anti-communist adviser denied provoking the Soviets but claimed the administration had “knowingly increased the probability” of a Soviet invasion. Calling the program “an excellent idea,” he said it had the “effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.”
Although Brzezinski later disputed the accuracy of the interview and never repeated the claim, the so-called “Afghan trap” thesis gained traction, with critics excoriating the Carter administration for instigating the Soviet invasion and causing decades of conflict in Afghanistan.
Among scholars who see the aid program as a deliberate provocation, Gibbs said he was initially loath to read too much into the Brzezinski interview before becoming convinced of its veracity.
As Gibbs described it to VOA, a military aide once told historian Jonathan Haslam that Brzezinski, upon learning of the Soviet invasion, “pumped his first in the air in triumph and said, ‘They’ve taken the bait!’”
“The implication was that the decision to supply aid to the mujahideen was bait,” Gibbs said. “That, to me, is a strong indication that what he said is true, because it was said twice over a period of time, and it’s from the horse’s mouth.”
The Afghan trap thesis has permeated the works of other prominent experts, although most now dismiss it as baseless, according to historian Conor Tobin of the University College Dublin, who has researched it.
The problem with the theory, Tobin argues, is that it views the Carter administration’s involvement in Afghanistan through a 21st century lens, “working backwards from the events of 9/11.”
“They rely almost exclusively on Gates’ memoirs, the controversial French interview and other circumstantial and limited anecdotal evidence without exploring the subject in detail, and without using any other sources to corroborate the statements made,” Tobin told VOA via email.
A close look at recently declassified Carter-era documents tells a different story, Tobin said.
“It reveals that there was no attempt to ensnare the Soviet Union in the Afghan trap, and U.S. policies were in fact marginal in leading to the Soviet military intervention,” he said.
Nonlethal aid
What is not up for debate, however, is that the aid program was launched in response to rising Soviet influence in Afghanistan. A communist coup in April 1978 toppled the government of President Mohammad Daoud. The new regime then initiated radical reforms, sparking public opposition and eventually a full-blown insurgency.
According to Tobin, the Carter administration initially took a “wait-and-see” approach. That policy ended with the kidnapping and murder of U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs the following February. Brzezinski then ordered a new plan for Afghanistan.
“Should we help any insurgents?” he asked an aide to investigate, according to Tobin. “With whom would we have to work?”
A popular revolt in the western Afghan city of Herat, however, “led to a shift in attitude in Washington and the consensus began to slide towards a more active role,” Tobin wrote in his analysis, “The Myth of the ‘Afghan Trap’.”
CIA operatives sprang into action, developing a plan of action while reaching out to U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Several options were formulated, ranging from small-scale propaganda campaigns and nonlethal support to lethal arms supplies and military training via a third country.
After determining that military assistance may “provoke vigorous Soviet countermeasures,” the administration settled on nonlethal aid.
“The decision-making process demonstrated caution, rather than an effort to induce an invasion,” Tobin wrote.
On July 3, 1979, Carter authorized the CIA to provide up to $695,000 in aid to the insurgents. By mid-August, $575,000 of the funds had been allocated for cash, medical equipment and radio transmitters to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, who then delivered them to the mujahideen, according to Tobin’s account.
The aid program, says Tobin, was modest but significant in two key respects. It helped establish links with the mujahideen through Pakistani intelligence that would prove invaluable after the Soviet invasion. It also underscored American resolve to allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, reassuring them at a time when concerns about diminishing U.S. influence in the region were mounting.
The aid program came against a backdrop of escalating Cold War tensions. The Iranian Revolution of February 1979 had robbed the U.S. of a key strategic ally in the region. Rather than seeking to provoke the Soviets, Brzezinski worried about a “creeping intervention” in Afghanistan, fearing ‘’Moscow would continue to expand its influence until a de factor invasion had taken place,’’ Tobin wrote.
“The objectives in mid-1979 were essentially to do something, anything, to counter the Soviet advance in Afghanistan,” Tobin said.
Historian Scott Kaufman of Francis Marion University and author of a book on Carter’s foreign policy, said the late president also had to consider his bid for re-election the following year.
“He was already under attack for having ‘lost’ Nicaragua to communists and for being ‘soft’ on the Soviet Union,” Kaufman told VOA via email. “How would it look to voters if Carter, who wanted to get SALT II [Strategic Arms Limitations Talks] approved, made moves that encouraged what would be seen by them as further Soviet aggression.”
‘Carter Doctrine’
Kaufman took issue with the popular perception of Carter as a foreign policy novice. Though he lacked the foreign policy experience of a Richard Nixon or even Gerald Ford, Carter sat on the Trilateral Commission and had traveled overseas as governor of Georgia, Kaufman noted.
“That said, his support for the mujahideen reflected a foreign policy that since at least 1978 reflected a hardening insofar as U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union,” he said.
Carter’s tougher stance, Kaufman said, was driven by growing anti-Soviet sentiment in Congress, Brzezinski’s influence, and his personal disdain for Soviet repression and machinations.
“This does not mean that he had given up on seeking detente with the Soviets, as reflected by his desire to get SALT II ratified,” he said. “But his foreign policy vis-a-vis the U.S.S.R. [Soviet Union] demonstrated a preparedness to take a harder line.”
Nothing demonstrated Carter’s resolve more forcefully than the “Carter Doctrine,” his bold Persian Gulf policy adopted in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Unveiling the new policy during his 1980 State of the Union address, Carter warned that the U.S. was prepared to use “any means necessary” to prevent a Soviet takeover of the Persian Gulf region.
With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Carter administration upped the ante. On December 28, 1979, the day after Soviet commandos assassinated Afghan President Hafizullah Amin in Kabul, Carter signed a new finding that authorized the supply of weapons and training for the mujahideen. The first batch of weapons arrived in Pakistan in less than two weeks.
Carter went on to lose the 1980 election to Reagan, whose administration largely continued Carter’s Afghan policy for several years before dramatically building up the covert aid program to the tune of several hundred million dollars a year. Instead of merely harassing the Soviets, the Reagan administration sought its defeat, according to Tobin.
“The criticism of the Carter administration as weak on defense, therefore, is unjustified, with Carter largely laying the groundwork for the renewed global containment of the 1980s,” Tobin said.
“So, despite enduring orthodox assessments of Carter as a foreign policy failure, he departed office in January 1981 leaving a clear foreign policy direction for the incoming Reagan administration that arguably contributed to the end of the Cold War a decade later — an outcome that was almost incomprehensible as the Carter administration took office in January 1977.”
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