A Long Goodbye [electronic resource] : the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan / Artemy M. Kalinovsky.

ISBN:

9780674061040

Title:

Author:

Kalinovsky, Artemy M.

Personal Author:

Kalinovsky, Artemy M.

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages, [8] pages of plates) : illustrations

Contents:

The reluctant intervention -- The turn toward diplomacy -- Gorbachev confronts Afghanistan -- The national reconciliation campaign -- Engaging with the Americans -- The Army withdraws and the Politburo debates -- Soviet policy adrift.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Personal Subject:

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, 1931-

Subject Term:

Disengagement (Military science) -- Case studies.

Geographic Term:

Afghanistan -- Foreign relations.

Afghanistan -- History -- Soviet occupation, 1979-1989.

Soviet Union -- Foreign relations -- 1975-1985.

Soviet Union -- Foreign relations -- 1985-1991.

Soviet Union -- Foreign relations -- Afghanistan.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2011

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
958.1045 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

The conflict in Afghanistan looms large in the collective consciousness of Americans. What has the United States achieved, and how will it withdraw without sacrificing those gains? The Soviet Union confronted these same questions in the 1980s, and Artemy Kalinovsky's history of the USSR's nine-year struggle to extricate itself from Afghanistan and bring its troops home provides a sobering perspective on exit options in the region.

What makes Kalinovsky's intense account both timely and important is its focus not on motives for initiating the conflict but on the factors that prevented the Soviet leadership from ending a demoralizing war. Why did the USSR linger for so long, given that key elites recognized the blunder of the mission shortly after the initial deployment?

Newly available archival material, supplemented by interviews with major actors, allows Kalinovsky to reconstruct the fierce debates among Soviet diplomats, KGB officials, the Red Army, and top Politburo figures. The fear that withdrawal would diminish the USSR's status as leader of the Third World is palpable in these disagreements, as are the competing interests of Afghan factions and the Soviet Union's superpower rival in the West. This book challenges many widely held views about the actual costs of the conflict to the Soviet leadership, and its findings illuminate the Cold War context of a military engagement that went very wrong, for much too long.

Author Notes

Kalinovsky Artemy M. :

Artemy Kalinovsky is Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam and Research Associate at the Cold War Studies Programme at the London School of Economics and Politics.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

This intriguing, well-written book by Kalinovsky (Univ. of Amsterdam, Netherlands) draws some important parallels between the Soviet Union's misadventures in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the dilemmas facing the US in Afghanistan today. Rather than a scholarly tome, this is a great piece that reads more like investigative journalism. It makes for an entertaining, thought-provoking read, but this is also what leads to the main critique. What would make this work go from a good read to a truly important piece of scholarship would be a more explicit, rigorous, and expansive investigation of the parallels. Instead, readers are left to make their own conclusions (though, granted, they are led pretty strongly into particular directions). What would be fascinating would be a follow-up study to see if the failures of Soviet leadership and faulty decision making 30-odd years ago were indeed repeated by the US in the last decade. Was this a case of nationalistic hubris or simply history repeating itself in the face of ignorance? Such important questions are beyond the scope and objective of this work, unfortunately. Summing Up: Optional. General readers. M. D. Crosston Bellevue University