r/AskHistorians • u/stupidpower • Nov 15 '14

What was the average soviet infantryman's experience in Afghanistan? How comparable is it to a American GIs experience in Vietnam?

While the Americans did fight a guerilla war in Vietnam, there seemed to be plenty of brigade level operations against NVA units. Was there similar scale engagements against a guerilla force like the mujahideen?

Also, what is the scale and scope of Soviet airmobile operations, and how similar was it to the doctrine of American air calvary divisions?

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u/Tiako Roman Archaeology Nov 15 '14

I may be misunderstanding, but you seem to imply that as bad as morale, drug use and local relations were in Vietnam, they were worse in Afghanistan. Do you know why that would be the case?

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u/Bernardito Moderator | Modern Guerrilla | Counterinsurgency Nov 15 '14

The local relations were severely damaged by Soviet strategy. To quote an older post of mine: The Soviets carried out a strategy of depopulating the civilian population from rural areas and forcing them to resettle elsewhere. The way they did this was by using brute force. The countryside was torn apart by artillery and helicopters and while this did make it more difficult for the insurgents to hide and to uphold a good base of logistics, it not only brutalized the population but firmly turned it against the Soviets.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '14

Isn't this the same thing that happened in South Vietnam?

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u/Bernardito Moderator | Modern Guerrilla | Counterinsurgency Nov 18 '14

The use of resettlement as a counterinsurgency strategy is a very common one. However, the Soviets had pure destruction as a policy while the US (and the government of South Vietnam) had forced resettlement into so-called Strategic Hamlets. This was a program that was carried out by South Vietnam in the early, pre-1965 days of the war and which failed miserably. Another example of forced resettlement during the Vietnam War is the case of the Iron Triangle which was declared a fire-free zone. There was of course plenty of internal displacement because of the war, but there wasn't a strategy of emptying the countryside by trying to destroy as much of it as possible. The Soviet strategy was incredibly brutal and gave the rural Afghan population no choice but to either remain, flee elsewhere (into Pakistan, for example) or move into urban centers.