Security & defenceThe Afghan decade
Washington widens the covert war in Afghanistan
A March 1985 presidential directive committed the United States to driving Soviet forces out of Afghanistan, deepening a covert programme that ran through Pakistan’s intelligence service.
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National Security Decision Directive
NSDD-166
The removal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan
National Security Decision Directive
NSDD-166
The removal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan
Background
The covert programme that began with Carter’s findings of 1979 grew steadily in the early 1980s. Its structure was settled early: the CIA bought weapons and supplies, much of them Soviet-pattern arms that could not easily be traced to the United States, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took delivery in Pakistan, trained the fighters and distributed the arms to the Afghan mujahideen parties based in Peshawar1,2. Saudi Arabia also contributed funds3.
What happened
On 27 March 1985 President Reagan approved National Security Decision Directive 166 on US policy, programmes and strategy in Afghanistan4. The directive combined a programme of covert support for the Afghan resistance with a diplomatic strategy to press the Soviet Union to withdraw, and it named the goal as the removal of Soviet forces and the restoration of Afghanistan’s independence4,5. It marked a shift from harassing the Soviet army to trying to defeat its occupation, and it opened the way to more sophisticated support in the following years, including intelligence and new weapons5.
Pakistan’s role
Pakistan insisted on, and received, control of the distribution of arms inside the pipeline. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who headed the ISI’s Afghan bureau from 1983 to 1987, later described how his office controlled the flow of thousands of tons of arms, bought with CIA and Saudi money, and planned the mujahideen’s operations3. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, has argued that in this sense the war against the Soviets was run by Zia rather than by Washington2,6. The arrangement gave Pakistan influence over which Afghan factions grew strong, and it favoured Islamist parties that Pakistan judged most effective and most reliable; this choice was later criticised in the United States after several of those factions turned against the West1.
Why it mattered
NSDD-166 committed the United States to a long campaign in which Pakistan was the indispensable partner. It ensured that, for the rest of the decade, US policy-makers would weigh every other issue with Pakistan - democracy, narcotics, the nuclear programme - against the need to keep the Afghan pipeline running.
Legacy
In February 1989, as the last Soviet troops left, the CIA station chief in Islamabad cabled headquarters a two-word message: “We won”6. Accounts such as Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars trace how the networks, weapons and relationships built in these years shaped Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s and the rise of militant groups that would confront both Pakistan and the United States1.
Sources
- Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (Steve Coll), Penguin Press, 2004 · Scholarly
- What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979–89 (Bruce Riedel), Brookings Institution Press, 2014 · Scholarly
- Mohammad Yousaf (author page: The Bear Trap), Pen & Sword Books · Scholarly
- National Security Decision Directive 166: U.S. Policy, Programs and Strategy in Afghanistan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 27 March 1985 · Primary document
- NSDD-166 (copy), Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program, 27 March 1985 · Primary document
- Riedel: The war against the Soviets in Afghanistan was run by Zia, not by us, Foreign Policy, 14 July 2014 · Press
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