troops, and was labelled the ‘40th Army’. Official sources referred
to it as a ‘limited contingent’ (ogranichennyi kontingent). The
force was not one specially crafted to fit the situation in
Afghanistan. Rather, it reflected what could rapidly be mustered
for the purpose of the invasion, and for the immediate objectives
of securing the capital, key military bases, and main roads. These
objectives – largely short termin nature – in turn became the pol-
icy objectives around which Soviet strategy was built. The
defeatist nature of such an approach is almost immediately obvi-
ous. Instead of fostering an expansion of the territorial control of a
threatened regime, it emphasised hanging on grimly to a few core
assets. However, this was not how it appeared to the Soviet lead-
ership at the time, or to the Afghan: indeed, according to Sultan
Ali Keshtmand, who became Chairman of the Council of Ministers
of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in June 1981, Karmal
stated shortly after the invasion that he expected Soviet forces to
remain in Afghanistan for only six months (Halliday, 1999: 680).
If the Soviet leadership had one overriding policy objective in
sending forces into Afghanistan, it was to revitalise a failing regime
of Marxist orientation. Measures directed at advancing this end fig-
ured prominently in the discussions which KGB Chief Andropov
had with Karmal and his associates in Afghanistan in early 1980.
On 7 February 1980, he reported to the Politburo that he ‘particu-
larly stressed the necessity of establishing genuine party unity,
heightening of the military readiness of the army, strengthening
relations of the party and government with the masses, instituting
normal economic life in the country and activizing the foreign pol-
icy activities of Afghanistan in accordance with the demands of the
situation’ (Hershberg, 1996–97: 165–6). The role of Soviet troops
was clearly set out in a 7 April 1980 report to the Politburo from
Gromyko, Andropov, Ustinov, and party official Vadim Zagladin.
The report defined their tasks as ‘defending the revolutionary
regime in the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan],
defending the country from external threats, including sealing off
the borders of the country together with the Afghan forces, ensuring
the safety of the major centers and communications, and also
Soviet Strategy, Tactics, and Dilemmas 43