Gorbachev marked the beginning of the end. It certainly did for
Karmal, even though Gorbachev’s rise initially led to a major esca-
lation rather than reduction of Soviet military activities.
The chapter is divided into four sections. The first surveys
military activities in five key regions: eastern and southern
Afghanistan; northern Afghanistan; western Afghanistan; the
Panjsher Valley; and the Hazarajat. The second examines the struc-
ture of the communist regime and the role of the PDPA during this
period. The third traces the development of the communist secret
police, and the specific roles it played in detecting and crushing
opposition. The fourth looks at the way in which political change
in the Soviet Union set the scene for the abandonment of Karmal
by a new Soviet leadership, and the reexamination of the way in
which Afghanistan should be approached. Underlying all this dis-
cussion, however, is a pervasive political reality: that the
Soviet–Afghan War was not constituted by a string of decisive
events – an Austerlitz, a Waterloo, a Stalingrad, a D-Day, or a
Hiroshima – but rather by a hard grind of medium-intensity
engagements, none capable of offering decisive strategic victory to
either side, but which had a massive cumulative effect, most
importantly in the minds of a changing Soviet leadership cohort.
PATTERNS OF WAR
Eastern and southern Afghanistan
The war in the east of Afghanistan was perhaps more ferocious
than in any other part of the country, although no complete survey
of war damage has been carried out that would permit systematic
conclusions to be drawn. The flow of refugees and internally dis-
placed persons from this area attested to the intensity of fighting
(Sliwinski, 1989b). The military rationale from the Soviet point of
view was obvious: this area adjoined Pakistan, from which external
aid to the Afghan resistance would come if it came at all. Sliwinski
actually argues that the maximum exodus from eastern provinces
86 The Afghanistan Wars