The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

head of state. He wanted to be received, heard, and supported. We made a spy out of him.What else is there to say?”“It’s a mistake to believe that our troops will enter the country and form garrisonswithout taking part in military activities,” Varennikov voiced his support. “They will mostcertainly be dragged into combat. There will be casualties. How will we explain this to ourown people? What kinds of arguments are we going to present to the internationalcommunity? We will be immediately accused of aggression.”Ogarkov had heard all of these arguments many times before, and fully agreed withthem. Nikolai Vasilievich was in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, as the head ofthe General Staff and the first deputy minister of defense, he was obliged to obey the orderand fulfill it immediately. On the other hand, as an experienced military leader and apolitician, he could foresee the consequences of this step for his army and his country alltoo well. Negative premonitions tormented him. Ogarkov, who personally participated inthe development and adoption of plans for pre-emptive strikes against NATO countries (tobe implemented if any signs of preparation for nuclear attacks against the Soviet Unionwere detected) and believed in the success of such pre-emptive strikes, who fought againstthe Nazis and spent decades strengthening the defense capabilities of the Soviet Union, didnot believe in the potential success of a blitzkrieg in the Afghan mountains. He expectedhuge troubles to follow such a campaign. No, Afghanistan was not to be given away. Heunderstood that, and was ready to work on alternate scenarios in order to maintain afriendly regime there. But that had to be achieved without the participation of Soviettroops, and without triggering a large-scale war. The Soviets didn’t need their own Vietnamacross the Amu Darya. Ogarkov thought that if the KGB considered Amin to be an American676