Causes of the invasion
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In truth, the invasion of Afghanistan was not a deliberate single event, but a reluctant move considered after many years of Soviet-Afghan cooperation in building infrastructure and selling military equipment to counter Pakistan, Iran or India with the latter’s leadership requesting armed assistance in putting down an uprising in December 1979. The USSR was Afghanistan's foremost trading partner.(Goodson, 2012, p. 53) Democratic republican reforms such as greater rights for women including the right to vote and the forbidding of forced marriages attracted the ire of communities in the countryside as well as Islamic fundamentalists, since many aspects of Islamic civil law were radically modified. They would also go on to change the flag of the country to Soviet-influenced one, a controversial act that would later be modified again. (Goodson, 2012, p. 53-54) Infrastructure in the Afghan nation such as hospitals, universities, power plants, schools and polytechnic institutes were partly funded and built by Soviet engineers. All things considered, the Soviet Union had a strategic and civil interest in Afghanistan. (Robinson & Dixon, 2013, p.5)
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In October 1978, tribes located near the Pakistani border openly revolted against the People’s Democratic Republics of Afghanistan’s reforms and their bloody crackdown on urban riots. The insurgency then spread to other ethnic regions and tribes around the country and later into major cities. The Soviet-Afghan treaty of December 1978 that allowed Afghanistan to ask for Soviet military aid against the rebels, allowed the government to repeatedly request Soviet troops deployments during the spring and summer of 1979. (Grau & Gress,
2002, p. 10) The USSR sent a few paratroopers, tanks and helicopters as security forces. Frustrated with the current Afghan President Hafizullah Amin’s failures (violent repressions ignited more unrest) and suspicion of being a CIA agent and as well as a supporter of China’s regime, he was killed by the Soviet KGB. KGB agents and their Afghan allies in the Afghan communist party announced the formation a new communist government on December 27th under Babrak Karmal. The same day, a massive deployment of Soviet troops was undertaken from the north into Afghanistan consisting of 1,800 tanks, 80,000 soldiers and 2,000 armoured vehicles. (Fisk, 2005, p. 40)
Thus, the true invasion began.