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Financial Times, Wednesday, June 4, 1980

Afghanistan

Moscow Starts ‘Phoney War’ Over Peace

With Afghanistan far from pacified, but at least firmly under Soviet control, the conflict has entered a new stage which, adapting a phrase from forty years ago, might best be described as the “phoney war.”

A bewildering series of proposals, suggestions and “hints” have been put about by the Soviet and Afghan governments, to the effect that Soviet troops can be withdrawn when “outside interference” in Afghanistan’s affairs is brought to an end.

MValery Giscard d’Estaing, the French President, met Mr Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet President, in Warsaw in an effort to “keep the lines of communication open”; and Herr Helmut Schmidt, the West German Chancellor, is due in Moscow later this month when a new West German-Soviet 25-year economic agreement will be on the agenda.

There is a lull in Soviet military activity in Afghanistan and the number of Soviet troops in that country has levelled off at 80,000, with another 25,000 stationed across the border on Soviet territory. One might almost assume that an agreement on Soviet troop withdrawals was imminent.

If precedent is any guide, however, it is far more likely that the West is witnessing a carefully orchestrated campaign whose purpose is not to prepare the way for Soviet troop withdrawals but to undermine support in Western Europe for economic sanctions against the Soviet Union, and prepare the groundwork for the eventual recognition, particularly in the Islamic world, of the Soviet-backed government of Mr Babrak Karmal.

Shortly after Soviet forces crossed the Afghan border in strength last December, Soviet official spokesmen said they had moved in at the request of the Afghan government in order to protect it against “outside interference.” There was no evidence of interference by anyone but the Soviet Union at the time, and none has materialised since. But Mr Brezhnev offered this explanation to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and Mr Carter reacted by doubting the truth of what Mr Brezhnev said.

In the months since the invasion, the Soviet way of using language has become less confusing. By “outside interference,” the Soviet authorities mean the indigenous Afghan revolt against Soviet occupation; and when they speak of an end to “outside interference,” they are seeking an end to foreign backing for the rebels. This would—for the moment—leave the Karmal government in outright control, making the presence of Soviet forces unnecessary.

The Soviet peace offensive is now four months old but even M Giscard d’Estaing, whose meeting last month with Mr Brezhnev in Warsaw was hailed in the Soviet press as a “fruitful dialogue,” did not deflect Soviet determination to remain in Afghanistan until all resistance to the Karmal government has ceased.

The Soviets, on an official level, are still repeating what Mr Brezhnev said to Mr Carter about “outside interference,” but they have received free publicity for their peaceful intentions by continually reformulating their propaganda position to create the impression that they were offering something new.

Mr Brezhnev, for example, told Mr Armand Hammer, the President of Occidental Petroleum and a major supporter of U.S. Soviet trade that the Soviet Union would not insist on U.S. guarantees of an end to all “outside interference” (in effect, all Afghan resistance which the U.S. has no interest in ending) in return for troop withdrawals recognising that the U.S. might not be able to restrain all the elements at work in Afghanistan.

In April, the Karmal government offered to open negotiations aimed at normalising relations with Iran and Pakistan, based on an end to “outside interference” in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. The offer was doubly unrealistic because Iran and Pakistan not only have no interest in helping suppress the Afghan rebellion, but they also want no part of the Kamal government, which neither country recognizes.

The most recent reformulation of the Soviet position was the Afghan proposal on May 14, which combined the invitation to Iran and Pakistan with the existing Soviet offer to withdraw troops in return for U.S. guarantees of an end to “outside interference.”

Schmidt is now expected to arrive in Moscow on June 30 for the first visit of a Western leader to Moscow since the Afghan invasion. But despite the flurry of “peace feelers,” he has little Prospekt of achieving more than M Giscard d’Estaing in changing the Russian position on Afghanistan.

The Soviet leaders are often regarded as heavy-handed in the West, but they are frequently shrewd enough to outmanoeuvre their Western counterparts. The Soviet authorities realise that West European businessmen have no desire to make economic sacrifices to deter future Afghanistans, and the peace offensive is intended to reinforce this reluctance.

There are fundamental reasons why the peace offensive is not likely to be followed by real peace but rather a rapid doubling or trebling of the number of Soviet troops. The war is going badly for the Soviets in Afghanistan, and military observers believe that it will take a minimum of a quarter of a million men to begin to pacify the country.

This prospect might be daunting for a democratic country, but Soviet political authority is based on a supposed understanding of the iron laws of history.

The Soviet leadership cannot forsake the “Afghan revolution” after having committed troops and its own prestige to it, without undermining its own authority as well.

The damage to the West as a result of the present “peace offensive” may be serious. The inability of the U.S. to rally its allies can only convince Afghanistan’s Islamic neighbours that they have no choice but to accept the inevitable and come to terms with the Karmal government, any recognition of which would legitimise the Soviet presence.