A War on Two Fronts: The Environment as a Hostile in the Soviet-Afghan War

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An excerpt from "Mountains, Deserts and Irregular Warfare: How the Soviet Union Lost their War in Afghanistan"

 Unconventional Warfare: Mountains and Deserts

Hostile, difficult terrain—like the high mountains and windswept deserts of Afghanistan—does not allow for the mechanized support, large numbers and sweeping, coordinated attacks of modern conventional warfare. An army trying to fight a conventional war in such areas will soon find themselves at a disadvantage, the tactics that they have been trained in largely ineffective and the enormous machinery they are accustomed to and trained for all but useless. If the local population—who know the terrain best—are as hostile as the land itself to the invading force, these problems are compounded.  These types of terrain, particularly the mountains, are well-suited for insurgency, favoring small, light units over the large armored convoys of conventional warfare.  An army unprepared for either unconventional or counter-insurgency tactics will find itself struggling very quickly in such an environment.

When the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1979 their soldiers had little training in unconventional warfare, no plans for dealing with an insurgency, and mountain warfare tactics useful only for conventional campaigns in regions like the Eastern Front of WW2.  This was not a problem during their initial seizure of power, which was a swift success; but when control of the countryside and even major cities began to fall to the mujahideen fighters opposing the Soviet regime the lack of training, tactics, or command adaption to an unconventional war began to show in both casualties and lost territory.  The Soviet troops and their commanders were trained for mechanized warfare and heavy use of both tanks and armored troop transports in flat, rolling terrain. Their tactical education had focused on large-scale conventional warfare, with an emphasis on artillery support and rapid mass movements of vehicle-transported infantry;  the Soviet training texts of the time did not so much as mention unconventional warfare. When the Soviet Army attempted to use these tactics in Afghanistan it ended in disaster.

The slow and highly visible vehicle convoys of the Soviet Army were easy targets for the mujahideen bands, who were already organized into the light, fast units best suited for unconventional mountain warfare. Relying on the mountains for natural cover, the mujahideen struck from ambush or from the roadless hillsides that were unnavigable for Soviet vehicles.  As soon as an attack was completed, they would fade back into the mountains. If Soviet units attempted pursuit they would find themselves in narrower and narrower canyons, trapped by cliffs and jagged ridges as they were forced to abandon first their vehicles, then their heavy weapons, split into smaller and smaller groups by the hostile terrain until they found themselves trapped and outnumbered.  By the mid-1980s convoys were being ambushed daily.  The mujahideen’s detailed knowledge of local terrain and the Soviet insistence on continuing to attempt to fight a highly unconventional enemy with conventional tactics led to the near-total control of mountainous eastern Afghanistan by the mujahideen. 

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    The Soviet bases were vulnerable as well. Most of the major cities and strategic outposts in Afghanistan are located in or near the Hindu Kush or one of the many subranges stretching across the country. The Soviet commanders secured their bases according to their training in conventional warfare, which protected them against massed attacks along a clear front in flat or rolling terrain; they were not prepared for isolated outposts with no secure flank to protect the compound from outside and an enemy that did not limit themselves to strikes along an established offensive front. The mujahedeen could launch rocket attacks on most of the major Soviet bases without leaving their artillery placements in the mountains, then approach and infiltrate the cities and garrisons at night.  After the high casualties suffered in their early attempts the Soviet Army rarely tried to pursue the mujahideen into the mountains.  Often they didn’t even respond with artillery strikes, both the terrain and the weather limiting the accuracy and the placement of artillery batteries. 

Unconventional mountain warfare relies on imaginative, independent tactical thinking by officers at all levels of command, something the Soviets sorely lacked and the mujahideen excelled at. The Soviet military emphasized standard procedures, centralized command and approval from superior officers over initiative or imagination. Officers were trained only in their specialty and duties, with no crossover permitted; skills like direction of artillery, placement of mines and radio operations were limited only to the specific specialists trained to accomplish that single task. In the mountains of Afghanistan, where small teams were the most effective military unit, bringing along specialists trained in every single necessary task was impossible, leading to ineffective combat operations and evasion of responsibility by soldiers who claimed mistakes were due to a task not being in their area of training. Innovative tactical thinking was also stifled, with approval from supervising commanders required for even minor deviations. These factors combined to create disaster when Soviet units were isolated in the mountains. Radio contact was often lost once soldiers entered the mountains, forcing each group to make independent command decisions without recourse to a higher authority; In the highly centralized Soviet military this led to casualties more often than success. The mujahideen, in contrast, were composed almost entirely of small, independent groups with a wide variety of skills. Far more familiar with the high mountain terrain than the Soviets, individual mujahideen commanders used the geography to their advantage without having to worry about confirming tactics with a higher command. Each local unit had its own commander and often owned its own weapons, removing any need to consult with another commander or with a base. Operating autonomously, the individual mujahideen units traveled light and moved quickly through the roadless terrain that made up most of the mountain regions, adapting quickly to new tactical situations and utilizing both the terrain and their individual skills in unusual and effective ways.  The use of small, independent units that were tactically flexible made the mujahideen far more effective at unconventional mountain warfare than the standardized, heavily regimented Soviet units and their stifling chain of command.

The terrain itself presented an additional problem for Soviet forces. With little to no previous training in mountain environments, Soviet soldiers were often unprepared for the sheer physical difficulty of operating in a high mountain combat theater.  The land of Afghanistan itself is incredibly dangerous; mountains extend laterally over 620 miles across a country that is only 770 miles across at its widest point, with an average altitude of over 13,000 feet and high points in the eastern Hindu Kush of over 21,000 feet.  These mountains are geologically very young, resulting in sharp peaks and deep, narrow valleys that have undergone very little weathering.  Winter temperatures in the mountains can drop near freezing, while in the summer the desert can reach over 110o Fahrenheit.  Most of the country receives very little rainfall and has few major water sources to rely on.  Almost half of Afghanistan is at an average altitude of over 6,000 feet. While not quite high enough for severe altitude illness, High Altitude Pulmonary Edemas (HAPE) or High Altitude Cerebral Edemas (HACE), 6,000 feet is still high enough to have an adverse physical and mental effect on unacclimated soldiers.  Farther into the mountains, more serious altitude-related ailments became a distinct concern. The rugged terrain of Afghanistan’s mountains compounded the effects of altitude and cold, forcing soldiers already suffering from the elevation to scramble up steep slopes and cross near-impassable ravines.  Heat stroke and dehydration in the summer and frostbite in the winter took a number of Soviet casualties. In addition to the soldiers themselves, Soviet equipment suffered in the harsh Afghan environment; vehicles broke down, aircraft needed almost constant maintenance, and radios regularly broke down.  Both equipment failures and physical hardship presented further challenges to the Soviet army’s ability to fight successfully in Afghanistan.