The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan 1989

Serious U.S.-Soviet dialogue on Afghanistan started as early as 1985. During their first summit in Geneva, Gorbachev told Reagan, “the Soviets are ready to promote a package solution involving a non-aligned Afghanistan, Soviet troop withdrawal, the return of refugees, and international guarantees of no outside interference.” Just a month earlier, a key Politburo meeting made a decision on withdrawing Soviet troops.[2] Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin described this meeting in his memoirs:

“During one short stay in Moscow I happened to attend a Politburo meeting on October 17, 1985, which was a decisive one in determining our withdrawal. It was a sober and restrained session. For the first time, at least as far as I know, Gorbachev proposed “a solution for Afghanistan”—it was time to end our involvement and withdraw. He gave a description of the situation, the politics, the economics, and what it had meant for our foreign policy with the United States. Then he said, “We have our boys there, and it’s not quite clear what they’re doing there. It’s time to leave.” He did not dare to describe the earlier Politburo decision to invade Afghanistan as a gross blunder because he was addressing essentially the same Politburo that had voted to go in five years before. But his summary was clear enough: “with Karmal or without Karmal, we should firmly adopt a course leading to our earliest withdrawal from Afghanistan.” There was no objection and no strong endorsement, but rather reluctant silent agreement. That was the crucial session that decided in principle our withdrawal from Afghanistan, although it did not yet fix any concrete dates.”[3]

In Geneva, Reagan responded to Gorbachev’s statement by saying that he supported “mutual withdrawal of all outside forces” and working through the U.N., and also proposed a “coalition of Islamic states” to supervise the election of a new government. The U.S. president was more forthcoming on the issue of the Afghan settlement in his post-summit letter of November 28: “I want you to know that I am prepared to cooperate in any reasonable way to facilitate the withdrawal and that I understand that it must be done in a manner which does not damage Soviet security interests.”[4] At the time of Geneva, according to senior NSC aide Jack Matlock (subsequently Reagan’s ambassador to Moscow), President Reagan was willing to terminate aid to the Mujahedin without demanding that the Soviets stop supplying the Afghan government, if the Soviets were willing to commit to withdrawal – which was the prime U.S. goal.

One world leader that Gorbachev trusted to be a positive intermediary in the settlement of the Afghanistan issue was Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi was also actively engaged with the Reagan administration trying to warn the Americans about the dangers of a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan. In this memcon, Gorbachev explains recent developments in Afghanistan within the framework of “national reconciliation,” while Gandhi cautions the Soviet leader about dealing with tribal society. Gorbachev complains that in the Geneva negotiations “all [U.N. negotiator Diego] Cordovez talks about is withdrawing troops” without dealing with difficult internal issues. Gorbachev also alleges that the United States put pressure on Pakistan in order to keep the Soviet troops in Afghanistan longer and “discredit the Soviet Union.” From Gorbachev’s point of view, “the main obstacle to speeding up the political settlement of the Afghan problem – it is the position of the United States.”

Elated after the successful completion of the INF Treaty, Gorbachev was hoping for a major breakthrough on Afghanistan during his visit to Washington in December 1987. In this conversation, it seems that the two sides actually were able to bridge their differences. Gorbachev is stating that there is no linkage between the troop withdrawal and the process of “national reconciliation” but that there is certainly a linkage to the U.S. halting its supplies to the resistance. He is optimistic on the basis of the Shevardnazde-Shultz working group discussion the previous day, where, according to George Shultz, “the Soviet side welcomed American readiness to reaffirm support for the Geneva agreements. This resolved the non-interference issue.” Shultz continued, “According to the agreements, after the signing of the accords, a troop withdrawal will begin; and 60 days after this, American support will cease.” Gorbachev said then only one point was left—the timetable for troop withdrawal, and that the parties would engage in practical discussion of this after the summit.

In this message passed through U.S. Ambassador John Gunther Dean, President Reagan thanks Rajiv Gandhi for advance information about Gorbachev’s statement on withdrawal from Afghanistan and summarizes the U.S. position. The U.S. “bottom line, of course, remains the same—to effect the complete and irreversible withdrawal of Soviet troops in the shortest time possible, and to ensure self-determination for the Afghan people and return of the refugees.” Reagan stresses that the Soviets have shown their seriousness by addressing the main U.S. concerns “such as frontloading, a shortened timetable, a date certain for withdrawal to commence, phasing, and monitoring.” The U.S. president claims that “we have no plan of our own nor are we able to predict what shape [the new Afghan] government may take.” The message dismisses Gandhi’s concerns about a fundamentalist regime taking over in Kabul claiming that the resistance is moderate and “Afghan historical and cultural experience […] argue strongly against such a development.” The message also expresses the U.S. belief that the Najibullah regime “cannot hold power without the Soviet Army.”

Secretary of State George Shultz met with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze monthly in the spring of 1988 (February in Moscow, March in Washington, April in Moscow), leading up to the Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow summit. Afghanistan is one of the key issues covered during this discussion during the February meeting, along with the Iran-Iraq war, the Middle East, Central America, and other regional issues. The Soviets wanted to apply their new policy of cooperation with the United States to resolve regional conflicts around the world by political means.

For Gorbachev and Shevardnadze that was the proof of success for their new political thinking. When Shultz and Shevardnadze move to the discussion of the Geneva Accords on Afghanistan, the U.S. side puts the main emphasis on demanding a pledge of “cessation of Soviet military aid to the Kabul regime once an agreement entered into effect.” To the Soviets, this sounds like a major policy change since the December conversations in Washington. Shevardnadze explains the difficulty of breaking Soviet commitments to the existing legitimate government and asks Shultz to do everything together to conclude the Geneva process and sign the accords so that in the future the need to supply weapons would disappear. Shevardnadze doubts the U.S. willingness to serve as a guarantor of the agreement; he is of the view that when the U.S. “made this commitment, Washington did not believe that the Soviet Union would withdraw. It now appeared that America was introducing new demands, just when prospects for a real settlement were materializing.”

Shevardnadze at some point quips that “in the future, there will be no flow of arms to Kabul, only food.” When Shultz rephrases it suggesting somebody write down that the foreign minister said “the Soviet Union would be sending food rather than arms after its withdrawal,” Shevardnadze says “no.” They conclude this part of conversation without being any closer to an agreement.

The part focused on Afghanistan was arguably the most difficult in this long and very productive conversation that covered the entire spectrum of U.S.-Soviet relations. Shultz welcomes Gorbachev’s February 8 statement on Afghanistan and expresses his hope that the next round of Geneva talks would become the last one. Shultz is basically silent for this part of the conversation, but Gorbachev unleashes a real fury accusing the U.S. of changing its position on the Afghan settlement from the summit in Washington in December 1987 regarding support for the Mujahedin. He blasts Shultz: “what’s happening? You are rejecting your own advice. If we want to have a neutral, non-aligned, independent Afghanistan, then let the Afghans discuss and decide what kind of government they should have. What do you find unacceptable in this idea? Isn’t this what you have been talking about all the time?” Still, Gorbachev’s priority is to get the United States to cooperate and sign the Geneva Accords, thus creating a precedent for future U.S.-Soviet cooperation on regional conflicts. The Soviet leader believes that it is the U.S. turn to move: “You wanted us to make a statement about the withdrawal of our troops, to provide a date and a timeframe for the withdrawal. We did this. The way is open.” Shultz limits himself to welcoming the statement.

This is the final ministerial before the signing of the Geneva Accords. Shevardnadze makes a last-ditch, desperate effort to persuade Shultz to agree to limit U.S. support for the most radical forces of the Afghan resistance. Shevardnadze reiterates that the Soviets did everything the U.S. has asked of them with the February announcement of withdrawal, including committing to the dates and frontloading. An internal Afghan settlement, Shevardnadze points out, is now even more complicated, since Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was elected leader of the Peshawar alliance of the opposition. The Soviet foreign minister calls Hekmatyar “a fundamentalist, a person of extreme views,” who cannot deal with other representatives of Afghan factions. Shultz insists on “symmetry”—if the U.S. is to stop its supplies to the resistance, the Soviets will have to stop assistance to the Najibullah government.

The conversation goes in circles. Without any progress in sight, Shevardnadze proposes a “third option,” a fig leaf designed to enable both sides to sign the Accords and claim success but to keep doing exactly what they were doing, leaving the conflict essentially unresolved. In this option, the issue of arms supplies would simply be dropped since the Geneva instruments themselves did not include language on it. Shultz agrees that would be the best option. The two ministers agree to hand the negotiations over to their deputies, Anatoly Adamishin and Michael Armacost, to try to find an arrangement along the lines of the “third option” that both sides could live with.

As directed by their ministers, Under Secretary of State Michael Armacost and Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Adamishin try to find a way to limit the flow of arms into Afghanistan within the framework of the “third option” proposed by Shevardnadze in the conversation the day before (see Document 08). Adamishin still expresses his preference for the first option (U.S. stops supplying the Mujahedin). Armacost says he would like to see Adamishin “defend it before Congress.” Adamishin retorts that “he thought he could defend it before the Supreme Soviet.” Armacost insists that in order to present the accords to Congress, the press, and the American public, the administration needs symmetry regarding military assistance – if the Soviet Union continues to provide arms to the Kabul government, then the U.S. should have a guaranteed right to provide arms to the resistance even if that would mean that Pakistan would violate the terms of its agreement with Afghanistan. The U.S. side wants further assurances from the Soviets that they will not criticize the United States or Pakistan when arms deliveries are actually made across the border, stating that “the U.S. could not enter into an agreement where the exercise of its rights [to supply arms to Pakistan] would expose Pakistan to charges of committing a violation” [when Pakistan arms the Muhjahedin]. Armacost implies that the United States does not really need the Geneva agreement as much as the Soviets do.

Adamishin tries to iron out the differences in approach but stands firm on his position that if they agree to this U.S. position, it "would undercut the Geneva accords" by giving Pakistan the green light to "circumvent the obligations in the Pak-Afghan bilateral agreement," to which the United States and the Soviet Union would be guarantors. The exchange gets heated to the point where Adamishin says that there might be a situation where the Soviet side would “find it necessary to reverse the troops withdrawal,” although he immediately corrects himself, saying his statement about troop withdrawal was “emotional.”

This last session of the ministerial is very frank and emotional as now Shultz asks Shevardnadze to give informal assurances that the Soviet side will not criticize Pakistan for violating the Geneva Accords. Shultz says Pakistan is the most sensitive issue “because there was no other realistic route for transporting supplies to the resistance.” The U.S. would continue to supply, and the Soviets “would reserve the right to complain about this, but would not claim that the Geneva Accords were being violated.” After Shevardnadze agrees and states the new Soviet position as “U.S. could supply the opposition and the Soviet Union would not claim a violation, although it would criticize such action,” Shultz asks for a caucus with his delegation, including National Security Advisor Colin Powell, Michael Armacost, Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway, and State Department Soviet affairs expert Mark Parris.

Ten minutes later, the U.S. side emerges and adds one more demand—that both sides announce a moratorium on arms shipments for the duration of the Soviet withdrawal. Only under this condition will the U.S. assume the responsibilities of a guarantor of the Geneva Accords. Shevardnadze rejects the proposal and moves to the next subject. Later in the conversation, Shevardnadze explodes at Shultz: “Shevardnadze said he had believed the Secretary until that afternoon, until they had discussed Afghanistan. Now his confidence was shaken. There were certain norms in any business, including ‘this one.’” Shevardnadze goes on to express his acute disappointment with the results of the visit. However, in the process of this difficult negotiation, both sides come closer to the notion of mutual restraint in arms supplies and put their hopes on the process after Geneva.

Ambassador Jack Matlock in Moscow passes on the text of this message to Shultz from Shevardnadze. Shevardnadze informs the secretary of state that after the “necessary consultations” with the Najibullah government all the military agreements were finalized and the United States and the Soviet Union were now ready to add their signatures as guarantors of the Geneva agreements. Shevardnadze emphasizes that, although important, the Geneva agreements are “only just a beginning,” and the important period of settlement is just starting. In the future, “the Soviet Union intends to strictly adhere to the obligations, which are clearly formulated in the completed documents, and expects the same from the American side that is to act in the manner set out in mutual understanding achieved by us in Washington.”

This angry letter from National Security Advisor Colin Powell comes the day after the signing of the Geneva Accords and best expresses the Reagan administration’s intentions with regard to carrying out the agreements. Powell fires at Shultz for using the word “restraint” in the unilateral statement he read right after the signing, which indicated the United States would “meet restraint with restraint,” if the Soviets stopped supplying the Kabul government. He believes Shultz added this wording surreptitiously, without consulting anybody “in the NSC family.” Powell writes that “the President is under the impression that the Mujahedin will be supplied as we think they need to be supplied and not by any comparison to what the Soviets are doing with Kabul.”

This conversation takes place a week after the signing of the Geneva Accords. Shultz is in Moscow to prepare for the upcoming summit in Moscow. Gorbachev reaffirms his preference for a neutral, non-aligned Afghanistan and warns Shultz that during a meeting between Iranian Prime Minister Mousavi and an envoy from Pakistani leader Zia ul-Haq, they “spoke about the necessity to depose the current regime and create a union of Islamic countries on a fundamentalist basis.” Shultz denies that Pakistan wants such an outcome. (Interestingly, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Arnie Raphel would warn the Secretary of State of exactly these Pakistani aspirations in summer 1988[5].) Shultz expresses the U.S. commitment to a neutral, non-aligned Afghanistan and professes not to know where Afghanistan’s political development will go: “it is a mystery for us.” Gorbachev talks about Afghanistan as a test and a precedent for U.S.-Soviet cooperation in resolving regional conflicts. He no longer mentions the issue of terminating U.S. and Pakistani aid to the Mujahedin.

U.S. Ambassador to India John Gunther Dean informs George Shultz about his conversation with “the grey eminence of the Gandhi government,” Gopi Arora, who briefed the ambassador on his meeting with Anatoly Dobrynin in Moscow. Arora believes that Gorbachev is committed to “complete troop withdrawal” on schedule, that the PDPA is stronger than the Mujahedin claimed they would be, and that they are not likely to fall after the Soviets withdraw. Najibullah might become dispensable for the Soviets in the future, especially if there is a prospect for a technocratic and moderate government. Arora points out that the Indians “are not supporting Najibullah per se but rather what he is trying to do, i.e. bring about a solution in Afghanistan which keeps extreme fundamentalists out of Kabul.” Arora also asks “whether the U.S. really evaluated whether U.S. national interests are absolutely parallel to Zia’s interests in Afghanistan.” In his response, Ambassador Dean “stressed we saw no role for Najibullah now or later.”

As the Soviets were about to finish the withdrawal of half of their troops as pledged at Geneva, the radical resistance was organizing and becoming even less willing to negotiate with the government, which they expected to fall immediately after the Soviet withdrawal. This development greatly worried the Indian leader. In his letter to Reagan, Rajiv Gandhi warns again about “encouragement of fundamentalism.” In a strongly worded message he appeals to democratic values: “A fundamentalist regime in Kabul would not be in the interest of India or the United States. By its very definition, fundamentalism cannot be reconciled with the basic values which both of our countries cherish: democracy, equal rights for all citizens, equal status for women and other such human rights.”

Two days before the last Soviet soldier crossed the Friendship Bridge on the way out of Afghanistan, the new George H. W. Bush administration issued a National Security Directive on Afghanistan reaffirming the continuation of the Reagan policy of support for the resistance and “working in concert with Pakistan.” This heavily redacted document (an Mandatory Declassification Review request for the full text is pending) shows that the United States was expecting the imminent fall of the Najibullah government and was not willing to accept any Soviet proposals “limiting U.S. options” in terms of assistance to the resistance. The Directive also states that any Soviet bombing of targets in Afghanistan after February 15 would be seen as a violation of the Geneva Accords.

After the Soviet withdrawal of troops, the situation in Afghanistan entered a new phase. The Najibullah government remained in power and tried to orchestrate a political settlement by offering a peace plan to the opposition. This small group discussion during the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, extended meeting between Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Secretary of State James Baker, lays out both sides’ proposals. Soviet Foreign Ministry representative Yuri Alekseyev presents the Najibullah plan of the settlement that included a guiding council that would oversee the transitional period, free elections under international monitoring, a new constitution to be drafted by the newly elected parliament, and an international conference on Afghanistan with the participation of the United States, the Soviet Union, Iran, Pakistan, and China. On the U.S. side, Condoleezza Rice of the NSC staff speaks with interest about some elements of the plan, such as the transitional committee, but says the resistance would not accept anything if the composition of the present government remains the same. Secretary Baker puts it simply, that “Najibullah’s name should be taken off if the plan [is] to have any chance of flying.”

Secretary of State James Baker visits Moscow in February 1990 to talk to the Soviet leadership, mainly about the revolutionary changes occurring in Eastern Europe and about the process of German unification. However, parts of his conversations with Shevardnadze the day before and on this day with Gorbachev are devoted to the political settlement in Afghanistan. Both sides express their preference for a political solution and for an independent Afghanistan, but they admit that their influence on Afghan opposing parties is limited. They are also both committed to supporting their allies. Gorbachev tries to promote the Najibullah plan of elections under U.N. monitoring and teasingly asks Baker: “Don’t you always speak in support of free elections?” Baker is not really engaging on this issue other than to say that “we will not be able to persuade the Mujahedin. This is a difficult problem.” Both sides are clearly tired of trying to solve the Afghan problem unsuccessfully. Gorbachev says “let them boil in their own juices,” and Baker agrees, expressing hope that “maybe something will come out.” Gorbachev points to the “reputational aspect” of the Afghan settlement—it creates a precedent for how the United States and the Soviet Union could work together to resolve local conflicts.

This conversation takes place in Namibia where George Shultz and Eduard Shevardnadze are attending the country’s independence celebration. After discussing the upcoming Washington/Camp David summit, arms control, and regional conflicts, the two diplomats make an effort to find a solution on Afghanistan. Over a year now after the completion of the Soviet withdrawal, Najibullah is still in power and a solution to the conflict is not in sight. The main and perhaps only demand of the U.S. side is that Najibullah has to go and not take part in the elections. Baker expresses his belief that the U.S. cannot “produce the Mujahedin in a process where Najib could still be in power.”

The Soviet foreign minister emphatically argues that elections be held in Afghanistan just as they were held in Nicaragua and Namibia. According to the memcon, he tells Baker that Najibullah “is proposing free elections. He is saying they can be held under U.N. auspices, he said there could be strict monitoring; he said there would be an opportunity given for the refugees to participate, he said that the territorial aspects need to be respected where the opposition controls the territory.” Shevardnadze calls for the U.S. to support such elections, but Baker only replies that the Mujahedin would not support such elections if there was a chance of Najibullah’s victory. Shevardnadze’s frustration but also keen understanding of the situation shows in his retort: “not one leader of the Mujahaddin is going to accept free elections. They all have a dictatorial persuasion—Hekmatiyar, Khalis—you name it; they are not interested in elections.”