Brzeziński: That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. — https://dgibbs.arizona.edu/content/brzezinski-interview-2

US Provoked the 1979 Russian Invasion of Afghanistan: Parallel to the Ukraine War? by David Gibbs

A reexamination of the 1979 Afghan case seems especially relevant today, given the obvious parallels to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the US response to the invasion of Afghanistan offers a model of what US officials should seek to achieve in Ukraine. The similarities between the two historical cases are indeed striking: Above all, the 1979 Afghan invasion was widely viewed at the time as being an unprovoked act of aggression, very much the way that the Ukraine invasion is being viewed now. We will see that such claims are contradicted by the historical record. It was US provocation that triggered both conflicts. — https://original.antiwar.com/david-gibbs/2024/09/15/us-provoked-the-1979-russian-invasion-of-afghanistan-parallel-to-the-ukraine-war/
#afghanistan #ukraine #usa #russia #brzeziński #carter