REVEALED: Ukraine is a Repeat of Afghanistan | Prof. David N. Gibbs

## A Parallel of Proxy Wars: Afghanistan then, Ukraine now The broad arc of contemporary debates about Ukraine finds an uncanny echo in the history of Afghanistan: both became theaters where great-power rivalry found proxy expression, and both were recast in the public imagination as existential tests of Western resolve. The conversation with Professor David N. Gibbs highlights how the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979–1989) and the Russo‑Ukrainian conflict share structural features—rapid political breakdown, outside manipulation, an intense propaganda campaign that inflated strategic stakes, and an inclination by external powers to pursue indirect warfare that leaves local populations to die. Read side‑by‑side, the two episodes expose recurring patterns in how democracies justify foreign intervention, how intelligence services and political elites manufacture urgency, and how ideas of “payback” and prestige can override sober strategic calculation. ## The manufactured moment: from neutral state to “vital” prize One of the most striking threads in the discussion is how a country previously regarded as marginal can be suddenly reframed as central to global security. Afghanistan had for decades been treated by US policymakers as strategically unimportant—“backward,” landlocked, and far from Persian Gulf oil lanes. Yet in 1979 it was presented as the “linchpin” of world politics, warranting muscular responses under the Carter Doctrine. Professor Gibbs draws attention to the rhetorical inversion: a place scarcely discussed in policy literature becomes overnight the fulcrum of East‑West confrontation. The rhetorical machinery deployed in both cases—Afghanistan in 1979 and Ukraine in 2022—works through a few common moves. First, the intervention is labeled unprovoked and framed as evidence of a boundless imperial appetite that must be checked. Second, the target state is given strategic omnipotence in the public narrative: if we lose this chunk of land, the speakers warn, the adversary will march onward to greater prizes. These are effective political narratives because they activate fear and justify extraordinary policy measures, from increased military spending to clandestine operations. The sharpness of that rhetorical turn, Gibbs argues, is less a spontaneous reflection of new facts on the ground than a political choice about how to mobilize public consent. ## How covert pressure and “destabilization” begin conflicts Beyond rhetoric, the conversation uncovers the often-underplayed mechanics that convert domestic political turmoil into international confrontation. Afghanistan’s slide from neutral monarchy to full‑blown proxy battleground did not occur in a vacuum. According to the account discussed, U.S. policy actors in the early 1970s—motivated in part by the trauma of Vietnam—decided to demonstrate American power through covert operations. Washington, working with regional partners, cultivated a rebellion, used financial inducements to tilt Afghan elites away from Soviet influence, and encouraged Islamist opposition elements. These moves exacerbated internal divisions and set the stage for a coup and subsequent Soviet intervention. The pattern here is instructive: external actors sometimes prefer to “intimidate” or “reorient” a neutral government rather than accept a frozen balance. Covert aid, intelligence training, and economic inducements are inexpensive tools with outsized destabilizing potential. Historically, the calculus is often about demonstrating resolve and reversing perceived humiliation—not about the intrinsic value of the targeted country. This is a particularly salient point for scholars of neutrality: buffer states are not only territories but also political statuses. Changing that status can be more provocative than any overt military act because it upsets the delicate understandings that preserve peace. ## Propaganda, perceived threats, and the politics of outrage Gibbs emphasizes the role of propaganda and the politics of moral outrage in transforming a regional event into a geopolitical crusade. In both historical moments, elite commentary and media framing insisted that the invader’s intentions were limitless. With Afghanistan, the language of the day spoke of Soviet ambitions toward warm water ports and the Persian Gulf; in the context of Ukraine, the metaphors shift (NATO, European security), but the function remains the same: to present the crisis not as a discrete conflict but as an irreducible threat to a broader order. This framing performs a double function. Domestically, it disables more nuanced debate by casting dissent as softness toward aggression. Internationally, it facilitates alliances and military assistance under the banner of collective defense. Professor Gibbs points to how officials, including prominent foreign policy intellectuals, celebrated the possibilities of striking at a rival’s forces indirectly—taking pride in the deaths and attrition inflicted on adversaries through proxy channels. That frank admission—that some actors actually find satisfaction in weakening a rival, even at the cost of local lives—challenges common narratives of noble restraint and invites a more honest reckoning about the moral costs of proxy warfare. ## Ethnic frontiers, buffer zones, and the logic of insecurity Beyond propaganda and covert action, the underlying geography and ethnic make‑up of borderlands are powerful variables. Afghanistan’s location astride Central and South Asia, its porous borders, and its multi‑ethnic composition meant any internal convulsion risked spillover into Soviet Central Asian republics. From Moscow’s perspective, this was a defensive concern; from Western eyes it was an opportunity. The conversation illuminates how great powers interpret such borderland instability through the lens of their own insecurities—Moscow worried about contagion, Washington about geopolitical signaling. This raises a conceptual point that resonates across neutrality studies: buffer states are experienced differently by neighbors and outsiders. To a hegemonic power with contiguous borders, instability next door can trigger existential anxiety. To distant powers, the same instability is an abstract test of influence and prestige. Policy choices therefore reflect competing threat perceptions: what looks like sober defense to one side can appear as opportunistic interference to another. Recognizing that disjuncture explains much of the mutual incomprehension that leads to escalation. ## Lessons for neutrality, nonalignment, and contemporary policy What do these historical parallels suggest for policymakers and advocates of neutrality today? First, they caution against simplistic analogies that treat every unprovoked incursion as identical. Context matters. Yet patterns repeat: covert destabilization, hyperbolic threat narratives, and proxy strategies are durable tools in the great‑power toolbox. Neutrality and nonalignment can be fragile not only because of external military pressure but because of the slower, quieter campaigns to reorient elites, build dependencies, and manufacture consent for intervention. Second, the Afghan precedent warns that empowering proxies—even with the stated goal of punishing an aggressor—can produce outcomes neither intended nor controllable. The logic of proxy war often divorces means from ends: bleeding an adversary may be politically satisfying, but it rarely produces stable, ordered outcomes. The conversation underscores the human toll of such strategies—local populations absorb the casualties and social destruction that external actors are happy to externalize. Third, an honest policy paradigm needs to account for the moral hazard of external escalation. When policymakers publicly celebrate the indirect attrition of rival forces—when strategic success is measured in enemy dead—it becomes markedly easier to treat local suffering as collateral rather than central. Resis

REVEALED: Ukraine is a Repeat of Afghanistan | Prof. David N. Gibbs Today I’m talking again to Dr. David Gibbs, a Professor of History at Arizona University. We talked before on this channel but he recently made me aware of a noteworthy comparison, namely the striking similarities that today’s Russo-Ukrainian war has with the Soviet-Afghanistan war. At the time when the 1979 invasion took place, it was viewed in the West as completely unprovoked and a sensational threat to Western security. That’s the topic of discussion today. #M3 But I think, again, the idea of a proxy war in Afghanistan became the model for Ukraine. That's also a proxy war. Americans aren't dying; it's Ukrainians and Russians who are dying. A real source of excitement for CIA officials during the '80s was that they were killing Russians indirectly—not Russian-backed forces in Angola or elsewhere, but they were actually killing Russian soldiers. That was very exciting for the CIA, as I'm sure it's very exciting for U.S. officials now. They're killing Russians directly. You might say it's a little bit disturbing to have such glee in killing people, but that is how the thinking goes. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking again to Prof. David N. Gibbs, a professor of history at the University of Arizona. We talked before on this channel, but he recently made me aware of a noteworthy comparison, namely the striking similarities that today's Russo-Ukrainian war has with the Soviet-Afghanistan war. At the time, when the invasion took place in 1979, it was viewed in the West as completely unprovoked and a sensational threat to Western security. So that's what we want to talk about today. David, welcome back. #M3 Thank you for having me again, Pascal. #M2 It's great that you pointed out the way in which there are so many similarities, not only in how the propaganda works, but also in how this war was fought. Can you maybe start a bit with the historical background of Afghanistan and why you think it resembles so much what's happening in Ukraine today? -- 1 of 22 -- #M3 Well, what you had was Afghanistan had been a neutralist country for most of the Cold War. In 1978, there was a coup in which a leftist party, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, took power. It resulted in a complex civil war between the Afghan left and a disparate, unconnected group of Islamist guerrillas, collectively referred to as the Mujahideen. Then, on December 24th, 1979, the Soviet Union, which had been supporting the leftist government, forcibly removed the communist leader in Afghanistan and essentially invaded the country, establishing a puppet government under the Soviets. They occupied Afghanistan for nine years, exiting in 1989. This was a watershed event in the last phase of the Cold War. It was a time when the United States had relatively low levels of military spending, and many people spoke as if maybe the Cold War would eventually become a thing of the past. Military spending was at the lowest level since the beginning of the Cold War, and the U.S. was suffering from what some had called the Vietnam Syndrome. I've discussed this previously on your show: the defeat in Vietnam was a traumatizing experience for the U.S. elite. I should add it was even more traumatizing for the Vietnamese, but let's leave that aside. It was a defeat in war, and that damaged America's ability to intervene overseas. A lot of the foreign policy establishment, particularly led by the neoconservatives, wanted to reverse this and were very frustrated that they didn't have the opportunity to do so. Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan offered them the opportunity to do so. At the time, the invasion of Afghanistan was perceived as one of the most sensational threats to Western security in history. Afghanistan was portrayed as one of the most strategically vital countries on the planet. And I said nobody had ever heard of Afghanistan before, but nevertheless, suddenly it became the linchpin of international politics. President Carter said the Soviet invasion was the biggest threat to world peace since World War II. Under the Carter Doctrine, he threatened nuclear war against the Soviets if they made any further expansion beyond Afghanistan. There was a complete reversal of the more moderate policies that had prevailed through most of the decade, and there was a great increase in military spending. There was an ending to détente, the more moderate policies between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And it seemed as though this was an unprovoked invasion. This was hammered away, just like with very similar... The comparisons here are very striking to Ukraine, beginning with the fact that it was an unprovoked invasion. We heard this again and again, and a country that was strategically vital. This anticipated much broader generalized expansion by the Soviet Union, threatening Western security in the most basic way. The neoconservatives claimed that this was an effort by the Soviet Union to essentially take over the whole globe. They used very sensational language to emphasize their points, just as today there are claims the Russians will not stop at Ukraine. They'll march on to the rest of Europe. -- 2 of 22 -- They'll march all the way to the Atlantic if we let them do so. And you hear this sort of thing all the time from European leaders, at least from the foreign policy establishment in the United States. And the comparisons here are not abstract or hypothetical; they're concrete. At the time of the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Hillary Clinton, speaking, I suspect, for much of the foreign policy establishment, said what the United States wants to accomplish in Ukraine, what we should accomplish in Ukraine, is what we accomplished in Afghanistan: that we basically established defeat against the Soviets, making up for America's defeat implicitly in Vietnam, and contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union, with the implication this might bring about the breakup of the Russian Federation. There was a clear anticipation of a parallel here. Of course, it didn't work out that way in Ukraine. But nevertheless, I think that was what the American foreign policy establishment and much of the European counterpart wanted to accomplish in Ukraine, looking again at the precedent of Afghanistan. We did it in Afghanistan, so therefore, we can do it in Ukraine as well. Let me see if you want to interject anything before I go on. #M2 You know, you're pointing out things that, especially in our circle of neutrality studies, we've been talking about a lot because there were these two options, right? Either Ukraine becomes the Austria of Eastern Europe, or it becomes the Afghanistan. And we've been saying for a long time, Afghanization cannot be a goal. But Hillary Clinton actually said that, and people said that. And Afghanistan was, of course, also viewed as a way to pay back the Soviet Union for how they supported North Vietnam and ultimately defeated the United States. So there's a sick kind of thinking going on that leads them to support military aid for the regime that then battles the other great power. That's why we still talk about both of them being proxy wars. But one thing, can you talk a bit more about the way the invasion started in Afghanistan? There are some significant differences, but also in Afghanistan, it had to do with a rapid change of governments and even cousins and so on killing each other. And then there was an invitation, wasn't there, toward the Soviets by the communist government? But there was also a betrayal involved. Can you go into that a bit? #M3 If you don't mind, I'd first like to start with the issue of Afghanistan's role before the crisis, essentially, which is this: Again, the claim was made repeatedly during the crisis that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan because it was one of the most strategically important places on planet Earth, and that's why they invaded it. This clearly was going to be a stepping stone to further aggression, probably in the Persian Gulf, or possibly a push towards the Indian Ocean to open up a warm water port, a historic goal of the Soviet Union. It was one of those two objectives. And from there, the -- 3 of 22 -- world, basically, was how it was presented. Again, Afghanistan was... This was hammered away. Nobody contested it except George Kennan. In the New York Times, George Kennan contested it, but nobody contested the idea that Afghanistan was strategically vital. I think one of the problems you had here is that there's hardly any information on Afghanistan because there are no Afghan specialists, and the few that there were very likely, I suspect, were working for the CIA. It's just a guess, but that's how it seemed to me. But the bottom line is that we now have a lot of documents. We have declassified U.S. government documents. We also have a lot of the Soviet documents, which have been declassified during the early '90s and translated into English, I should add, and are available through the Woodrow Wilson Center electronically. And they present a very different picture of the prehistory of the crisis and the crisis itself. And the prehistory, if you look at the declassified documents, shows that Afghanistan had been regarded as strategically worthless by the U.S. foreign policy establishment over decades, through the '50s and '60s. Things like CIA estimates and State Department documents overwhelmingly said Afghanistan is of no strategic importance to the United States. It's too backward—"backward" is the word they often used back then—lacking infrastructure, its great distance from the sea, its distance from the Persian Gulf; all of these things suggest it's of no importance. It did note that it's important to the Soviets only because it's on Soviet borders, and the Soviets are always concerned about everything on their borders. But to the West, it's of no importance. There was a CIA National Intelligence Estimate, I think from 1956, which asked the hypothetical question. It noted that the Soviets presented no threat of invasion, but it asked hypothetically, if the Soviets were to invade, what would the U.S. do? And the answer was basically nothing, because Afghanistan is of no strategic importance. It noted that we could protest at the UN, we could protest through the embassies, and that would be about it because it's not important. Afghanistan was a locus of Soviet foreign aid. It was one of the largest recipients of Soviet foreign aid. The Soviets also trained Afghan military officers, and U.S. documents said that their aid programs were pretty good. They praised the programs and said they were pretty efficient. The Soviets seemed to have no interest in making Afghanistan communist. It was a neutral country in the Cold War, with something of a pro-Soviet tilt, a little like Finland. It was compared to Finland back in the day because Finland was also neutral, but with a little bit of a pro-Soviet tilt during the Cold War, as a legacy of the 1947 treaty with the Soviets that ended the occupation of Karelia. And... #M2 And one more thing: Afghanistan was not part of the Second World War. It was neutral during the Second World War and survived that one as well. #M3 -- 4 of 22 -- And it resisted foreign occupation, famously defeating the British twice, not once, but twice in the 19th century. There was a kind of anti-colonial, proud tradition among the Afghans. Despite their poverty, they were proud of their independence. It's interesting to note, by the way, that one of the architects of the U.S. intervention there, a leading neocon, was a Columbia University professor named Zbigniew Brzezinski, later the National Security Advisor to President Carter. He played a key role in all this. He published extensively as a political scientist on international relations during the Cold War, and in all of his writings, he made virt