NSDD-166 AND THE ESCALATION
This Soviet escalation by Gorbachev catalyzed the Reagan administration’s response, which had been brewing in the mind of Ronald Reagan since 1980. For a long time, Reagan, Casey, and their team had searched for the most opportune moment to strike back at the Soviets on this new Asian front, and Gorbachev’s heightening of the conflict provided just the impetus necessary.
Of all the overtures to the Afghan rebels, none was more important than NSDD-166, signed by Reagan in the spring of 1985.20 NSDD-166 was not the first Reagan administration directive to voice support for the Mujahedin. In January 1983, NSDD-75 had said that the “U.S. objective” in Afghanistan was to “keep maximum pressure on Moscow for withdrawal” and to “ensure that the Soviets’ political, military, and other costs remain high while the occupation continues.”21 Still, it was NSDD-166 that delivered the firepower.
Though nearly all of Reagan’s NSDDs have been declassified, to this day NSDD-166 remains unavailable, even in redacted form.22 Why would it remain so secretive a decade-plus after the end of the Cold War? The reason is its aggressive nature, which can be distilled from reports and interviews. In the words of Peter Schweizer, who interviewed those who crafted and implemented the directive, the objective of NSDD-166 was to provide covert assistance to enable the rebels to achieve “outright military victory” against the USSR23—a goal deemed impossible by all but the Reagan team. Another person who interviewed the principals, Steve Coll of the Washington Post, disclosed his findings in an explosive two-part, front-page series. He reported: “[T]he new, detailed Reagan directive used bold language to authorize stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahedin, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goaclass="underline" to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal.”24 According to Reagan official Leslie Gelb, academic researcher James M. Scott, and other knowledgeable sources, the directive looked to force the USSR out of Afghanistan “by all means possible,” shifting the U.S. objective from “make Moscow pay a price” to “make Moscow get out.”25 Another informed source, Christopher Simpson, reported that the directive committed the United States “to support a significant escalation” in the war.26 Reagan State Department official Peter W. Rodman said the directive stated “a clear policy of seeking to defeat the Soviet Union… and force a Soviet withdrawal.”27
Ultimately, the directive committed U.S. security agencies to use “all means available” to assist the Muj in defeating the USSR and to prompt a Soviet pull-out.28 It was a bold and overt initiative and one that was vastly different from President Carter’s directive, which had the less ambitious goal of “harassment” of Soviet forces. Carter’s classified 1980 directive did not speak of driving the Soviets from Afghanistan or beating them on the battlefield.29 The contrast was noted by Milt Bearden, a career CIA officiaclass="underline" “The CIA’s covert action role in Afghanistan dating back to the Carter administration called for ‘harassing’ the Soviets, not driving them out,” stated Bearden, who in 1985 became deputy director of the CIA’s Soviet–East European Division. “Reagan was upping the ante, and now he actually believed he could win.” Bearden said that the covert program “had taken a new turn”—“Reagan had rewritten the ground rules.”30
THE RESULTS OF NSDD-166
The impact of NSDD-166 was immediately felt as it authorized a supply of highly advanced weapons and millions of dollars in covert aid—requesting from Congress over $450 million for 1986 alone. It reprogrammed an additional $200 million from an unspent DOD account and then sought reauthorization through congressional intelligence committees. Because of NSDD-166’s floodgate, in 1985 the CIA delivered 10,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 200,000 rockets to the Afghan rebels, exceeding the total for the previous five years combined.31
By 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S. materiel was arriving annually, as was what Pakistani General Yousaf dubbed a “ceaseless stream” of Pentagon and CIA specialists. Also arriving were imagery specialists carrying satellite photos of Soviet targets in Afghanistan; communications specialists boasting sophisticated communications gear; experts armed with teachings on psychological warfare; demolitions specialists with explosives and timing devices for blowing up bridges, tunnels, fuel depots, and whatever else; and much more. Among these, the satellite photos were exhaustive. General Yousaf’s office was soon covered with maps of Soviet targets, along with carefully diagrammed approach and evacuation routes and even analysis of how Soviet troops could be expected to react once attacked.32
This was all provided courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency. Milt Bearden never forgot his extraordinary order from maverick CIA director Casey: “go out and kill me 10,000 Soviets until they give up.”33 While the United States could not provide troops to do the killing, the CIA could train and arm Afghan soldiers to handle that task. Langley fielded operations officers who set up training schools to educate Afghan rebels in sabotage, guerrilla warfare, mine-laying, antitank attacks, secure communications, and more. This training ground was jokingly labeled “CIA U.”34
Eventually the U.S. effort became so intense that Bill Casey reportedly sought to expand it to Soviet territory, gunning down Soviet troops on their own turf. He targeted Soviet factories, military installations, and storage depots in some of the most dangerous action of the entire Cold War. Intelligence officials became quite anxious over such ambitious lengths and how the Soviets might react. Already, the escalation had been “directed at killing Russian military officers,” said one official. “That caused a lot of nervousness.” And now, this was “an incredible escalation,” said Graham Fuller, a senior intelligence official who was among those strongly opposed to raids on Soviet territory.35
As it turned out, extending the war within the USSR had been Casey’s thinking before NSDD-166 had even been signed. Not surprisingly it was a prospect that also appealed to Reagan.36 According to Peter Schweizer:
In early 1983, [Casey] met with the president and Bill Clark in the Oval Office to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. The conversation turned to raising the stakes for Moscow. The DCI suggested taking the war into the Soviet Union itself, and Reagan liked the idea. “The president and Bill Casey were determined that Moscow pay an even greater price for its brutal campaign in Afghanistan, including the possibility of taking the war into the Soviet Union itself,” recalls Clark…. Soviet casualties were not running high enough as far as the Reagan administration was concerned. The Kremlin could sustain these losses, Reagan told aides and colleagues, because of the closed nature of its system. He wanted the numbers up, and he wanted the Soviet high command demoralized.37