Casey’s audacious goal was also that of Reagan and Bill Clark, the latter of whom confirmed that he and Reagan personally gave “authorization to Afghanistan forces and their supporters ‘to cross the river’ if they were so inclined and sufficiently supported.”38 Though these instincts were first broached in 1983 among Reagan, Casey, and Clark, NSDD-166 turned them into formal administration policy, a bold initiative from a country that was looking to avoid direct confrontation with the Soviets. According to Milt Bearden, through NSDD-166 Reagan ordered that the Red Army be pushed back across the Amu Dar’ya, the river that marked the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.39
This decision to extend the war into Soviet territory took off once Muj commanders and the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI), which was managing the flow of CIA aid to the Mujahedin, embraced the idea. Only then was it adopted and pursued by the White House. According to Schweizer, in 1985 and 1986 specially trained Muj units operating inside the USSR, equipped with high-tech explosives from the CIA and Chinese rocket launchers, sabotaged Soviet targets. They derailed trains, attacked border posts, and laid mines. On one occasion, thirty Muj fighters attacked two hydroelectric power stations in Tajikistan; in another, they orchestrated a rocket attack on a Soviet military airfield. Schweizer said there were dozens of ambushes.40
As if that were not explosive enough, the Reagan administration had a bitter internal debate over whether to ship sniper-rifle packages—rifles equipped with long-range, sophisticated sighting scopes—to the rebels. These would be employed to infiltrate the Afghan capital of Kabul and assassinate Soviet generals and senior military officials. American intelligence took the aggressive step of identifying the residences of Soviet generals in Kabul and tracking their regular movements.
The Reagan administration understood that providing sniper rifles might violate the 1977 presidential directive precluding assassinations—a question that some say was hotly debated internally. Ed Meese says that he was not privy to that debate. In a sense, however, he does not understand the fuss. “It doesn’t strike me as unusual to send sniper rifles when you’re already sending Stinger missiles to shoot down helicopters,” said Meese. “Some of these helicopters were probably carrying Soviet officials.”41 In the end, the rifles were sent, but without the intelligence information, nor the night goggles necessary to carry out assassinations. General Yousaf recalled receiving a few dozen rifles, more than thirty but less than 100.42
Perhaps the most authoritative testimony on the subject of Washington’s assistance came from General Yousaf, who supervised the covert war during the critical period of 1983–87, when Washington’s weapons flowed like milk and honey. As he recalled: “[W]ithout the intelligence provided by the CIA, many battles would have been lost, and without the CIA training of our Pakistani instructors, the Mujahedin would have been fearfully ill-equipped to face—and ultimately defeat—a superpower.”43
Altogether, the Reagan administration funneled over $2 billion in money and guns to the Mujahedin, compared to the $30 million sent under President Carter.44 Steve Coll of the Washington Post was not alone in properly calling it the largest U.S. covert action program in the history of the CIA.45 Moscow responded with reportedly $3 to $8 billion annually trying to win the war, an investment that far exceeded its means.46
In the Soviet press, the covert effort was reported as an “escalation of aggression” in the “undeclared war” by “militarists” in the Reagan administration and CIA in particular. The United States was “drilling” these “criminal Afghan dushmans” and “hired bandits” and “arming them to the teeth” as part of “American imperialism’s dirty war in Afghanistan,” a country that Soviet propaganda dishonestly insisted had become “democratic” Afghanistan as a result of the Communist “liberation.” The Reagan administration was the “peddler” and the Muj its “puppets.”47
These inflammatory accusations from the Soviet media failed to gain traction internationally, in spite of the fact that Reagan’s moves in Afghanistan constituted the closest the administration ever came to fighting a direct war with the Soviets. Though actual troops were absent, Reagan ensured that the rebels had everything else necessary that they would need to fight the war and prevent a Soviet victory. By soliciting the help of Afghanistan’s neighbors, Reagan had also made it easier for covert aid to flow, leaving fewer American fingerprints on the machinery of war.
But despite Reagan’s efforts to end things decisively as quickly as possible, the battles continued as Gorbachev adhered to his two-year commitment to victory. Lives were being lost on both sides, but it was clear that the war was having a severe, negative impact on the Soviet Union. Forced to reconcile this military commitment to the myriad of other problems that Reagan had created, the new general secretary and his followers struggled to keep their heads above water, and Reagan’s team searched for more means to make their lives miserable.
THE ROLE OF THE ARMS RACE
While Gorbachev hoped that victory might be possible in Afghanistan, he was not so convinced about the Soviet role in the arms race. For Mikhail Gorbachev, the Reagan arms challenge was the only issue that loomed larger than Afghanistan upon his arrival as general secretary, as he sought to stop what he called the “lethal,” “costly and dangerous arms race,” which he listed as his number one priority.48 The arms race was his fixation upon entering office and absorbed the bulk of his focus during 1985.
To Gorbachev, this was an issue that was tearing apart the Soviet economy like no other, and it did not take long for him to convince his colleagues of the fact. Soon after his arrival, it became passé to flip on Moscow TV and watch Georgi Arbatov screech that “the most important contribution to the cause of true freedom”—Arbatov’s “true freedom” was eternal totalitarian Communism—“would be the end of the arms race.”49
This was the reaction Reagan had long desired to see, as he believed that the Soviet system and economic philosophy had created severe internal problems that would rip the USSR apart. Pondering how his administration “could use these cracks in the Soviet system to accelerate the process of collapse,” he concluded that someone had to pry a crowbar between the cracks and twist. Communism had rotted the wood; the crowbar would tear it asunder.50 In order to form this crowbar, Reagan focused on the internal contradictions, employing his staff to search out the cracks hidden below the surface and to engage them. As his aides pursued this strategy, one of the more prominent fissures was the continuous, detrimental impact that the arms race was having on the Soviet economy. From early on in Gorbachev’s tenure, it became clear that his vehement opposition to the arms race stemmed in large part from his country’s inability to sustain it.
This reality demonstrated the effectiveness of Reagan’s arms policies over the previous several years. Despite appeals from Gorbachev abroad and Democrats at home, Reagan did not want to end an arms race that had proven to be one of his most effective weapons against the USSR. For every dollar the United States spent on a weapon, the Soviets increased spending by a corresponding amount. The Kremlin was struggling to get any bang for the ruble; an infusion of billions of U.S. dollars would markedly aggravate the task. The success of the arms race up until 1985 made the challenge at hand clear and the imperative immediate.