A STINGING DEFEAT
With the severest months of the oil blow winding down in the fall of 1986, the conflict in Afghanistan thrust itself back onto center stage. As evening settled on September 26, 1986, three menacing Soviet Mi-24 helicopter gunships hovered over impoverished, war-ravaged Afghanistan. Lingering in the distance near the Jalalabad airport, the gunships were a frightening but common sight.23 Hundreds of these aircraft had wreaked havoc since the Red Army invaded, and for almost seven years all the Muj rebels could do to combat them was hide in the brush and futilely fire bullets in the air as Soviet helicopters lit up the ground.
On this night, however, the entire war was about to change. A soldier named Mohammed Afzal emerged from the trees with a bazooka-looking weapon called a Stinger resting on his right shoulder. He aimed the barrel in the vicinity of one of the Soviet aircraft, fired, and watched the helicopter explode into thousands of pieces. The remaining pilots struggled to comprehend the calamity. Before they could come to their senses, Afzal fired at a second helicopter, which instantly burst into a fireball. The mortified third pilot was unable to escape. He too soon met his doom.
The Muj rebels were ecstatic. Not only had they struck down three Soviet gunships, but the weapon they now possessed would strike down the enemy’s primary tactical advantage and thereby transform the war. “The shots were heard round the world,” said reporter Fred Barnes.24
Of all the aid that NSDD-166 had authorized for the Afghan rebels, the crown jewel was the Stinger antiaircraft missile. It was a superb weapon with a range of roughly five kilometers, or 15,000 feet, racing upward 1,200 miles per hour to its target. Weighing only thirty-five pounds—astonishingly light for a tool whose cargo can obliterate a helicopter—it had less recoil than a shotgun. With an infrared heat-seeking mechanism that allows it to easily find its target, the Stinger missile enabled the operator to successfully destroy his target without needing to aim precisely at an aircraft’s heat source. The infrared capability made the Stinger effective in all types of weather, more so than the Soviet-designed SA-7, also a shoulder-fired, heat-seeking, surface-toair missile. The Stinger can distinguish between real targets and flares. Also unlike the SA-7, the operator of the Stinger did not need to sit in place and keep the target in his sights until impact, risking detection and counter fire.25
The Stinger kill rate was deadly. Of the first eleven missiles the rebels unleashed, ten took down Soviet helicopters. After that, the Muj averaged one destroyed plane or helicopter for each of the next 200 days.26 A U.S. Army study conducted after the war found that of the 340 firings of Stingers in combat, 269 downed aircraft.27 The Stingers were deadly against both the Soviet helicopter gunships that had proven so effective and the sophisticated, high-flying planes and helicopters that took off from the Turkistan Military District.
THE ORIGIN OF THE STINGERS
While attempts have been made to unearth who first broached the subject of Stingers in Afghanistan, the idea was long believed to have come up during internal administration discussions sometime in 1985 or 1986. But contrary to popular belief, such was not the case. In fact, the initial source of the idea came long before NSDD-166. Reagan himself cited the importance of antiaircraft missiles in Afghanistan during a campaign speech in Pensacola, Florida on January 9, 1980. Coming just two weeks after the Soviet invasion, it was not clear who (if anyone) Reagan consulted, but the impact of the statement remained clear: the Stingers were a priority even before Reagan entered the Oval Office.
Reagan’s recommendation was reported by Martin Schram of the Washington Post, who wrote that Reagan, “specifically urged the supplying of U.S. shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missiles that can shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships.” Further, Reagan said the United States should supply weapons through Pakistan—another idea that later came to fruition. “There’s nothing wrong with giving free people weapons to defend their freedom,” said Reagan.28 As early as 1980, he had apparently identified the remedy for turning the war against and ultimately defeating the USSR.29
Once he won the White House, Reagan began moving in this direction. In the first weeks of his administration, he started communication with the Afghan resistance. Two rebel leaders visited Washington in late February 1981. They held a press conference at the Capitol in which they expressed hope that they would receive not just rifles and ammunition from the administration but also, as the Moscow Domestic Service duly noted in a February 26 statement, “ground-to-air missiles.”30
Though U.S. assistance came immediately, it took years to get Stingers to the Afghans. Reagan defense officials debated the wisdom of handing over one of the U.S. military’s most precious weapons, allowing it to be not just used but also replicated. This was a source of opposition by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, some Pentagon officials, and even certain CIA members.31 One Reagan official noted that some of the military brass reacted not like Cold Warriors, as they were typically portrayed, but like bureaucrats.32
While fears of compromising U.S. technology were legitimate, those who favored sending the Stingers saw no value in spending billions developing weapons simply to stockpile them. Moreover, it became apparent that the Stinger could be enormously productive in taking down the Soviets. Jack Wheeler, a conservative and friend of the Reagan administration, traveled to Afghanistan in 1983, where he witnessed the devastation wrought by Soviet helicopter gunships whose superiority the Muj could not counter. Upon his return, he was debriefed by officials from the White House, NSC, and CIA. “The Afghans control the ground,” he told them. “The Soviets control the air. Take the Soviets out of the air and they lose.”33 He found little disagreement, particularly among Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle, Ikle’s aide Michael Pillsbury, NSC intelligence official Vincent Cannistraro, and Ambassador Mort Abramowitz—all of whom championed the Stinger. At higher levels, Cap Weinberger joined Casey and Reagan in advocating the supplying of antiaircraft weapons.34
This top-level support notwithstanding, differences in opinion remained an obstacle. Reagan wanted the Stingers to be sent, but was blocked by bureaucratic rigidity. As State Department veteran Peter Rodman said of the Stingers: “[I]mplementing the policy in the U.S. government, as usual, was another matter…. [N]ever underestimate the power of working-level officials to obstruct a presidential decision they disagree with.”35
In addition, Reagan also faced resistance from Congress, and it was not until 1985 that there was bipartisan support for sending Stingers. Nearly every Democrat on both intelligence committees opposed the idea. A key turning point was a June 1985 trip to Pakistan by Democratic Senators Bill Bradley and David Boren, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. When they returned, they lobbied for increased support for the rebels.36
But much to the dismay of the Stinger proponents on Reagan’s team, the support of the two Democratic senators was not enough and the obstruction continued. In April 1986, Reagan placed his signature on a decision memo that explicitly authorized Stingers to be delivered.37 Even then, a maneuver by a CIA official left the first procurement of fifty Stingers sitting behind in a Virginia warehouse, as the official lamely argued that the Soviets were testing new antimissile defenses that had to be investigated before U.S. shipments could take place. It was a startling and stifling display, ironically emanating from the same agency that was training and arming the Muj and tearing up Soviet units in Afghanistan; from no less than William J. Casey’s own organization. The disappointment could be seen by everyone. As National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane put it, “Everyone wanted to move fast, but he [Reagan] wanted to move even faster.” Reagan instructed McFarlane and Casey: “Do whatever you have to do to help the Mujahedin not only to survive, but to win.”38