The New Red Army
Koehl, Stuart L. & Glick, Stephen P.
"The New Red Army" Stuart L. Koehl & Stephen P. Glick What's fast, deadly, and all over? By now, the invasion of Afghanistan has driven the debate over American foreign policy toward an...
...Simultaneously, Soviet motorized rifle divisions assembled on the Soviet-Afghan border...
...The American airborne division is configured for World War II "drop and hold" operations, not coups de mazn...
...These planning disasters sufficed to convince Western analysts that even if not totally incompetent, the Soviet Army was incapable of handling any but the simplest of operations involving large units...
...government buildings and communications centers were seized...
...They magnify their geopolitical dominance of Asia by their demonstration of willingness to use force, a willingness not matched by their chief rival, the United States...
...No nation in Asia will be able to engage in foreign (and even certain domestic) initiatives without calculating the response of the Soviet Union first...
...If for no other reason, this makes the invasion's scenario worth recounting: On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union began an around-the-clock airlift of an airborne division into the Afghani capital, Kabul, over 200 miles from the Soviet border...
...They still see the Soviet militar), machine as knocking down obstacles rather than circumventing them, carrying out a doctrine based on inflexible, blind obedience...
...Soviets assaulted the Presidential Palace, where Hafizullah Amin had dug in with a force of loyal soldiers...
...This could lead the Kremlin to feel that their "strategic window" is closing more quickly than expected, driving them to desperation measures (much in the same way the Imperial Japanese government felt driven to general war in 1941...
...Advancing under a tremendous artillery barrage, with possible chemical and tactical nuclear support, the first echelon divisions go right at the defender, taking heavy losses, but also overwhelming the opposition and creating a breakthrough into which the second echelon divisions charge...
...First, the success of the coup is likely to increase the strength of that Politburo faction which feels that military force is a useful solution to external problems...
...Stuart L. Koehl & Stephen P. Glick THE NEW RED ARMY What's fast, deadly, and all over...
...control and awaited further orders...
...This lack of attention to the changes in Soviet methods could have serious consequences for American forces in any conflict with the Soviets...
...Had similar circumstances confronted American military planners, the ill-fated Operation Market-Garden of World War II might well have come to mind, where British 1st Airborne dropped next to German Panzer troops and were annihilated...
...Even so, Western analysts, particularly those in the American Army, have not bothered to reexamine their perceptions of the Soviet Army...
...Middle echelon Afghani officers were all invited to a party by their Soviet comrades-in-arms, who, in the spirit of good clean fun, locked them into the building...
...The weapons have changed, but the airborne troops are still armed with light weapons, lacking armor and artillery...
...The Soviet Union had gained control of the organs of Afghanistan's government by coup de main...
...Above all else, the ease and efficiency of the Afghanistan invasion show that the Soviets now relate their operational methods to their opponents...
...True, the Soviets did have troops in place before the coup, and the Afghani Army was demoralized and enervated by civil war and political dissension, but these facts do not obscure the proficiency and boldness of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan...
...Third, if Afghani resistance proves more formidable than anticipated, and Soviet efforts at pacification fail, this confidence in the success of Soviet arms could turn to a deep pessimism...
...American doctrines and weapons systems are so carefully tuned to the outdated "steamroller" conception of the Soviet military machine that any deviation from this by the Soviets would completely unhinge our defense capabilities on the day of judgment...
...And if this method works in Afghanistan, it is logical to assume that the Soviets are applying a similar approach to the defenses of NATO...
...Obviously, the Soviet Army is no longer the awkward juggernaut of conventional Western conception, slowly deploying and easily targeted and dislocated, but a war fighting instrument of great flexibility, which moreover has an operational confidence lacking in a good many Western armies...
...An Afghani armored division, brought to the city by Amin, was immobilized by Soviet advisors, who had solicitously removed key parts from the tanks "for repairs" prior to a planned large exercise...
...By now, the invasion of Afghanistan has driven the debate over American foreign policy toward an appropriate rethinking of Soviet intentions, but so much so that the political implications of the Soviets' decision to invade threaten to dwarf the invasion itself, as a military event...
...Moreover, the Afghanistan coup has several strategic implications, all of which increase the likelihood of our defenses being tested...
...They secure yet another section of the Soviet border with the complete subjugation of Afghanistan...
...Recent operations involving Soviet "advisors" and their Cuban auxiliaries (Angola and Ethiopia) have shown increasing degrees of adventurism, spurred on by the lack of American response...
...To deploy appropriately the entire 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East would take the United States two weeks-and this is the American Rapid Deployment Force...
...Should the United States seek to intervene, say, in Iran, it would be operating blindfolded because it long ago dismantled CIA operations in that country...
...In the early evening of Thursday, December 27, the Soviet paratroopers in the city went into action...
...Second, the lack of a serious response by the United States can only encourage further Soviet adventures...
...aside from expanding Soviet influence into new regions they were militarily unremarkable...
...In contrast, Soviet airborne divisions have organic armor, artillery, and transport (such as the BMD light tank and personnel carrier, and the ASU-85 tank destroyer...
...Yet in this nightmare, in the midst of a civil war, the Soviets have been able to maintain, not an occupation army, as in 1968, but a fighting army of more than 90,000 men...
...To engage in coup de main operations requires precise intelligence, concerning, among other things, the organization of the enemy's command structures, its forces, leaders, and intentions...
...They examine the enemy's strengths and weaknesses, working backwards from these points to develop a strategy and tactics which will circumvent effective opposition...
...The Soviets have such agents--we do not...
...The conventional view of the Soviet military machine, like that of the Russian army before it, is of a force both massive and clumsy, its thousands of tanks and hordes of soldiers advancing slowly but inexorably, relying on the sheer weight of numbers, rather than subtle strategems or elegant maneuvers, to achieve victory...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1980 17...
...By the next morning, the situation was well in hand and the official radio in Kabul announced that "the monster Amin" had been overthrown...
...To the minds of foreign leaders will come images of the Soviet invasion juxtaposed with the dislSatch of unarmed American F-15s to Saudi Arabia...
...When the Soviets moved into Kabul they faced an Afghani armored division, yet this did not stop the operation as planned...
...On the whole, these operations do not demonstrate any great skill...
...The swift seizure of all the key nerve centers (with little actual fighting) accomplished what no mere superiority of numbers and firepower could have: It presented Afghanistan and the world with a fait accomph...
...Instead, there was superb planning based upon excellent intelligence and a sophistication in the details of execution that we associate with Israelis and Germans rather than with Russians...
...Which power projects an image worthy of fear and respect...
...And the analogy would have been justified, since American airborne troops are equipped for all intents and purposes exactly as they were in 1944...
...Explosions sounded in downtown Kabul...
...Soviet divisions are much more flexible, and the Soviets possess sufficient airlift capability to move a division in one day, rather than two weeks...
...While this was happening in Kabul, the Soviet divisions on the border crossed into Afghanistan and dashed down the major highways to Kabul and Herat, securing these vital routes, including a seven-mile tunnel on the road to Kabul...
...The Soviets were able to gather this information because they had an effective human intelligence system in place...
...Evidently the Soviets have been working hard to improve their staff and supply systems, and this reorganization has resulted in an enormous improvement in efficiency...
...Unlike Czechoslovakia, which has well developed communications systems and a relatively docile population, Afghanistan is a logistician's nightmare...
...To demonstrate just how boldly the Soviets have operated, consider that the American armed forces are not only 16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1980 unwilling to contemplate such operations but are totally unable to execute them...
...Within the United States Army this view of the Soviets as a kind of military "steamroller" is expressed in the new operations manual, FM 100-5...
...In short, the machine crushes anything that stands in its way, rather than going around it...
...Throughout Afghanistan, Soviet advisors with Afghani army units assumed their units' direct Stuart L. Koehl and Stephen P. Glick are practicing research analysts for a Washington-based defense consulting firm and long -time observers of military affairs...
...On the offensive the Soviet Army is believed to concentrate three or four divisions on a narrow front, with several more divisions assembled to the rear in a second echelon...
...Soviet soldiers on Afghani army bases and in major cities seized centers of communications and control...
...Advanced technology can tell something of the what and where of enemy forces, but only human agents-in-place can supply the all important how, when, and why...
...They will not take long to decide...
...The last operation involving substantial numbers of Soviet troops, the 1968 freezing of the Prague Thaw, was marred by massive logistical problems: supply shortages, delays, and traffic jams several miles long...
...The two are, of course, inseparable: Concerning the Soviets, the beginning of wisdom about intentions often begins somewhere in an understanding of their military...
...What a surprise, then, was the Soviet coup de main in Afghanistan: no great masses of troops, no heavy-handedness...
...In the short term, the Soviets will gain all of the advantages inherent in the occupation of the Afghanistan salient...
...It continued the airlift well into the New Year...
...Artillery ammunition had also been collected for the same reason...
...These weapons give the Soviet division greater firepower and immeasurably greater mobility than its American counterpart...
...The United States, with its present force structure and deployment plans, lacks the necessary amount of long-range airlift and trained aircrews needed to intervene with a speed and strength comparable to that which the Soviets demonstrated in Afghanistan...
Vol. 13 • June 1980 • No. 6
