Aside from avoiding simplistic links such a thesis draws between the Afghan insurgents of the 1980s and those of today, we should also bear in mind that the governments concerned had no means of predicting that a decade beginning with apparent Soviet adventurism, would end with a series of democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe, and the USSR’s eventual collapse. In hindsight – following not only 9/11 but NATO’s protracted and bloody embroilment in the war against the Taliban – the collective decision by Western states and other foes of the USSR to aid the mujahidin has been treated by some writers as an example of ‘blowback’. Some of the declassified evidence from the UK National Archives can be found in the declassified archival evidence from the Prime Minister’s Office My research focuses on the response of Margaret Thatcher and her government to the crisis in Afghanistan, and Britain’s own decision to carry out covert action in aid of the anti-Soviet rebels in that country. In response to the Soviet takeover, numerous states including the USA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan provided military assistance to the Afghan resistance groups collectively known as the Mujahidin.
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