I respectfully disagree on several points, all of them technical. first of all, even at the height of Red Army liberties during the Great Patriotic War, they still suffered from a truly adequate professional NCO corps. Although the Red Army in 1943 and onward did allow lower ranked enlisted personnel more leeway, in the end it was the sheer numbers of men and tanks that made the destruction of Army Group Centre so decisive. Many experienced NCOs were lost due to attrition and the brutal Red Army discipline. It was a war within a war to keep experienced NCOs around to teach the raw new conscripts even the beginnings of soldiering that their Wehrmacht or Western Allied forces took so seriously.
Soviet strategy in Afghanistan was motivated by chronic supply shortages as you noted but also by a lack of effective dismounted infantry training, appropriate air assets and doctrine, and the evre-present unprofessional nature of the Soviet conscript, whose main intrests were drinking and getting home as soon as possible. Also, the STAVKA itself was out of it's element fighting a war like what they had in Afghanistan instead of fighting the mass tank war that it had trained for versus NATO. Again, Soviet military training was always more about tanks than fighting insurgents and also the last time the Red Army has to fight a counter-revolution was in the 1920's.
The ongoing lack of a truly dedicated NCO corps continues to plaque the Russian Army and that hardly seems to have gotten better. I have known individual NCO's from Russia who were utterly competent, professional, and dedicated professionals much alike our own here in the US. Day to day operations seem to be run by subaltern officers who seem to be filling billets meant for seargents and corporals. The vaunted SPETZNAZ are one of the few truly professional elements in the Russian military and they have indeed made changes to their training since Afghanistan but when they went into Afghanistan. Their training had not prepared them for what American and British specops training has always prepared for, namely creating friendly forces with locals and then using them to fight the war themselves. From the article:
Quote:
|
The Soviet military was self-consciously a pro-revolutionary force because the Soviet Union was ideologically a revolutionary state. There was no Soviet doctrine for counter-insurgency because Soviet ideology could not foresee the USSR fighting against a revolution. To the extent that Soviet forces thought about intervention in internal conflicts, they thought about helping Marxist revolutionaries overthrow US-backed dictators. They knew virtually nothing about setting up indigenous armies or training indigenous forces. Apart from brief interventions in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany (all executed as massive and brief mechanized operations), the Red Army had not faced an insurgency since the Basmachi Rebellion of the 1920s.
|
Finally, the Russians were incredibly vicious during the war. Their only recourse to failed operations seemed to be dropping mines and sowing terror amongst the Afghan populace which only caused more anger and resentment. The tales of wholesale destruction of villages and violations of Afghan women have passed into legend. With such conduct it seems only logical that the Afghanis would respond in kind. Our soldiers, airmen, Marines are fighting with far different tactics and our special forces are using far more effective methods. See these articles for more:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...rinsurgency-o/
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...sting-afghani/
The Soviet Army of 1979 was totally incapable of doing what our specops guys are doing now because of a fundamental difference in training ethics and styles of Western and Russian Armies. Russian commanders just did not have the training or resources to nation-build.
I hope this was not too long-winded. The nature of the Russian Army continues to be one of my passions and I have a great amount of respect and admiration for the Bear. I also know that we still have so much to learn about one another.