https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/applebaum_award/9/
This prize was established in 2008 by the daughters of Harvey M. Applebaum, class of 1959, in honor of his 70th birthday. Mr. Applebaum is a senior counsel, specializing in international trade and antitrust law, with the Washington firm of Covington & Burling LLP and a lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a past Chairman of the Association of Yale Alumni and the Yale Alumni Magazine board.
Doesn't seem like it
N. O.: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?
:doomer: wow, so surprising.
The greatest risk that we face is a quick, effective, Soviet operation to pacify Afghanistan. This would be extremely costly to our image in the region and to your [President Carter’s] position here at home. Our objective, then, should be to make the operation as costly as possible for the Soviets.”
Despite the possibility that the Soviets were willing to negotiate a settlement guaranteeing a non-threatening, non-aligned government in Afghanistan, however, US officials maintained that “it was essential that Afghanistani resistance continues.”
:biden-troll: We will fight the soviets to the last Afghan!!
Now I'm anxious that the US is pulling the same strings with modern Russia in Ukraine. Curious if this will succeed
Yes, the plan is to destabilize the region. Russia to the extent possible. Create a embarrassing foreign policy blunder akin to the US-Afghan occupation, or the Vietnam War.
Get as many civilians and as much infrastructure destroyed inside Ukraine as possible. Bolster the image of what are obvious nationalist cranks and nazis to anyone with half a brain, however small they can be written off as they're obviously winning the hearts and minds of people and bolstering their ranks with US/NATO support.
After the conflict you have a lot of weapons, surveillance equipment, cash, training, and critically domestic support for Azov. Whatever state Ukraine is in when the conflict is over or draws down significantly, Azov will undoubtedly seize power. "After all, look at the destruction that occurred under the leadership of the weak Jew." Etc.
Imperialists will provide the financing and loans to rebuild. They'll set the rules and regulations in the new government, to extract optimally the plant, mineral, and human resources remaining.
The CIA can orchestrate attacks in mainland Europe, some will occur organically as the cash and money from UA flows out to pagan, Nazi, and occult groups and UA refugees who aren't integrating ideally. Ukraine or some splinter state/region, or (maybe) (possibly) Russia itself can be declared as the origin of these operations - a terrorist state. The US has its justification to invade and occupy.
I'd imagine most of that occurs in some fashion.
I can't imagine the CIA planning attacks in Europe unless Europe is hesitant to support UA (which so far they've done somewhat enough) and if Nazis are given the credit. They'll probably given the Belgium treatment and Russian agents will be the official blame for mysterious massacres. That, or they just fund anti-Ukraine Nazi groups and have them do the work without lying too much about their Russian sympathies. Still, Europe and NATO has been pro-Ukraine materially so it doesn't seem like that'll happen, but those excess weapons and hardened Nazis might prove useful for future diplomatic strains with Europe that the US doesn't want to solve civilly.
We're of different minds that's all, I hope to Christ I'm wrong. I am assuming most of Europe won't have a say, or that those with a say can be easily bought/bribed/removed and that the US will bleed Europe dry and some other states will get the Ukraine treatment. Not that it's necessarily the plan now, but that continuing the unsustainable practices of the US professional class, in the context of a rising China which hopefully can't be engaged directly, will necessitate this course of action.
In my mind, the long term project is still just to get Capital, or the ultra-wealthy whatever you prefer, into a position of automated technological supremacy over all other life on Earth. A police planet for want of a better term. I was thinking of starting some kind of YouTube or whatever channel to disseminate some firsthand research as yet unpublished (I think), mostly private correspondence and diaries from RAND alumni of the era, about the near-total overhaul of the built environment after WW2. It seems to have been a concerted effort, learning from both the Soviet and Maoist revolutions, and paranoia about Marx's original ideas, to disrupt rural revolution AND isolate people via suburban sprawl. Giving the professionals their skin-in-the-game half acre/mortgage/auto loan and growing the role of television in manufacturing consent, and telephones/mail in surveillance.
Ultimately the bulk of the imperial core's military - certainly the one nominally defending the country with the most captured, controlled, propagandized, and unquestioning domestic audience - is in the US. Much of the war machine development/construction, surveillance equipment, and the development of computer algorithms to financialize all aspects of human interaction also occur in the US. A lot does happen in UK/France/Germany for sure, but I don't imagine the CIA has any real alliances, and when push comes to shove the calculus will be to shore up the professionals completing the police planet technology so they don't abandon the mission, or find a conscience through a reduction in their standard of living.
Funny how the Soviets actually wanted the Afghan communists to get their shit together before even considering intervention, initially. They knew it was a trap but weren't left with any recourse (or so they saw it as).
I've been reading this essay and I'm almost done, but I'm left with a question. The USSR didn't want to invade, and the US knew that but also knew funding the Mujahaideen would draw the Soviets in, but why? Is it because if the jihadists won, a pro-soviet/moderate buffer state would seize to exist? This would make sense as the Muslim countries around the region were pro US because they framed themselves as pro-Islam
edit:
“what the Soviets want in Kabul is a government which would not threaten it, not necessarily a Marxist one. The Soviets did not want to keep their troops in Afghanistan since this would inevitably mean that in a few years the US would also build up forces in the area.
From one of the foreign ministers
Yep, as you found.
And the US' support of UA will be harder for the mass media to memory-hole, as compared to the US relationship with the Mujahideen. It's more than a few film dedications, Columbia launches, or State of the Union mentions at this point.
I don't put it past them to try rerunning the exact same strategy, especially if Trump gets in and poses enough of a threat to blow the whole thing because he's not on the same page and has brain rot.
I'd imagine that embroiling the Soviet-Afghan conflict didn't have as much riding on it though, going in, probably most of the subsequent security crises and ultimate invasion and occupation were somewhat organic opportunities for TPTB. But it's a playbook that Wall St. & CIA have run multiple times since, so I'd imagine the intention with Ukraine is similar.
Blowback Season 4, just take your WaitMate and before you know it, summer has arrived
