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The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan

The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan By Gregory Feifer
Publisher: Harper | ISBN: 0061143189 | edition 2009 | PDF | 336 pages | 7,65 Mb

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a grueling debacle that has striking
lessons for the twenty-first century. In The Great Gamble, Gregory
Feifer examines the conflict from the perspective of the soldiers on
the ground. During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union
sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia
to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their
superior numbers with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet
leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian
soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating
defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the
Soviet Union and its collapse.
Feifer's extensive research includes eye-opening interviews with
participants from both sides of the conflict. In gripping detail, he
vividly depicts the invasion of a volatile country that no power has
ever successfully conquered. Parallels between the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are
impossible to ignore—both conflicts were waged amid vague ideological
rhetoric about freedom. Both were roundly condemned by the outside
world for trying to impose their favored forms of government on
countries with very different ways of life. And both seem destined to
end on uncertain terms.
A groundbreaking account seen through the eyes of the men who fought
it, The Great Gamble tells an unforgettable story full of drama,
action, and political intrigue whose relevance in our own time is
greater than ever.