The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

On December 8, Ogarkov was invited to a meeting of the Politburo Commission onAfghanistan. For some reason, Suslov had replaced Ponomaryov at the meeting. Brezhnevwas not present. The head of the General Staff was given another opportunity to presenthis arguments. Then the members of the commission discussed variants of how to proceedat length. They continued to address Ogarkov with questions. Amin’s destiny was notdiscussed at that meeting. It had likely already been determined. The discussion revolvedaround the potential consequences of losing Afghanistan. How would the loss ofAfghanistan impact the situation in the Soviet Central Asian Republics? Would AmericanPershing missiles be stationed there? What would Pakistan and Iran do? Having allowedOgarkov to excuse himself from the meeting, the Politburo members made the decision thatKGB forces should be engaged to remove Amin from Kabul and bring “the healthy forces inthe PDPA” to power. If for some reason this proved to be impossible to achieve, then theSoviet military should get directly involved in the operation.“A limited contingent,” clarified Ustinov, who had been silent throughout themeeting. “This is how we will describe it: a ‘limited contingent’ of Soviet troops.”The next day, when Ogarkov again attempted to convince Ustinov that militaryintervention made no sense, the minister of defense shouted at the marshal, “Don’t lecturePolitburo members. Just fulfill the order.”“The General Staff cannot step aside when such pivotal decisions for the country arebeing made.”“How far will you go?” snarled the minister, rising to his feet. “Will you sabotage theleadership of the country and the will of the party? I have been noticing for some time that661