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Originally Posted by Olefin
700 Soviet troops including Spetsnaz occupied the government buildings in Kabul, destroyed the Afghan military’s communications and then killed the leader of the pro-Soviet government.
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In a nutshell, yes. But calling Hafizullah Amin pro-Soviet is an abbreviation of the more complicated relationship the USSR had with him. He had conducted a smear campaign against the Soviet ambassador in Afghanistan, kept a picture of Stalin on his desk and was criticized by the Soviets for being too brutal, because he modeled his rule on that of Stalin, voicing the opinion that the way Stalin built socialism was "the way" it's done properly. Ambassador Puzanov participated in an assassination attempt against Amin, which was (at least partially) sanctioned by his higher-ups. Moscow was wary that the way Amin handled Afghanistan was leading it straight into civil war, which was probably very likely to happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
It was 100% an invasion
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There should be no doubt here. All in all, this was somewhat similar how the US handled allied nations that became unreliable or actual liabilities in their backyard: swift, decisive military action. It's just that Panama or Grenada were easier to keep down than a country like Afghanistan. And of course the USSR was never as good in force projection as the USA were.
Still, Afghanistan and the history of its invasion by the USSR is multi-layered. Zbigniew Brzezinski was never modest about his own plans or the effects of things he allegedly had set in motion. Maybe his actions did their part in initiating Operation Shtorm-333, but that's even then that's nowhere near the same as saying Brzezinski single-handedly trapped the Soviet Union in its own version of Vietnam. Neither past nor history are monocausal strings of events enacted by individuals.