The great gamble: the Soviet war in Afghanistan by Gregory Feifer
This work uses a fair number of interviews with Soviets, both soldiers and officers, mostly paratroopers and pilots. It served to remind me how brutal and ugly the Soviet army on campaign could be. Afghans are killed left and right, and looting is rampant. Also, how crappy Soviet logistics were: the looting was largely of consumer goods that couldn't be bought in the USSR, and of food or warm clothing that the soldiers couldn't get at all. The Soviet conscripts were terrorized and beaten down by their senior privates, not the sergeants. The Afghans' loyalty was as suspect and pliable that we have heard from the American war in that same country.
The Soviet (non)decision to intervene, as well as the Afghan disintegration that led to it, seemed to take a long time to read, while once the shooting starts, the interviews with veterans made this a great read.
Irony: Najibullah's government that was left behind when the Soviets finally pulled out in early 1989, no one expected his government to survive. It outlasted the Soviet Union. By only a few months, really.
What struck me in relation to T2k: the Soviet Army we see here is really pretty crappy. Something had to have changed (in timeline) to make the Soviets such a power in 1995-1999.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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