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Goodbye, Afghanistan

其他書名	Learning Over Time and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan
出版	University of Texas, 2022
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=DZWxzwEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋This thesis investigates the factors influencing Soviet decision-making leading up to the 1988-1989 withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. It asks whether and how cognitive learning theory can explain why Soviet leaders made the decisions they did, and specifically why they agreed to withdraw troops under the conditions of the 1988 Geneva Accords, which contained provisions they had previously considered unacceptable. I use Soviet government documents drawn from two different digital archives to analyze the evolution of Soviet thinking on Afghanistan and to trace patterns of change and continuity across ten years and three successions of power. I evaluate the evidence for two different types of learning in Soviet decision-making: strategic learning, which includes changes in the overall perception of Afghanistan and the long-term goals of the Soviet intervention, and tactical learning, which involves learning about the conditions under which withdrawal is possible and the concessions that are necessary to secure it. I also compare cognitive learning theory against a competing explanation: changes in Soviet internal politics that empowered advocates of withdrawal. I conclude that both strategic and tactical learning influenced Soviet behavior in Afghanistan and contributed to the decision to withdraw under the terms set at Geneva. I suggest that cognitive learning explanations are not incompatible with the influence of internal politics, and that both factors played important causal roles. I then discuss the implications of this research for an understanding superpower intervention and withdrawal more generally