What Are The Long Term Effects Of The Soviet Invasion On Afghan Society

The invasion was a failure, costing millions of lives and having serious consequences still visible today. Not only did the Soviet invasion influence Afghanistan’s economy, it also had major effects on the Afghan people. After the invasion, the country was left in shambles. Moreover, the Afghan society suffered both devastating short-term effects and long-term effects.

Immediate effects
The Soviets tried to eliminate civilian populations from the Afghan countryside, where resistance was based, because the rural population fed and housed the mujahidin. Additionally, the Soviet bombings destroyed entire villages, crops and irrigation, which caused the death of millions of people and left millions homeless or starving. The bombings left the
country in ruins. The devastation was absolute, as was the strains on the Afghan people, leaving a generation of survivors that had only experienced death, war, fear and desolation.
Millions of Afghans were forced to flee their homes. 5 million civilians fled to neighboring countries or Europe, while 2 million were internally displaced. People who are internally displaced are people who have fled their homes, but remain in their country. Refugee camps were set up around Peshawar, Pakistan, but they became overcrowded, unsanitary and insufficiently supplied quickly.
Thousands of miniature Soviet land mines continued to injure unsuspecting civilians, in particular children who mistook them for toys.
This continued long after the war ended.
Approximately 1 million civilian Afghans died and millions were wounded as a direct effect of the Soviet invasion.

Long-term effects
The country was now a wreckage, and the Afghan society and state was weak. The infrastructure suffered lasting effects of the invasion, and country was full of religious hatred and hatred towards wealthier countries because of religious and economical differences – a breeding ground of terrorism. After being in a constant state of war, the creation and spread of fundamentalist Islamic groups was increased.

Taliban and terrorism
The establishment of Taliban and their rise to power in the 90s was a result of the conditions after the war. The Taliban emerged as an opposition movement. Their goal was to remove the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The movement consisted of Pashtun fundamentalist students that had been trained in religious schools in Pakistani refugee camps called madrasas. Like we mentioned earlier, the generation of Afghans that had suffered during the wars, harbored a hatred towards western countries. It was easy to recruit members in a country where most people had lost their
hope.
Taliban introduced an extreme and, in many Muslims’ eyes, a wrong version of Islam when they seized and took control of the capital, Kabul, in 1996. They banned women from work and introduced Islamic punishments, for example stoning to death. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia acknowledged the Taliban as legitimate rulers in 1997.

The US, who had provided the Afghan resistance with American weapons and anti-aircraft missiles which contributed to the defeat of Soviet, were now met with their own guns. An example is the 9/11 attacks that are connected to the US involvement in Afghanistan.
It is estimated that 300 to 500 Soviet troops stayed in Afghanistan after the invasion. Although most of the former Soviet soldiers integrated into the Afghan society, some of the veterans are also assumed to have joined the Taliban. An example is Irek Hamidullan, who was captured in 2009 and brought to the US, where he faces terrorism charges.