The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan from the point of view of Yugoslav military science in the initial phase of the war

Abstract

The paper analyses the attitude of Yugoslav military science to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the initial phase of the war based on the materials developed at the Department of Strategy of the School of National Defense at the Center of Higher Military Schools of the YPA "Marshal Tito". The authors of the classified learning material "The military intervention of the USSR in Afghanistan, 1979-1989" sacrificed the informational and analytical side to the needs of propaganda. At the beginning of the 1980s Yugoslav military science expressed no vision in this material, they neglected the analysis of tactics of anti-partisan operations in the mountainous areas and did not notice modern phenomena in the guerilla operations of the Afghan insurgents. The predictions were obvious.Also, they did not mention the existence of militant fundamentalism as a factor in the guerrilla operations in the East.