21 Years Ago In TIME

By Elizabeth L. Bland; Heather Won Tesoriero

Many armies have marched into AFGHANISTAN, including those led by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. But probably none were so bold as the Soviet Army, which took Kabul in a "lightning invasion" late in 1979. Taking the rest of the country would prove more problematic.

One tragedy of Afghanistan is simply its geography: it lies along the eastern tier of the "crescent of crisis," which in an oil-short world has become strategically vital to both the West and the Soviet Union. Can the Soviets subjugate the Afghans indefinitely? Pentagon experts doubt that Afghanistan ever could become Moscow's "Viet Nam," pointing out that Soviet supply lines to Afghanistan are short and the local population relatively small: 14 to 18 million. But some historians argue that the traditional fierceness of the Afghans is a quality that defies measure. In January 1842, after an adventure in Afghanistan, the British ordered the withdrawal of 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers from Kabul. A week later, the sole survivor of the march, a field surgeon named Brydon, staggered into Jalalabad...The present generation of rebel tribesmen are hardly equipped to repeat such a feat. But, as a former U.S. Ambassador to Kabul, Robert Neumann, has observed, "Foreign invaders have found it easier to march into Afghanistan than to march out."

--TIME, Jan. 14, 1980