When I read Austin Bay’s lament about Afghanistan at the Observer, this passage leapt out at me:
In 2017, many Americans seem to have forgotten that Afghanistan is where Osama bin Laden, the Soviet Union and the U.S. intersected. In 1979, Moscow saw the chronically weak Carter administration trapped in the Iran hostage crisis. An Afghanistan Soviet Socialist Republic would be a step toward obtaining one of the czars’ strategic goals: a warm water port on the Indian Ocean. After Afghanistan, the Russians would take Pakistan’s Baluchistan (western Pakistan) and Russian-controlled territory would split the Asian continent.
Outlandish? Perhaps, but many mad dreams in Moscow have led to war.
I know of no credible evidence that the Russians have ever harbored such ambitions. The Soviets were utopian millennialists and genuinely believed that a communist world was inevitable.
The claim usually relies on “Peter the Great’s will”, a 19th century French forgery used to justify Napoleon’s aggression against Russia. We didn’t invent anti-Russian propaganda, you know.
To the best of my knowledge Peter the Great’s longing for a warm water port ended in Iran and the Persian Gulf. And the Soviets did in fact advance that goal by occupying part of Iran during World War II. Something to keep in mind when you’re worrying about a Russian-Iranian alliance. They’ve hated each other a lot longer than they’ve hated us and with much more reason.
Are you saying the Great Game didn’t exist? Seems like there was a lot of activity for a hundred years, including numerous agreements on spheres of control. Perhaps the motivations are more complicated than simply warm water port; both Britain and Russia feared the other’s threat to provoke Muslim insurgents against the other. Both expanded in response to threats to stability in the “tribal” areas.
Britain was opposed to a Russian warm water port in the Indian Ocean in any event, so every Russian attempt to expand influence in Afghanistan was going to be countered as if it was the first step to that goal.
No but I’d say that it had nothing to do with a Russian desire to occupy India or gain a port in Karachi.
Lord Curzon said something like he didn’t believe the Russians were after Karachi (or maybe Calcutta), but after Constantinople. That is, bringing Russian railways to the Persian and Afghan border promoted designs to keep the British occupied in the event Russia found an opportune moment to seize the straits.
I think that’s obviously true. Karachi does the Russians practically no good. Bandar Deylam is much more useful. Constantinople (Istanbul) is even better and when you take into account Russian cultural mythology of Russia as the guardians and heirs of Orthodoxy it adds even greater significance.
Most Westerners aren’t aware of how thin Russia’s railway resources are right down to the present day. The Trans-Siberian railway was so small at the time of the Revolution that a squabble between Reds and Whites on the railway shut it down for a protracted period.