Moscow's Fatal Military Adventure

摘要

On Sept. 12, 1979, the president of Afghanistan, Nur Mohammad Taraki, was deposed and then murdered. Hafizullah Amin, a communist and a Soviet puppet who led the coup, replaced Taraki and set about trying to quell an anti-Soviet Muslim revolt. In this, Amin was no more successful than Taraki, and Moscow before long was seeking a more radical solution. Within months, a worried Kremlin had launched an outright invasion of Afghanistan. It marked the first direct use of Soviet military power outside of Eastern Europe since World War Ⅱ.