{"product_id":"a-long-goodbye-the-soviet-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-9780674058668","title":"A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe conflict in Afghanistan looms large in the collective consciousness of Americans. What has the United States achieved  and how will it withdraw without sacrificing those gains? The Soviet Union confronted these same questions in the 1980s  and Artemy Kalinovskys history of the USSRs nine-year struggle to extricate itself from Afghanistan and bring its troops home provides a sobering perspective on exit options in the region.  What makes Kalinovskys intense account both timely and important is its focus not on motives for initiating the conflict but on the factors that prevented the Soviet leadership from ending a demoralizing war. Why did the USSR linger for so long  given that key elites recognized the blunder of the mission shortly after the initial deployment?  Newly available archival material  supplemented by interviews with major actors  allows Kalinovsky to reconstruct the fierce debates among Soviet diplomats  KGB officials  the Red Army  and top Politburo figures. The fear that withdrawal would diminish the USSRs status as leader of the Third World is palpable in these disagreements  as are the competing interests of Afghan factions and the Soviet Unions superpower rival in the West. This book challenges many widely held views about the actual costs of the conflict to the Soviet leadership  and its findings illuminate the Cold War context of a military engagement that went very wrong  for much too long.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45665815035957,"sku":"ByrdShop_0674058666","price":73.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780674058668.jpg?v=1782408275","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/a-long-goodbye-the-soviet-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-9780674058668","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}