re: Watched Rambo III - why was Russia interested in Afghanistan?

The fundamentalist came to power AFTER Russia left a vacuum.

The Pashtuns are also in Pakistan and have always been pretty much autonomous. Reagan had to fight his own CIA and Dept of State to get those stinger missiles to the Norther Alliance while they were sending money to the drug lords. A friend was involved as an aide to Reagan and Charlie Wilson was the best man at his wedding. Of course, the movie was Hollywooded up quite a bit.

We cannot dismiss, either, that both Russia and the U.S. have weapon systems and tactics that need to be tested in real battlefield situations. We get involved in a military conflict somewhere and then Russia does the same and vice versa. The MIC of both countries is always looking to further their own goals and profits. Just as an aside, Afghanistan is also rich in minerals, which the whole world wants and needs. The tribes in Afghanistan won't cooperate with each other, however, to effectively profit from this resource.

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The Soviets made a mistake with Iran. The assumption was that the new government in Iran would have a fair amount of communists and leftists involved. They did not see that the Islamists would pull off a coup and purge the communists.

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In retrospect, this alliance worked well for both countries.

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What is the potential threat to the regime?

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The major threat in Central Asia was two-fold. In the 20s and 30s there was a worry about the possibility of a pan-Islamic movement, but there was also a worry about a pan-Turkic one, as Turkish nationalist sentiment extended into the area too. Largely the practice of the religion was tightly controlled, but that was being undermined by one major organization, Pakistan's ISI, which was making contacts starting in the 1960s with the purpose of using them to try to secure access to Central Asia. ISI had wings dealing with US interests, the C-Wing, as well as a wing that was aimed at controlling Islamists, S-Wing. A KGB officer's time in the region would largely be spent ensuring that access remained open to India, which at the time was under a relatively right-leaning government, though weapons agreements, economic aid, and intelligence sharing was increased too.

The Pashtun group has always been autonomous with their dancing boys and large ferocious dogs. Still to this day they are more about tribal traditions than actually being fundamentalists, which they also are

The north was ruled by Alexander the Great's successors for a few centuries. Lots of blue eyed folks that way

Yes. Whenever there was a report of violence when I was in Afghanistan it could have been one of several things.

1. US/GoA vs Taliban
2. Pashtuns vs some other ethnic group
3. Pashtun tribe vs Pashtun tribe
4. Pashtun dude vs other Pashtun dude fighting over dancing boy.

The US aided a lot more than insurgents in Afghanistan. Reagan out pressure on Russia across Africa and Central America as well for two reasons, Russia had over extended itself and its economy was in shambles before it was pushed to spend more.

The reason that the USSR finances were in shambles was from their grand and glorious multi year plans to increase things like steel production, farm output, and everything else. Take steel, it was shiite steel and to increase production they mandated increased use of it in lots of construction. Pressure vessels used in refining, and chemicals were mandated to be double the wall thickness of what was needed, also in buildings,there was so much rebar that it difficult for concrete to get through the gaps.

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You might have to explain this. My mind goes to billions of dollars of weapons sales to Iraq.

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The alliance really started working well for both countries after 1989. Russia helped Iran with its nuclear program, with Russia giving technical expertise to help establish a nuclear plant in Bushehr, and helping them with their missile program, with Iran eventually developing its own defense industry, especially after Russia reorganized their own defense industry in 2002. The alliance is so important to some in the Russian security circle that it has been described as the key axis to Russian FP. Since the SCW, you've seen far more cooperation militarily in Syria, and you've seen some cooperation in Central Asia as well. Iran even helped Russia with starting its own drone program after Iran and Turkey surged ahead of other regional players in drone warfare. You can see the makings of a Iran, Russia, China axis too, but India presents a problem there, as Iran and Russia have defense agreements with India, while China views India as a major threat. India also represents China's interest in Afghanistan, as they want to encircle India, as China is trying to buy off Pakistan too.

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Well this would be an interesting story. The life of Pakistani agents operating in Soviet Central Asia prior to the war in Afghanistan.

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It would be. Pakistan is concerned about Pashtun nationalism taking hold and affecting its border region, which has a lot of Pashtun people. Their S-Wing even went against the interests of the civilian government many times, with open accusations of bringing ruin to the country leveled by the prime minister's son in 2014 against the head of intelligence. If there is one place where there is a clear difference between the civilian and military interests of a country, it is probably Pakistan, which has had the quintessential "state within a state" problem since its founding.

Fun fact: a lot of the movie was filmed in Yuma AZ with almost all the extras being jarheads. They actually played the Russians

Also, the Sikorsky used was a dressed up CH53 IIRC. it was filmed in the late 80’s.

Just another reason we should have nuked them. One we could have dried up a lot of the illicit drug supplies in the world and two the CIA would be broke.