We made a horrific strategic mistake in supporting the Afghans when the Soviets invaded in 1979. We should’ve left that issue to that side of the world.
Yep.
Hindsight is easy. At the time, that campaign was brutally effective at hurting the Soviets both in terms of their financials and their morale. Both of those were key components to beating them.
Was it a perfect strategy? Clearly not, and we should have planned for what came next. But we didn’t.
Arming the Afghan resistance and defeating the Soviets was instrumental in the eventual fall of the Soviet Union.
Afghanistan was the first defeat for the USSR. It was all downhill after that.
Also, Charlie Wilson and the CIA agent did it for cheap money.
When the Afghans got stinger shoulder fired missals and started bringing down Soviet helicopters it demoralized the USSR and led to their defeat.