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In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with the intention to secure the Afghan communist regime from collapsing. Rebels, called the Mujahideen, began to resist the invasion and the Soviet Union soon found themselves fighting a tedious guerrilla war. The aim of this paper is to examine why the Soviet Union lost this asymmetrical war, even though they had a clear military superiority and stronger actors historically tend to win these types of conflicts.

This paper has the ambition to explain in what ways soviet forces lacked proper understanding of not only asymmetrical warfare, but also counterinsurgency warfare, using theories that more closely look at the importance of strategic interactions between actors in asymmetrical wars, and principles of conducting successful counterinsurgencies.

The empirical findings can succinctly be summarized by two factors: The Soviet Union was, despite tremendous effort, incapable of breaking Mujahideens will to fight. Insufficient attention was also paid towards cultivating trust with the Afghan populace, nor were strategies employed to rally support for the war against the Mujahideen.