In addition to the development of new nuclear missiles, the Cold War escalated further when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Afghanistan bordered some of the southern Soviet republics of the USSR, making it easy for Moscow to support a communist-led government led by Taraki when it seized power in Kabul in April 1978.

Afghanistan became the Soviet Union’s Vietnam: an expensive, embarrassing war with little hope of victory, where they were beaten by local guerrilla forces. It dragged on until 1988 when the Soviet leader, who by then was Mikhail Gorbachev, signed a deal to end the war and the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989.

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