CIA's $3 Billion Program Armed the Militants Who Became Al-Qaeda and the Taliban

The United States spent over $3 billion arming Afghan fighters during the 1980s with a singular purpose: to bleed the Soviet Union dry. What remains one of the most consequential decisions in Cold War history would later come back to haunt American foreign policy in ways that shaped the next three decades.

Operation Cyclone, as it was officially named, ran from 1979 to 1989 with the CIA at its helm. The program funneled weapons, training, and money to Afghan mujahideen fighters resisting the Soviet invasion. By nearly every measure, it worked—the Soviets withdrew in 1989, their military and economy weakened by a prolonged conflict they couldn't win. What wasn't widely discussed at the time was what would happen to these armed, trained, and ideologically committed fighters once the Soviets left.

For years, American officials downplayed any connection between the CIA's Afghan operation and the rise of the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. The official position was straightforward: the United States supported the mujahideen against Soviet imperialism. What happened to those fighters afterward was beyond American control or responsibility. This narrative persisted through the 1990s and even into the early 2000s.

The evidence, however, tells a different story. Declassified statements and firsthand accounts from senior U.S. officials revealed that American decision-makers understood the stakes and the likely consequences. In a 1998 interview with French publication Le Nouvel Observateur, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was asked about arming Islamic fundamentalists. His response was remarkable for its candor. Brzezinski explained that the U.S. had deliberately drawn the Soviets into Afghanistan as a trap, and when asked what mattered more—the Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire—his answer was clear: the geopolitical calculation won out.