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Operation Summer Rain (Cold War)
Operation Summer Rain (), was a highly classified joint mission involving the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and special units of the German Armed Forces during the Cold War-era Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s. The primary objective of the operation was to gather intelligence on the weapons systems used by Soviet forces. During the Cold War, the West, particularly the United States, aimed to contain Soviet influence in Afghanistan. Intelligence agencies pursued a strategy of supporting the Mujahideen by providing weapons, equipment, and training. This approach aimed to give the Soviet forces a costly experience while gaining insights into Soviet military technology. Background and approval Operated under the utmost secrecy by the 16A department of the BND, responsible for the "Near and Middle East" region, Operation "Summer Rain" aimed to secure Soviet military technology deployed in Afghanistan. Notably, the Bundestag was not involved in the approval process, with the opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Afghan military fight against the rebelling Afghan mujahideen, aided by Pakistan. While they were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of the mujahideen's support came from Pakistan, the United States (as part of Operation Cyclone), the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, in addition to a large influx of foreign fighters known as the Afghan Arabs. American and British involvement on the side of the mujahideen escalated the Cold War, ending a short period of relaxed Soviet Union–United States relations. Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside, as most of the country's cities remained under Soviet control. The conflict resulted in the de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afghan Mujahidin
The Afghan ''mujahideen'' (; ; ) were Islamist militant groups that fought against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent Afghan Civil War (1989–1992), First Afghan Civil War. The term ''mujahideen, mujahid'' (from ) is used in a religious context by Muslims to refer to those engaged in a struggle of any nature for the sake of Islam, commonly referred to as ''jihad'' (). The Afghan people, Afghan mujahidin consisted of numerous groups that differed from each other across ethnic and/or ideological lines, but were united by their Anti-communism, anti-communist and pro-Islamic goals. The coalition of anti-Soviet Muslim militias was also known as the "Afghan resistance", and the Western media, Western press widely referred to the Afghan guerrillas as "freedom fighters", or "Mountain Men". The militants of the Afghan mujahidin were recruited and organized immediately after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War Intelligence Operations
Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. This corresponds to on the Celsius scale, on the Fahrenheit scale, and on the Rankine scale. Since temperature relates to the thermal energy held by an object or a sample of matter, which is the kinetic energy of the random motion of the particle constituents of matter, an object will have less thermal energy when it is colder and more when it is hotter. If it were possible to cool a system to absolute zero, all motion of the particles in a sample of matter would cease and they would be at complete rest in the classical sense. The object could be described as having zero thermal energy. Microscopically in the description of quantum mechanics, however, matter still has zero-point energy even at absolute zero, because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pullach
Pullach, officially Pullach i. Isartal (, ), is a municipality in the district of Munich (district), Munich in Bavaria in Germany. It lies on the Isar Valley Railway and is served by the S7 (Munich), S 7 line of the Munich S-Bahn, at the Großhesselohe Isartalbahnhof station, Großhesselohe Isartalbahnhof, Pullach station , Pullach and Höllriegelskreuth railway stations. The Headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service , headquarters of the intelligence agency of the German government, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), was located in Pullach from 1956 until the agency moved to Berlin. The new headquarters in Berlin, completed in 2017, opened officially in February 2019. Until the move to Berlin, "Pullach" was a metonym for "the BND" just as "Langley, Virginia, Langley" is for "the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA" in the United States. Geography Pullach sits on the western bank of the Isar river, just south of Munich. Neighbouring municipalities On the opposite bank of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Military Power
''Soviet Military Power'' was a public diplomacy publication of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which provided an estimate of the military strategy and capabilities of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War, ostensibly to alert the US public to the significant military capabilities of the Soviet Armed Forces. First published in early October 1981, it became an annual publication from 1983 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Already in draft as the Soviet Union collapsed, the 1991 version was retitled "Military Forces in Transition". In addition to the majority English version, ''Soviet Military Power'' was translated, printed, and disseminated in a variety of languages, including German, French, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish. The series has been continued by DIA as Russia Military Power. Overview The report was produced annually by intelligence analysts and subject matter experts at DIA, incorporating all sources of intelligence from a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Bloc
The Western Bloc, also known as the Capitalist Bloc, the Freedom Bloc, the Free Bloc, and the American Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War (1947–1991). While the NATO member states, in Western Europe and Northern America, were pivotal to the bloc, it included many other countries, in the broader Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa with histories of anti-Soviet, anti-communist and, in some cases anti-socialist, ideologies and policies. As such, the bloc was opposed to the political systems and foreign policies of communist countries, which were centered on the Soviet Union, other members of the Warsaw Pact, and usually the People's Republic of China. The name "Western Bloc" emerged in response to and as the antithesis of its communist counterpart, the Eastern Bloc. Throughout the Cold War, the governments and the Western media were more inclined to refer to themse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kommando Spezialkräfte
The Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK) (, alternatively Special Operations Forces Command (SOFCOM)) is a unified combatant command and a large brigade-level unit of the German Army (Heer) designated to perform Covert operation, covert operations, capture or kill high-value targets, undertake counterterrorism and hostage rescue crisis management, manage decapitation (military strategy), decapitation attacks, direct action, executive protection, irregular warfare, ISTAR, quick maneuver military emergencies situation, special warfare, as well as act as a military advisor. The KSK is under the command and control of the Rapid Forces Division (DSK) when on routine duty and is stationed in the Graf Zeppelin barracks in Calw, Baden-Württemberg. The British Special Air Service (SAS), the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and the German Federal Police's GSG 9 (''Grenzschutzgruppe 9'') of the former Federal Border Protection (''Bundesgrenzschutz'') (BGS) served as models for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc List of non-communist socialist states, socialist republics in Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant military alliance, the Warsaw Pact OrganisationPage 22, âNATO and OSCE, Partners or Rivals?€™, Edward Killham (WPO) (also known as ‘Warsaw Treaty Organization’ (‘WTO’)). The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Comecon, Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the economic organization for the Eastern Bloc states. Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to the NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundeswehr
The (, ''Federal Defence'') are the armed forces of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. The is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part consists of the four armed forces: German Army, German Navy, German Air Force and Cyber and Information Domain Service (Germany), Cyber and Information Domain Service, which are supported by the Bundeswehr Support Area. , the had a strength of 180,215 active-duty military personnel and 80,761 civilians, placing it among the 30 largest military forces in the world, and making it the second largest in the European Union behind French Armed Forces, France. In addition, the has approximately 34,600 reserve personnel (2024). With German military expenditures at $88.5 billion (2024), the is the fourth-highest-funded military in the world, though military expenditures have until recently remained low at an average at 1.5% of national GDP, well below the non-binding NATO targ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
