Well written Bryan Dijkhuizen.

The enormous human losses to the USSR are not always fully understood -- or even known. Because of them a fear of the West still remains today.

Jimmy Carter was utterly shocked when the USSR moved into Afghanistan. "Now we know what the Russians are really like" I kind of remember him saying. If Jimmy had read history, that you write about so well, he would have understood the USSR obsession of maintaining buffer states. Afghanistan was just one of these because of our mess in Iran.

Many thanks