Weapon Of Mass Destruction

It was not until the Vietnam War -- the first major proxy battle against the Soviets -- that U.S. troops faced the AK-47 in action. They would pay dearly for their government's failure to recognize the power of Kalashnikov's simple weapon.

One key problem the United States faced in Vietnam involved basic weaponry: For all their military might, U.S. forces did not have an infantry weapon that could stand up to the AK in the pattern of warfare that was emerging. Confrontations often consisted of jungle patrols from both sides finding themselves unexpectedly face to face, and the side that could pump out the most rounds the fastest won.

After many years of bureaucratic wrangling, the U.S. military had finally introduced its own assault rifle, the sleek and sophisticated M-16. More than 100,000 of them were ordered by the summer of 1966 and shipped to the Asian war zone. By October, however, some unexpected reports were coming in.

M-16s were jamming in combat.

U.S. troops were found dead with their rifles in mid-breakdown, trying to undo the cause of the misfire while under attack. Morale plunged as they thought they could not trust their weapon. And as the Viet Cong learned of these problems, they became emboldened: The sight of the "black rifle," as they called it, was now less threatening. Although the Army tried to minimize the public relations fallout, reports reached Congress through the parents of servicemen as well as from soldiers who felt betrayed. A congressional subcommittee investigating the issue heard testimony about American troops routinely removing AKs from enemy dead and using them instead of their own M-16s.

The culprit, it turns out, wasn't the gun, but the ammunition. M-16s jammed because authorities had insisted on changing the cartridge propellant, and residue clogged the mechanism after repeated firing. But even after problems were addressed, it was too late. The AK came to be perceived widely as the world's top infantry weapon, and one that could beat the West's best offering. It was low-tech Soviet style vs. high-tech American style, and the communists won the war of perception.

If the Vietnam War gave the AK its credibility, it was the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the subsequent demise of the Soviet empire that accelerated the weapon's dissemination, placing it in the hands of insurgents and terrorists who embraced it as an icon of anti-imperialism.

Strategically, the initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan seemed successful: Fewer than 70 Soviet troops died, most of them from non-combat-related accidents. Soviet planners anticipated a stay of no more than three years -- a timetable that seemed realistic considering that the Afghan fighters were short of modern weapons.

But that changed when the CIA began funneling extensive aid to the guerrilla fighters via Pakistan, including hundreds of thousands of AKs (mainly from China, where production of the Soviet weapon was booming). The CIA favored AKs because of their reliability, low cost and availability. In addition, Soviet weapons in the hands of the mujaheddin would not be easily traced to the United States, thus offering Washington official deniability. Years later in congressional testimony, CIA officials estimated that by 1984, $200 million had been sent to the Afghan mujaheddin, and that by 1988 the sum had reached $2 billion through CIA channels alone.

Graft and corruption notwithstanding, the CIA-led arms pipeline helped keep the rebels well stocked. By the mid-1980s, the war was stalemating, despite at least 100,000 Soviet troops on the ground, and the public back home was increasingly unhappy with what seemed like a no-win conflict.

When the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989, the vast arms infrastructure did not disappear. Operating for a decade, it had become ingrained in the economy and culture of Afghanistan and neighboring countries. Even before the Soviet withdrawal, Western newspapers took note of the huge supply of AKs in the region, and the notion of a "Kalashnikov culture" entered the lexicon. In Pakistan, for example, a substantial part of the country's economy -- including gangs who robbed and kidnapped, drug kingpins who followed established arms routes, and the small village arms makers who bought, sold, repaired and produced their homemade versions -- depended on the ubiquitous AK.

The AK's international reach expanded further as the USSR collapsed and former Soviet bloc countries auctioned off their arms stockpiles. AKs began selling for bargain-basement prices throughout Africa, where countries were fragmented into tribal groups with long-standing ethnic resentments. In Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia and elsewhere, AKs prolonged small conflicts that previously would have petered out. The weapon became so much a part of daily life in some areas that it was dubbed the "African credit card" -- you could not leave home without it.