Soviet troops cross into the Hindu Kush in 1979, beginning a nine-year campaign the Kremlin frames as a defense against the spread of Islamic Fundamentalism on its southern border. This episode of the Wars in Peace series lays out the war's arc much as it lays out Vietnam's: a superpower with overwhelming firepower unable to pacify a countryside full of mujahideen fighters who know the terrain and have nowhere else to go. Archival combat footage, newsreel material, and interviews trace the escalation from limited advisory support to full occupation, and the toll it takes on Soviet conscripts fighting in mountain passes far from any front line they recognize. The film treats Afghanistan as a case study in a broader pattern the series is built around, superpowers refighting the same mistakes in different terrain, and it uses period footage rather than modern hindsight to make the comparison to Vietnam land.