when I see statements like this I suspect (disclaimer - I have zero knowledge, apart from reading the news) that america lost the war and definately not.. Afganistan won the war, due to fact there was politics involved in setting the objectives
lets face it, if america REALLY wanted to win at all costs (like the british did) Afganistan would be a complete and utter wasteland - but the political costs would have been too high
But America didn't want to destroy Afghanistan. America wanted to permanently install a western-style Democracy that was generally friendly to the U.S. and would keep Al-Qaeda out, without the presence of significant numbers of U.S. troops. This IMO was probably not an achievable objective.
My non-expert impression is that, largely due to the geography and economics of Afghanistan (extremely rough terrain, very little transportation infrastructure, not a lot of money), the basic unit of organization of power is naturally a valley or some similar geographically isolated area. Trying to institute any strong central government, particularly one that aims to significantly change traditional societal values is an extremely difficult proposition.
I remember this Reddit thread from years and years ago that sadly I can't find anymore, where they were asking soldiers that had been to Afghanistan what surprised them most. One guy said "I was surprised by the number of people I met in Afghanistan that had never heard of Afghanistan." Another guy talked about being in a village about 40 miles from Kandahar and he said most people there were generally aware that Kandahar existed, but few had even ever been there.
> I remember this Reddit thread from years and years ago that sadly I can't find anymore, where they were asking soldiers that had been to Afghanistan what surprised them most. One guy said "I was surprised by the number of people I met in Afghanistan that had never heard of Afghanistan." Another guy talked about being in a village about 40 miles from Kandahar and he said most people there were generally aware that Kandahar existed, but few had even ever been there.
In a different life I used to be in the USMC, and when I was over there I remember doing a patrol to a remote Afghan village vaguely near Kandahar. We were worried they'd hate us or already have ambushes in place. Instead they were kinda surprised that we even bothered to come out, and were vaguely curious.
My translator, a used-car salesman from Northern VA of Pashtun extraction, had trouble speaking to them -- they had a thick accent. Think Appalachian redneck accent, but Middle-Eastern. There was a moment of confusion when we asked if they'd seen any trucks or cars coming through -- they didn't know what a car was. They'd seen trucks -- like Toyota Hilux, Ford Rangers, etc. -- but had never seen a car. Same with aircraft: they absolutely knew what a helicopter was, but what was a jet?
My boss was convinced that they were fucking with us, but our translator was fairly confident these guys were just isolated hicks. We drank a few cups of tea, asked what they needed, and GTFO fairly quickly. I couldn't shake the feeling they were playing games, and everyone was a little on alert, waiting for the inevitable ambush as we left. But nothing happened.
Incredible. Now I remember another amazing comment from that thread. One of the guys said he ran into an Afghani that was asking why they were back after a long time, and it turned out he thought they were the Russians!
Almost no war is won by entirely defeating the opponent. Most wars end because the costs of continuing the war exceed the acceptable threshold for one party. The Taliban got what they fought for - they won. (Whether the Taliban represent the majority of the Afghan Population is a separate matter)
I agree, but a lot of people seem to confuse the fact that america "losed the war" from a political perspective from a technical perpective
people did not 'buy' in to the reason of invading iraq. but from a technical angle america could have obliterated the entire countries of both iraq/ afganistan with out nukes - something USSR could not have done
>Almost no war is won by entirely defeating the opponent
no convential / historic war has been done like this - yes. but newer weapons / tech could do this. again in theory with the correct politics.
Russia has given the world a bit of a wake up. China seems to have bought in to this crazy thinking (I've always thought that China is not very foward thinking) and they do have the politics and tech to wipe out countries like russia wanted to do with UKR
Pretty confusing, it lost it, "could" and technical perspective don't help that - and I doubt that could is even close to certain.. unless you mean they could have gone nuclear and killed everyone?
