The afghan civilians were always going to suffer
This is what happens when nations do not prepare for their defence
They get slaughtered
The heap of dead across history is testament to this, Bosnia included
The Soviet Union however did collapse, whilst their were multiple reasons for this, the debacle in Afghanistan did not help
PAKISTAN for its part and the ISI in particular did incredibly well against both the Soviet Union and USA/NATO but you are right afghan civilians paid the price either way
All true. Bosnians lost 30,000 soldiers and 30,000 civilians (most dead civilians did not want to fight and trusted their Serbian neighbours who killed them in their own houses).
Most of the dead occurred at the start of the war when people literally used shotguns against machine guns and artillery, helicopters. there was usually 3-4 people with one gun. When one would die, the other would pick the gun up and continue.
Once we got automatic weapons. things were different. once got Pakistani ATGM's things were very exciting.
In the end 60,000 dead out of 2,000,000 to fulfil all our war demands. Democratic, sovereign country in Europe. Unchanged borders. Peace with neighbours.
3% of the population dead. If we were prepared, it might only have been 15,000 soldiers dead. maybe only 5,000 civilians. Still a lot. If we were heavily armed at the start maybe the army would not fight. Maybe they would make tactical withdrawals saving their families. There is no better soldier than the one that has lost a relative or who's city is besieged and if the city falls your children get raped and murdered (chopped up alive) in front of you.
Our leaders knew how to motivate the people. If the serbs were nicer, we would have surrendered.
But that's the price of having your country in this world. We didn't have to. we could have lived in a Serbian dominated country as slightly discriminated citizens. not even too discriminated. But we are strong minded people who we have to be.
Would Azerbaijan sacrifice 3% of its population for achieving all its war aims?