lol i know its comedic. and others on the site were going "oh that is bad ***," like they were visualizing a video game.
AFAIK, most people there are vetted military pros. Enough said.
this is rich. they lost because of a "lack of POLITICAL will."
Lack of political will in the most communist of regimes? one that would forcefully shift its ethnic groups, millions of its own people from one corner of its country to another just to teach hand full a lesson?
oh please, this is a joke. "lack of political will," is some b.s. republicans made up trying to explain away the vietnam loss and now the russians are latching onto it.
What do you know about the SU's Afghan invasion? Do you understand how and why the SU collapsed? On one hand you imply a strong almost unbreakable political will of the erstwhile SU and OTOH you talk about how weak the SU regime was. Now what exactly is it?
BTW, the soviet battles were and are studied carefully by many western (read NATO) experts and trying to learn how to "win" in Afghanistan. SU almost never lost a battle, but failed to hold on to large swathes of territory giving the Mujaheddin almost a free reign. Couple that with a constant stream of funding form the Americans and the Saudis and sanctuaries and camps in Pakistan. Inspite of all this, the mujaheddin still could not dislodge Najibullah after the soviets left, not till the collapse of the SU! Go figure.
do you remember the one atrocity from that afghan war russians were famous for? just as the americans are now known for abu ghraib atrocities and haditha massacres, the one thing that was quint essentially russian was cutting out prenatals from pregnant women.
Source? Or is it just propagandist BS that YOU, my friend, are spouting, just like many other little read friends? There are people that I would expect that out of, but the Russians in Afghanistan or Chechnya...nah! Its the other way around. You see commies do not have a religion and are not religious fanatics to cut people left and right (shooting is a different ball game).
Now I've heard it all. The Russians won?
Some victory. 15,000 deaths, hundreds of thousands of casualties, billions invested and then they walked away. And they haven't regained any leverage - political, economic, strategic- in Afghanistan since then. That war was a significant contributor to the fall of the Soviet empire. How did they win?
For me a good rule of thumb to find out who really won a battle is when one side says "We won but our own politicians stabbed us in the back", or "We won but our commanders betrayed us".
It's then that I know that that side lost.
15000 casualties over a period of
10 years at a time when COIN was in its infancy atleast for the soviets, a systematic withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving behind a regime which could hold onto to power till the SU lasted says a lot, doesnt it? Contrast that with another famous example, Vietnam!
instead of coming up with brilliant one liners, and playing to the gallery, it would do a lot of good if one could just study the SU's Afghan invasion and occupation and how others meddled in Afghanistan to settle scores or for ones own interests, and you will understand what exactly happened. Why do you think NATO is studying what the Russians did and did not do?
I suggest you read that piece I posted in the other thread, you will know. And that is not the only piece of information available, there are probably many others which say the same.
