This is an excellent question. And I'll start by answering it with a question. What is victory in OEF? 99% of the people here to include the writers cannot answer that question. Many of the people actually running the war cannot answer either. The reason is that we are not fighting a like minded western style enemy that fights within our rule sets. This enemy DOES NOT CARE about how many casualties and how long it takes. The enemy isn't even human flesh and blood. The enemy is the perception of the United States. Specifically a negative perception. So long as the population has this negative perception, the Taliban and AQ will survive. So long as they survive, this war will persist. Over time, the cost to benefit politically speaking will be against the United States. When that happens, we lose. We are witnessing it happen.

So when strategypage writers, various posters ect start writing about how many more Taliban we kill vs loses, our tactics and weaponry. They aren't even taking about the same war.

-DA 

"http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20090923.aspx"

 

September 23, 2009: Last year, Russian threatened to base several of its new SS-26 (9M723K1, or "Iskander") ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad, as a way to threaten the American anti-missile system being built in Poland (to protect Europe from Iranian missiles). Now the U.S. has cancelled the anti-missile system in Poland (much to the dismay of the nervous Poles), and Russia has responded that it will not put Iskanders in Kaliningrad.

 

Seems that Russia sees a rerun of the cold war not in it's interest. Doesn't mean that they're suddenly nice guys, etc. Does mean you don't needlessly waste effort in useless pursuits. The US has other problems to worry about and it seems that the Russians also feel they have other problems to worry about.

 

And should Russia move it's Iskanders again you can move your ABM system forward, as the new ABM proposal is a mobile system.

 

 

 

 

 

If SP articles were to be taken seriously, there would be no single terrorism-oriented Afghan left in this world.

You take SP articles too seriously.

 

The situation in Afghanistan is rather like Colombia 20 years ago, but not too similar either. Both wars are ideologically incited and funded by (mostly) drug money with some other assistance from ideological sources. In both cases, the insurgents recruited both international terrorists and local poor from certain ethnic origin. There are difference between the cases. Colombia society is much better educated and modern, while Afghan society is the exact opposite. Also, FARC and ELN were pretty isolated during the high mark of their insurgency, while Taliban is the result of Pakistani ISI creation from the beginning. Afghan problem is rather the extension of Pakistan problem, which has its root since British expansion in the Subcontinent. Thus, eventually, Colombia fixed itself, but Afghans can't.

 

Tactically, Taliban is not going to win with banditry and IED. However, if left alone, Afghan national government will crumble in no time. The government is basically sustained via international donation, and is rotten as a dead cow. On the other hand, you still have warlords who want to keep running things their way, partly for justifiable reasons, partly out of pure evil; and you have drug lords who want to keep things as chaotic as possible, so that they can keep producing drugs that flood the street of Helsinki and other major European cities.

 

Tactically, again, they can't confront and fight western troops of any amount by any means. If western nations decide to stay there forever, and supply the corrupted political machine of Kabul for indefinite time, then they couldn't challenge it. However, they hope that they can weaken the western will or wait until westerners had enough of the situation, which leads to withdraw of both troops and support. 

 

Thus, there will be no progress for next 10-20 years before we can see some change. The other solution is to study historical conquerors of the region and emulate what they did, but that's not pretty.

 

Iraq and Afghanistan are two very different scenarios. True, the Taliban can't win tactically against the U.S. and E.U. forces, so...

 

First, the Taliban are basically going to wait us out, and then sooner or later things will go back to what they were before. I agree the Afghanistani Government is corrupt, weak, and infiltrated and will not be able to stand on their own for too long.

 

Second, the U.S. will not be able to restructure Afghanistan like they did with Iraq unless we are willing to stay there for at least a decade to build infrastructure, educate, train, and allow some measure of freedom of cultures and different faiths to build the country.

 

Third, Afghanistan is not that important to the U.S. and Europe because they don't have a natural resource like "OIL" which Iraq does.

 

Fourth, American public support for staying in Afghanistan is slowly but surely waning.

 

Fifth, the U.S. is not going to stay and restructure Afghanistan for a decade because we are not willing to invest another TRILLION dollars into Afghanistan like we did in Iraq which is more strategic politically, economically, and strategically.

 

We put a good show in the next couple of years, but the Obama Administration is already looking to wrap this up and get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible.

 

I'm sure there are many more good points but I just tried to cover some of the obvious basics.

 

 

More on the spin-off topic of Afghanistan and Taleban.

 

Ok, I understand what you guys say is true. Every fight can be won, but the conflict is not about winning fights. A victory for US and rest of the west would be an Afghanistan where no more anti-West terrorism would be harboured. That is correct, right?

 

No free playground to train a new army of hijackers and suicide bombers. I believe Americans have no national interest to improve Afghan literacy rates, or improve women rights. Those two might be tools in the kit towards the actual goal, but people are just too selfish to care for people with different culture, looks, religion and ethics.. Most westerners identify with other westerners. True empathy is felt only towards those we feel are equal with us. We are beasts, no matter how able to shape our surroundings.

 

 But how about putting the story you guys just told in the media, day after day? What is wrong with US military media skills!? Sure, I knew that the question is about public acceptance. But guess what, 95% of people don't get it. The front line is in the ballots. You have to shove it in their face. Most people think wars are about killing the enemy, blowing up their hideouts and collapsing their command structure. If an insurgent war is actually always about public acceptance, why don't you just tell it to everybody?

 

As long as politicians try to outsmart their subjects, there will always be this huge waste of resources trying to make the ugly truth look good enough. Instead one should go forth with the ugly truth: "We don't want Afghanistan to be harboring terrorists but we can not achieve this goal by military victories.  We went to this conflict with wrong expectations and strong popular support, and we need popular support to stay there long enough to actually make a difference."

 

I'm starting to believe western people are too well educated and informed, that "creating positive images" cuts it no more. Be it in politics or in economics. All we care is how straightforward and honest our  leaders are. I hate being manipulated, be it by my lady, kid, my friends or my leaders.

 

(I've been playing around with the idea of putting up a marketing agency that would only make campaigns based on the truth: "Lexus here is a watered down competitor for MB or BMW imagevise, but has a lot of nice gadgets and technology you won't find in the German cars. It will drop it's value faster but you will have a nice ride with something that doesn't point out like a sore thumb in your envious neighbourhood.")

 

 Mikko

Just for the record

 

The president of Russia is Medvedev, Putin is not Russia's president anymore.

 

 

  As I already stated "You Euros have learned nothing".

    The big question for you is what will you do after the USA is defeated and had enough of all of you in the Old World? 

 

    Oh and btw, those Russians are killing NATO as well as the USA!. You will not be yawning soon after Israel is forced to attack Iran. I wonder why the USA kept Israel outta 2 Gulf Wars? I pity you fool when all those Muslims in Europe counter attack for Israel  bombing Iran. And that is just what Russia is counting on to destabilize Europe further. I also hope with your lack of energy reserves you are prepared to be black mailed by Russia next?

 

                                                                    "Have A Nice Evening"

 

                                                                             tigertony