Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
There's a couple of really interesting books on the history of Afghanistan and how they dealt with conquerors.
The War at the top of the world stands out as a must read book (not that I'm saying you don't know and you should read up or something like that)
Its never been about the numbers there, its about understanding geography in Afghanistan. You need very few numbers if you can make the mountains your force multipliers. Conventional Armies always lose in the mountains, especially in Afghanistan.
There was a another book about how the Soviets completely changed the Spetznaz and made them elite mountain fighters and they earned a fierce reputation in terms of tracking and killing the Taliban in the mountains.
The Taliban knows if they get attacked, small numbers and mobility and the desire to make war a vendetta usually leads them to bleeding the army white.
Personally I wouldn't want to fight in Afghanistan unless I could flatten the mountains.
|
It also depends on your definition of winning, both the British and US 'won' in Afghanistan, the British fought three wars, they lost the most famous first one but won the next two, the US comprehensively defeated the Taliban, they haven't been beaten by the Taliban, they have just got bored with owning a country that doesnt pay them anything and is costly to keep