Comment We will win (Score 1) 1346
First off, if you haven't read it yet, go read The Bear trap here http://www.afghanbooks.com/beartrap/
The Soviets went in with very poorly trained conscript soldiers. These soldiers only served in the military for 2 years, they hardly got any training, and moral was at an all-time low. They also tried to go in and completely dominate the country.
As is stated in the book, a small force of highly trained highly mobile soldiers could do much more damage than all the soviets ever hoped to accomplish. We would station some commandos in camps just inside uzbekistan and azerbajian. Augmented by naval based air units these forces would perform quick in and out operations against key military positions, particulary terrorist training camps.
Here's an example of what a common mission in afghanistan would be like:
Afghanistan has many moutains and valleys. Most of the camps are located in these very tight valleys in the mountains. The valley would be fuel-air bombed(fuel-air bombs are equivalant to a tactical nuke, but without the nasty radiation) first. Shortly after that, an hour at the most, a unit of ground personal would land at one end of the valley and work their way out to the other side. This whole time helicopter gunships would be standing gaurd at the other end cutting off the escape. The russians main strategy when they did go on the offensive(which was rare), was to carpet bomb, then send a ground force to recon, but being conscripts they were afraid to leave their vehicles and wouldn't engage the enemy. They also failed to cut off the line of escape. The afghanis would sit in deep underground caves a la iwo jima and as soon as the bombing stopped they would head for the mountains and move to a new camp.
The afghanis that fought the soviets also had up to the minute cia intelligence as to the current positions of all soviet forces. They new exactly when a convey was heading down the road, they new when would be the best time to attack it, and they new how to inflict maximum damage with minimum force. In vietnam the vietnamese had comprable inteligence coming in from soviet sources. Without this inteligence they will lose a lot of their power.
Also, one of the key points to winning a guerrila war is to have a place to regroup and recouperate. In Vietnam is was laos, cambodia, or north vietnam. In afghanistan in the 80's it was pakistan. As much as people would like to believe, it just isn't possible to fight a lengthy war against a much stronger opponent unless you have a place to run to when you are beat. Remember when you played tag as a kid? When you got winded the nearest metal pole was always "base" where you could rest as long as you wanted. Same idea applies here, only in this was Bush has made it very clear that there are no "bases", all your base are belong to bush...sorry, this is long and I couldn't resist.
To all the people who claim this is the next vietnam and is going to destroy america, study history. Its not going to be as bad as some people are saying.
The Soviets went in with very poorly trained conscript soldiers. These soldiers only served in the military for 2 years, they hardly got any training, and moral was at an all-time low. They also tried to go in and completely dominate the country.
As is stated in the book, a small force of highly trained highly mobile soldiers could do much more damage than all the soviets ever hoped to accomplish. We would station some commandos in camps just inside uzbekistan and azerbajian. Augmented by naval based air units these forces would perform quick in and out operations against key military positions, particulary terrorist training camps.
Here's an example of what a common mission in afghanistan would be like:
Afghanistan has many moutains and valleys. Most of the camps are located in these very tight valleys in the mountains. The valley would be fuel-air bombed(fuel-air bombs are equivalant to a tactical nuke, but without the nasty radiation) first. Shortly after that, an hour at the most, a unit of ground personal would land at one end of the valley and work their way out to the other side. This whole time helicopter gunships would be standing gaurd at the other end cutting off the escape. The russians main strategy when they did go on the offensive(which was rare), was to carpet bomb, then send a ground force to recon, but being conscripts they were afraid to leave their vehicles and wouldn't engage the enemy. They also failed to cut off the line of escape. The afghanis would sit in deep underground caves a la iwo jima and as soon as the bombing stopped they would head for the mountains and move to a new camp.
The afghanis that fought the soviets also had up to the minute cia intelligence as to the current positions of all soviet forces. They new exactly when a convey was heading down the road, they new when would be the best time to attack it, and they new how to inflict maximum damage with minimum force. In vietnam the vietnamese had comprable inteligence coming in from soviet sources. Without this inteligence they will lose a lot of their power.
Also, one of the key points to winning a guerrila war is to have a place to regroup and recouperate. In Vietnam is was laos, cambodia, or north vietnam. In afghanistan in the 80's it was pakistan. As much as people would like to believe, it just isn't possible to fight a lengthy war against a much stronger opponent unless you have a place to run to when you are beat. Remember when you played tag as a kid? When you got winded the nearest metal pole was always "base" where you could rest as long as you wanted. Same idea applies here, only in this was Bush has made it very clear that there are no "bases", all your base are belong to bush...sorry, this is long and I couldn't resist.
To all the people who claim this is the next vietnam and is going to destroy america, study history. Its not going to be as bad as some people are saying.
