The Taliban, Not the West, Won Afghanistan's Technological War (technologyreview.com) 277
sandbagger shares an excerpt from a MIT Technology Review article, written by Christopher Ankersen and Mike Martin: Despite their terrible human costs -- or perhaps because of them -- wars are often times of technological innovation. [...] But Afghanistan is different. There has been technological progress -- the evolution of drone warfare, for example. But the advances made by the US and its allies have not been as pronounced as those seen before, and they haven't been as profound as some experts have claimed. In fact, contrary to the typical narrative, the technological advances that have taken place during the 20 years of conflict have actually helped the Taliban more than the West. If wars are fought through innovation, the Taliban won. What do we mean? The West fought the war in much the same way from beginning to end. The first airstrikes in 2001 were conducted by B-52 bombers, the same model that first saw service in 1955; in August, the attacks that marked the end of US presence came from the same venerable model of aircraft. The Taliban, meanwhile, made some huge leaps. They began this war with AK-47s and other simple, conventional weapons, but today they have harnessed mobile telephony and the internet -- not just to improve their weapons and their command-and-control systems, but even more crucially, to carry out their strategic communications and their influence operations.
What accounts for this underwhelming and unevenly distributed technological gain? For the Taliban, the war in Afghanistan has been existential. Confronted with hundreds of thousands of foreign troops from NATO countries, and hunted on the ground and from the air, they had to adapt in order to survive. While the bulk of their fighting equipment has remained simple and easy to maintain (often no more than a Kalashnikov, some ammunition, a radio, and a headscarf), they have had to seek out new technology from other insurgent groups or develop their own. One key example: roadside bombs, or IEDs. These simple weapons caused more allied casualties than any other. Originally activated by pressure plates, like mines, they had evolved by the midpoint of the war so that the Taliban could set them off with mobile phones from anywhere with a cell signal. Because the Taliban's technological baseline was lower, the innovations they have made are all the more significant.
But the real technological advance for the Taliban took place at the strategic level. Acutely aware of their past shortcomings, they have attempted to overcome the weaknesses of their previous stint in government. Between 1996 and 2001, they preferred to be reclusive, and there was only one known photo of their leader, Mullah Omar. Since then, though, the Taliban have developed a sophisticated public affairs team, harnessing social media domestically and abroad. IED attacks would usually be recorded by mobile phone and uploaded to one of the many Taliban Twitter feeds to help with recruitment, fundraising, and morale. Another example is the technique of automatically scraping social media for key phrases like "ISI support" -- referring to Pakistan's security service, which has a relationship with the Taliban -- and then unleashing an army of online bots to send messages that attempt to refashion the image of the movement.
For the coalition, things were quite different. Western forces did have access to a wide range of world-class technology, from space-based surveillance to remotely operated systems like robots and drones. But for them, the war in Afghanistan was not a war of survival; it was a war of choice. And because of this, much of the technology was aimed at reducing the risk of casualties rather than achieving outright victory. Western forces invested heavily in weapons that could remove soldiers from harm's way -- air power, drones -- or technology that could speed up the delivery of immediate medical treatment. Things that keep the enemy at arm's length or protect soldiers from harm, such as gunships, body armor, and roadside-bomb detection, have been the focus for the West. The West's overarching military priority has been elsewhere: in the battle between greater powers. Technologically, that means investing in hypersonic missiles to match those of China or Russia, for instance, or in military artificial intelligence to try outwitting them. In closing, the authors say that technology "is not a driver of conflict, nor a guarantor of victory. Instead, it is an enabler."
"It also tells us that the battlefields of tomorrow might look a lot like Afghanistan," they add. "[W]e will see fewer purely technological conflicts that are won by the military with the greatest firepower, and more old and new technologies fielded side by side."
What accounts for this underwhelming and unevenly distributed technological gain? For the Taliban, the war in Afghanistan has been existential. Confronted with hundreds of thousands of foreign troops from NATO countries, and hunted on the ground and from the air, they had to adapt in order to survive. While the bulk of their fighting equipment has remained simple and easy to maintain (often no more than a Kalashnikov, some ammunition, a radio, and a headscarf), they have had to seek out new technology from other insurgent groups or develop their own. One key example: roadside bombs, or IEDs. These simple weapons caused more allied casualties than any other. Originally activated by pressure plates, like mines, they had evolved by the midpoint of the war so that the Taliban could set them off with mobile phones from anywhere with a cell signal. Because the Taliban's technological baseline was lower, the innovations they have made are all the more significant.
But the real technological advance for the Taliban took place at the strategic level. Acutely aware of their past shortcomings, they have attempted to overcome the weaknesses of their previous stint in government. Between 1996 and 2001, they preferred to be reclusive, and there was only one known photo of their leader, Mullah Omar. Since then, though, the Taliban have developed a sophisticated public affairs team, harnessing social media domestically and abroad. IED attacks would usually be recorded by mobile phone and uploaded to one of the many Taliban Twitter feeds to help with recruitment, fundraising, and morale. Another example is the technique of automatically scraping social media for key phrases like "ISI support" -- referring to Pakistan's security service, which has a relationship with the Taliban -- and then unleashing an army of online bots to send messages that attempt to refashion the image of the movement.
For the coalition, things were quite different. Western forces did have access to a wide range of world-class technology, from space-based surveillance to remotely operated systems like robots and drones. But for them, the war in Afghanistan was not a war of survival; it was a war of choice. And because of this, much of the technology was aimed at reducing the risk of casualties rather than achieving outright victory. Western forces invested heavily in weapons that could remove soldiers from harm's way -- air power, drones -- or technology that could speed up the delivery of immediate medical treatment. Things that keep the enemy at arm's length or protect soldiers from harm, such as gunships, body armor, and roadside-bomb detection, have been the focus for the West. The West's overarching military priority has been elsewhere: in the battle between greater powers. Technologically, that means investing in hypersonic missiles to match those of China or Russia, for instance, or in military artificial intelligence to try outwitting them. In closing, the authors say that technology "is not a driver of conflict, nor a guarantor of victory. Instead, it is an enabler."
"It also tells us that the battlefields of tomorrow might look a lot like Afghanistan," they add. "[W]e will see fewer purely technological conflicts that are won by the military with the greatest firepower, and more old and new technologies fielded side by side."
The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Interesting)
The West was trying to make a profit for some at the expense of others, which is how capitalism usually works, but also how war always works.
The War was hugely profitable for defense contractors, Dick Cheney (via Halliburton) and so on. Just like how WWII was hugely profitable for American companies like Alcoa (which sold Japan the aluminum used to make the Mitsubishi Zero) and Standard Oil, which sold fuel to Hitler's S.S. Or of course IBM, whose president was well-known to have known the holocaust was occurring, and apparently actually personally supported it.
I mention those older events to ram home the point that nothing fundamentally changed about US foreign policy between then and now, not merely to flagellate a deceased equine. Though frankly, that horse has been whipped to tartar by now. People just aren't interested in hearing about how they are the bad guys (by proxy), they want a free pass for everything so they don't have to do anything about the war criminals acting in their names, and funded by their taxes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your direction is correct, however your analysis misses the main effect. Afghanistan was never truly profitable - it was just a matter of a) revenge for 9/11 and b) trying to stop the dynamic of 9/11 repeating. Iraq was where the oil was and so, at the point that Afghanistan could truly have been won, Bush and Blair moved all the resources from Afghanistan to Iraq and ignored their people's priorities of a peaceful existence. Haliburton's profits and the waste in Iraq dwarf what was done in Afghanistan.
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Insightful)
Your direction is correct, however your analysis misses the main effect. Afghanistan was never truly profitable
No, no, and also no. You are thinking of this in terms of whether the war makes sense for the whole country, and that is irrelevant because the whole country isn't making decisions.
The war made sense for the parties who are making the decisions. They definitely, truly profited. The rest of us wound up holding the bill, and having nothing to show for it except a bunch of dead. And that is exactly what the architects of that war intended.
Even the Trump / Pompeo "surrender agreement" is already a distraction because by then what should have been the true aim of the war - getting rid of the Terrorists and their ISI supporters from Pakistan where they have been based for years had already been lost.
If The People's interests were being served, that would have been the aim of the war. But they weren't, which is the whole point of my prior comment. The interests of the already-wealthy who planned to make more money on human suffering were the only goals, and they were brilliantly achieved — as the costs were not even close to being a consideration for them — not the monetary cost, not the human cost, and not the environmental cost. Those can all be borne by The People, which is what we're here for as far as the wealthy are concerned.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree in part. The war inertia is massive. Over 90% of the two trillion went straight back to US military industrial complex. But if you try to disentangle the factors there are a multitude, it is not plain money.
In the current war there is a lot of privatisation and outsourcing, and many of these organisations believe in making money over all else. These organisations also are integrated with policy making, through revolving doors , lobbying and other interactions, so they can influence policies. 10 yea
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow.
You really believe this stuff, don't you?
Capitalism makes it easy to figure out who is at fault. You simply follow the money. You are afraid to do that because you might have to admit a share of the culpability, so you have to dissuade and distract instead.
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Interesting)
The Taliban would also, quite often, run into neighboring countries. This was doubly true for leadership. Those countries, which shall remain unnamed, either don't have control of those regions, or just didn't give a fig.
The West didn't truly commit. To win a war you need to reorient your entire country to one goal: Defeating the enemy no matter the cost. You let everyone know, "They are the enemy, we will defeat them, no matter the cost." That cost isn't just money, it's reorienting the economy and civilians making do with less at home. That's increasing the military to massive levels, with conscription if necessary. That is making sure everyone in the world knows: "These people are enemies of our nation. Anyone helping them is also our enemy and will be attacked. Full stop."
So when Taliban leadership and fighters ran to an unnamed country, that country would find out very quickly that the border they left undefended is now a problem. They'd find that out when troops started shelling the village the enemy ran into for cover because they had sympathizers there to give them aid and comfort. However running over the arbitrary border didn't stop US troops either, the chickens come home to roost. Your border officers might've decided to f**k around and support enemies of the US, so now they (and you) get to find out.
There is a marked difference between how the West conducted the war in Afghanistan and, say, World War II. In World War II the Allies (if you include the USSR) didn't give a fig about borders when the enemy ran. No, the enemy was hunted down and they either surrendered or died fighting. There was also little, if any, quarter given to anyone, including civilians. Look at Dresden, before and after the firebombing. Ask the Japanese about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You don't aim to generate civilian death or injury unnecessarily, but you're a f**king idiot if you think it isn't going to happen in war.
Of course the Taliban might be getting into bed with the Chinese so this could be a moot point. Once they do that, they'll end up a subject people and China doesn't f**k around. Things will be all nice and flowery, right up to the point they're not anymore. Then the Taliban leadership will either capitulate, or the Chinese will put them down like animals to protect their investment. So, irony, they might've just "won" versus the United States only to lose to China before they've even finished picking out the new wall coverings.
Again, no will, because no intent (Score:3)
You're missing the forest for the trees. If the war is won, the money flowing to the industries and individuals profiting from it stops.
There never was any "will to win." That was never the goal. The goal was to move as much taxpayer money as possible to the pockets of those providing the war materials. So long-lasting was the goal. It was a great success.
Now that Afghanistan is winding down, you can look for another war on another fro
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that we just weren't being hardcore enough to win is a fallacy.
In conflicts like WWII, the enemy was uniformed and declared. It exerted dominion and control over a defined territory and there was a defined "front" of fighting. They had a unified command and control structure that could negotiate and respect terms of surrender. Yes, there was little quarter given to civilian casualties in situations like strategic bombing, but those sorts of attacks were justified as against industrial infrastructure. Once the territory was taken, there was little attempt at insurgency.
In Afghanistan, the enemy wears no uniforms and does not openly identify itself. It held no territory for any length of time. We could march through the same village over and over again, face no resistance, and yet it would still serve as a base of Taliban attacks. We spent two decades trying to identify the Taliban and hunt them down. Many of them were in fact killed, including outside the territorial confines of the country (see Osama Bin Laden). We also killed a bunch of people who weren't active Taliban, but may have been carrying a weapon at the wrong time in the wrong place. Some of the children of those people killed decided to join the Taliban.
At the end of the day, trying to win against the Taliban like we did against the Germans in WWII is like trying to defeat a fire ant mound with a sledgehammer. You may kill a lot of ants, but you aren't going to kill the mound because the equipment you are using simply can't do what you are tying to do.
Let's imagine a thought experiment where we have absolutely no ethical scruples at all. We "win" by simply killing every man woman and child in Afghanistan with hundreds of nuclear bombs. Nuke the country from orbit. What then? Well then half the world declares war on us, and we are even worse off than the current quagmire. Even a somewhat less abhorrent solution- a conventional scorched earth campaign without regard to borders- would have likely resulted in all-out war with a nuclear-armed Pakistan. The Soviet Union tried more localized brutality, and they left with their tails between their legs same as we did.
Re: (Score:3)
We were winning. There were only 2500 US troops left in the country, and none had died in 18 months. We weren't making a huge commitment in terms of military there.
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, good grief. The US "didn't commit" was the reason we lost? How about the US allied itself with the worst scum in the entire country, people so bad that the population support the Taliban as rescuers. If a parent has a choice between their daughters having to wear a burka and not being educated, or they can be raped by any of the warlords' guys who take a fancy to them, what choice would you make in their place?
It's been known since at least the time of Sun Tzu that an occupying army can never hold a territory over the long term without the support of the population. As historian Barbara Tuchmann noted in 'The March Of Folly', "One thing we learn from history is that our leaders rarely learn anything from history."
Re: (Score:3)
Why pay a 'war tax', since the Pentagram has been entirely financed by deficit spending since the 1970s? Graph the deficit and the military budget next to each other, most years they match very closely.
Civilians do not belong in a war zone? Where did you ever get that fantasy idea? In pretty much every conflict over the last century civilians were the PRIMARY target under the absurd fantasy that if they're suffering enough they'll throw out their leadership and capitulate.
Corporations don't belong in a w
Re: (Score:2)
Go back to communist China if you don't like it, you filthy mongoloid.
Was this supposed to make me angry? I'm only left confused as to what you hoped to accomplish.
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:4, Informative)
According to Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, "War is a racket".
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Like the man said, follow the money.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, what a tiny man... angry much? Project much?
Re: (Score:3)
Go back to communist China if you don't like it, you filthy mongoloid.
I dont think this has the intended effect you wanted, unless it was to make you look like a retard, then, carry on.
Re: (Score:2)
I would like to hear a reasoned argument that he is wrong.
Unfortunately, I suspect he is correct. Much of the evidence supports it, and almost none contradicts it. There were definitely individuals who had different goals, but it seems probable that those making the decisions at the strategic, rather than the tactical, level were cynics seeking profits, and not caring who else ended up paying what bill. And in this case I'm considering even the generals as being at the tactical level.
Re: (Score:3)
And you are making the standard manager's mistake of optimising your little bit of the company and not the whole thing. You forget opportunity costs. The alternative to war in Afghanistan and probably Iraq is not peace and happiness.
I'm not claiming that it is.
If the visible failure of Afghanistan and Iraq made war in Iran impossible then overall, for the psychopaths you are talking about, Afghanistan was a net loss.
What are you on about? The psychopaths I'm talking about made money. It doesn't matter to them where the money is made. They literally give no fucks if it's in Afghanistan, Iraq, or fucking Timbuktu, because they don't care about humans who are not them. All they care about is whether they can make money selling bombs and planes to bomb it, and/or selling construction supplies and services to rebuild it poorly after we bomb it into dust. Or, of course, to get paid to deploy merce
Re: (Score:3)
What are you on about?
Invading. Iran. Would. Have. Got. Them. More. Money.(*)
(*) Assuming that it didn't trigger all out WWIII, however that never seems to worry them and a few of them may even be hoping for it.
Re: The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:2)
That's as if a burglar said "you need to see the big picture here, be happy I chose to rob this house; I could also have burglarized a larger one" when get caught in somebody's living room.
Iran can fight back (Score:2)
That's not to say they are want people who are trying. Several people in the Trump administration trie
Re: (Score:2)
Afghanistan is probably the stupidest country in the world to invade. It's been the graveyard of armies for centuries. If I knew what the goal was supposed to be, I might suggest an alternative strategy. As it is one of the main effects was a sharp increase in the amount of opiates on the black market. (The Taliban had been successfully suppressing that.)
So: opportunity to do what?
Unfortunately, at this point the US has such a bad record for keeping to treaties that it would be difficult to get anyone
Re: The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:2)
Afghanistan was never truly profitable
For who?? When the Taliban were [effectively] removed from power, heroin was allowed to flow to Europe in greater quantities than ever before.
The Golden Triangle all the fuck over again.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think IBM knew the holocaust was going on. Were the n@azis asking questions like how many jews per hour can this machine count?
Re: (Score:3)
They were asking exactly those questions. There is an entire book called "IBM and the Holocaust" that details what IBM knew. Probably why there's an IBM punch-card reader in the National Holocaust Museum.
Re: (Score:2)
Winning would have been building a stable, democratic and non-corrupt nation that could have been a Western ally, buffer with Russia and China, and most importantly not facilitated terrorism in the West.
Instead we basically ended up giving the Taliban a big boost and creating the perfect conditions for the next terrorist organization to appear.
Re: (Score:2)
Wikipedia has a comprehensive list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Note that even including 9/11 terrorism originating from Afghanistan, and in fact all Islamic terrorism, is outweighed by the number of domestic US terrorists. Mostly the far right, in fact almost exclusively.
And all of it is vastly outweighed by the number of people killed in Afghanistan by US weapons.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, here's a long-shot speculation. Afghanistan has always been geopolitically important but now it's even more important for its rich mineral deposits, especially lithium. The Taliban has been the only political force in Afghanistan in recent history that has reduced the power of the warlords & organised crime. They originally came to power with the support of Pakistan's ISI, who sought a more stable, controllable neighbour than the mess of civil wars (between Mujahadeen ethnic factions) that preceded
The Korean War (Score:2)
Yeah, for all of the tech of the West, the North Koreans have pretty much won the Korean War because they are still there.
The US should pull all its troops out of South Korea and just see what happens because no one in American cares what a bunch of East Asians do to each other.
Yup!
Re: (Score:2)
If true, it was a big misjudgment. The estimated value of the minerals is $1T. We spent over twice that on the war. Up in smoke.
Definitions (Score:2)
The government creating money out of thin air and handing it to private companies might be some mutant spawn of capitalism, but it certainly isn't capitalism. The *core tenant* of capitalism is that market forces dictate whom is successful. Some government elite dictating whom is successful is the opposite of that. It's closer to state socialism, where, in the initial stages, you are allowed to have a company as long as you are subservient to the ruling party. This is how Venezuela (and, really, China) are
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There's a word for that, where the state and corporations are joined at the hip. It's called "fascism".
From the viewpoint of the working class, it doesn't make any difference if the government dictates to corporations, or if the corporations dictate to the government (as they currently do via lobbyists and back-door deals).
From the viewpoint of the working class, they're screwed either way.
Socialism for actual *people* in the form of a functional social safety net (food, medicine, housing) could equally be
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but you have been sold a bullshit narrative.
The Afghan war in 2001 was already being prepared when 9/11 happened. That is well documented. âThe invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq had been the long-term plan all along.
9/11 just happened to be a very convenient excuse to do it -- which is one reason why there are so many wild conspiracy theories about that event.
One conspiracy did exist without any doubt, and publicly, out in the open - it was just not part of the official narrative, and t
Re: (Score:3)
Re: The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:5, Insightful)
I am appalled at the regression and the cooperation and talks with the Taliban as are most Americans. 100% unacceptable. Biden fucked up.
Appalled you say. Were you appalled when Trump held talks and signed a deal [bbc.com] with the Taliban in February of 2020? You do remember Trump was president throughout 2020, right? Who fucked up, exactly? Oh right. Trump. As usual.
But also Obama and Bush Jr. The moment US troops determined bin Laden was no longer in Afghanistan, Bush Jr. should have withdrawn US troops. He didn't. The moment Seal Team Six confirmed the death of bin Laden in Pakistan, Obama should have withdrawn US troops. He didn't. Trump ran on a platform of isolationism, so he should have unilaterally initiated the withdrawal of US troops the moment he took office. He didn't. Instead he made a deal with the Taliban in the last year of his term.
And you want to complain that Biden fucked up. Biden is irrelevant here. There were three presidents and five terms in office before him maintaining the fuck up you dislike so much. And every one of them was too chicken shit to withdraw troops during their term exactly because of idiots like you.
Re: The West wasn't trying to "win" (Score:4, Interesting)
Good observation. So what was Joe Biden saying about Afganistan at the time?
* In 2007, he argued that we shouldn't be fighting two wars at once (Iraq and Afghanistan). He argued that troop surges in Afghanistan were pointless and wouldn't have the same effect as it had in Iraq.
* In 2009, he argued that the Afghani government was completely corrupt.
There’s very little governance, there’s significant corruption and the drug trade is humongous
* In 2009, he also argued that the terrorists really were in Pakistan, and if we actually wanted to fight terrorists we should withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Reminder: Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan in 2011.
While he was saying all this, military writers like Thomas Ricks were saying things like
When was the last time Biden was right about anything?
and politicians were saying
the public could be persuaded to stick by the war with a well-articulated argument by the president
Well Mr. Ricks, Biden was right. But Obama was commander-in-chief and Obama listened to the war advisors not Biden.
Sources from 2009:
Biden No Longer a Lone Voice on Afghanistan [archive.org]
http://web.archive.org/web/20171110092635/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/world/asia/08prexy.html [archive.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Communists tried it before capitalists did. It ended pretty much the same way, except for a lot more dead on all sides.
Could it be that this isn't about economic systems but something else?
Re: (Score:2)
The West was trying to make a profit for some at the expense of others, which is how capitalism usually works, but also how war always works.
That's probably a factor in that there was probably a lot of motivated reasoning from the people with those defence contracts.
More more directly, I think the West never had a particularly clear objective. The initial invasion was a response to 9/11. After that the idea seemed to be to boot out the Taliban, lay out the bones of a democratic government, and then nurture the resulting state. The problem is that Afghanistan barely had a national identity, much less a culture of democratic norms. As such, the de
Re: (Score:2)
Granted, money can play a role. But I don't believe that the fat cats in the companies are sitting around a large table carved from the bones of poor children
Re: (Score:2)
You label the west, but i think you fail to actually point out the correct target is America.
There were companies all across Europe which also sold critical war supplies to Nazi Germany. I'm willing to examine any documentation you have which seeks to compare total profit by country or region, though.
Re: (Score:2)
You label the west, but i think you fail to actually point out the correct target is America. Take WW2, America charged the british for the supplies they sent, while the british gave supplies to the Soviets. One side wanted to beat Hitler, the other country wanted to make money first then beat Hitler.
So you're saying Britain was a philanthropic ally? Or, did Britain need the Soviets to continue the battle so badly they saw no choice but to give the Soviets what they needed?
The sale of arms isn't an unusual situation, then or now. Capitalistic countries do it, as do socialist countries, as do communist countries....
Re: (Score:2)
One side wanted to beat Hitler, the other country wanted to make money first then beat Hitler.
Actually, the other country wanted to make money first, last and foremost - and couldn't really care who beat whom. (As long as they themselves didn't get bombed, flamed or ground under tank tracks - a fairly safe bet, America being isolated by oceans and the Nazis running out of time and money for their planned intercontinental nuclear bomber).
The UK finally paid back the last of its war debt to the USA in, I think, 2005.
A "gift" that REALLY kept on giving - not to mention all the overseas bases, radar, co
Re: (Score:2)
And the US sent more tanks and planes to the UK under Lend-Lease than the UK built in that war.
Total garbage [wwiiequipment.com]: Lend lease planes: 30,900 [historians.org] (total - for all allies, not just Britain)
Spitfire: 19898
Hurricane: 12416
Mosqito: 4775
Typhoon: 3315
Meteor: 193
the UK production of top end fighter planes exceeds the entire Lend lease program for all nations and that's before we even begin talking about well over 20k bombers. The US aid program in the direction of the UK was over $30 billion without which Germany probably would have won. On the other hand the UK gave the US just under $8 billion and technology li
Re: (Score:2)
It may be news to you but Germany got beaten by the Russians, not by the British or the Americans. Mainly the US/UK stopped the Russians.
Re: (Score:2)
One side wanted to beat Hitler, the other country wanted to make money first then beat Hitler.
Britain was dying. They did what they needed to do to survive.
The fact that you see giving weapons freely to the Soviets as any less than desperation and a sacrifice of morality in exchange for survival shows little you know of history. Stalin alone was responsible for more deaths than Hitler (over 20 million not count the forces labor camps), sided with Hitler at the beginning of the war, and only turned on Hitler after Germany invaded them.
Also, if you look into the laws in place at the time, you'll und
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Taliban faced an existential threat. Their setbacks were excused by their core supporters, citing the power of USA. Every victory, real or imagined, big or small was played up big. They had to win and they fought tenaciously. For them victory means power to rule a large land mass.
Also if USA defines victory as, "stopping generic terroristic violence in USA and Europe", it seems to have largely succeeded. Random lone terrorist setting off bombs in Europe are down a lot. They are turning down the rhetoric that was inspiring lone wolf attacks. So, in the long run, if Taliban runs an autocratic theocratic regime in Afghanistan and does not attack the West, we won too.
Taliban used to say, "They have the clocks. We have time."
Re: (Score:3)
Taliban faced an existential threat.
Reminds me of the quip regarding the cheetah and the gazelle. The cheetah is running for its dinner; the gazelle is running for its life.
Very different motivation.
Also, consider that the Taliban wanted to surrender back in the early stages of the war. The US, hell-bent on vengeance, wanted nothing less than total victory and total annihilation. Another old saying, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", comes to mind.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
If US wanted total annihilation, that would have been easy. Sterilizing the mountains of human life with modern chemical weapons with US manufacturing capacity behind it would be a walk in the park. You wouldn't even need any "boots on the ground". Heck, you wouldn't want them there. Too risky they get caught up when wind direction changes.
If you want to salt the earth on top of it, just pop a few cobalt bombs on key mountain passes so no one gets to get in after you're done for a few years.
The problem was that US didn't want a total victory. They wanted to keep the current population and convince them of superiority of US culture and lifestyle to the point where they would adopt a variant of it. That is very hard when populace has a culture so profoundly different from yours and their religion specifically marks you as the evil, heretical, utterly untrustworthy people who's life style will lead everyone to permanent damnation.
Re: (Score:3)
Furthermore your primitive ancient reasoning did not work that well in ancient times, it certainly does not work in modern times because people MOVE and breed like cockroaches. IDEAS and INFORMATION can not be stopped. You have to magically disappear them all, around the planet; then delete the memory of every sympathizer worldwide.
What are you nattering on about? Luckyo was pointing out a technical, military reality. He was not advocating for the extermination of the population of Afghanistan.
He was also correctly diagnosing the reason why Afghanistan is and will continue to be a clusterfuck. Islam rules there, and will rule there for many generations to come. No one thinks that exterminating Afghanis would eliminate Islam from the world and I don't know where your head was that you thought that's what Luckyo was saying, but you
Re: (Score:2)
Also, consider that the Taliban wanted to surrender back in the early stages of the war. The US, hell-bent on vengeance, wanted nothing less than total victory and total annihilation. Another old saying, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", comes to mind.
Really? ahh. Really.. thanks [theintercept.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of the quip regarding the cheetah and the gazelle. The cheetah is running for its dinner; the gazelle is running for its life.
The thing there is that the cheetah is running for its life too. It may get more chances at it than the gazelle, but those massive speed bursts the cheetah uses are very draining. Once or twice a day and they're done. Miss a meal too many days in a row and they can't recover. Life can be precarious for predators as well as prey.
Re: (Score:2)
USA forces did not have the urgency to win, even the definition of the win was not very clear.
Correct me if I'm wrong but there was no definition of "win".
The whole thing was just politicians playing games to distract the population and make themselves richer.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
USA forces did not have the urgency to win, even the definition of the win was not very clear.
Correct me if I'm wrong but there was no definition of "win".
It started off as vengeance, pure and simple. The Taliban were hiding OBL, and the US wanted him dead. It then remained vengeance, dressed up as nation building.
If there was a comprehensive war strategy to "win", the day the Taliban offered to surrender should have been the day the war was won. But vengeance isn't satisfied with the other side surrendering; vengeance is satisfied when the other side is annihilated. So the day the US didn't accept the Taliban's offer of surrender is the day the US lost the war in Afghanistan; it just took another 20 years and untold blood and fortune to realize this.
Re: (Score:3)
Correct me if I'm wrong but there was no definition of "win".
Not to "correct" you - you are right - but I think initially the only intention was "to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". (The Ledeen Doctrine).
After 9/11 most Americans felt shocked and disillusioned to find that ordinary people like themselves could be bombed and destroyed just as if they were so many *foreigners* - and in new York City, too!
Americans were very angry, frightened, and insecure. Also the people in government may
Re: (Score:3)
There are crazy stats that make no sense, like 1/2 million bullets for every dead taliban. How exactly is this possible to fire so much just to kill one target ?
Suppression fire. Basically, a single fighter or small group might take a potshot or two at some US troops (possibly immediately running away), then the US troops respond with a massive amount of return fire. It seldom hits anyone, but does cause the enemy to take cover and/or run. Basically, the Taliban get to feel like they've done something because they managed to waste their enemies resources and didn't lose anyone, and the US soldiers get to feel like they've done something because the enemy turned tai
Everyone is an armchair general (Score:5, Interesting)
When it comes to what we should have done, but I'm surprised the real generals never learned the lessons from the British (who tried twice) and the Soviets, about controlling that region.
If the Soviets can't pacify a group through their indiscriminate and brutal methods, what hope did our "lighter touch" have?
No one learned, yet there is no shortage of people willing to have a go there. I understand the Chinese are already making economic moves into that area.
Re: (Score:2)
Afghanistan is known as the "Graveyard of Empires" for a reason.
Re: (Score:3)
The US has succeeded at war in cases where it the troops on the ground fighting were motivated and fighting for their own freedom. Germany - Americans + allied Europeans fighting for survival. Japan - Americans fighting for their own land. Korea - Koreans fighting for their own freedom etc. What is weird about Afghanistan is that the original forces that fought against the Taliban seem to have been more or less completely disarmed.
Maybe if the investment in technology had been used to get rid of corruptio
Re: (Score:2)
I understand the Chinese are already making economic moves into that area.
Yes. Economic. Not military. There's a big difference. If the Taliban don't keep their promise of keeping Islamic terrorism from crossing into China from their side, then they will get no trade deals.
The Chinese do it right (Score:3)
They do business, not social reform, because efforts to socially reform the Third World by force can not work and are counterproductive.
Messianic Western zealots get what they deserve when they try, which is death and defeat.
The problem with Afghanistan was not that the US did nation-building wrong, but that it wanted to do it at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Afghanistan is a place where only a war of conquest will succeed, and wars of conquest are *expensive*.
Even the Soviets didn't fight a war of conquest, their economy was spiraling due to competition with the West, especially after Reagan took over.
Afghanistan *can* be thoroughly pacified -- it just takes enough troops and a willingness to kill everyone who opposes you and everyone who supports those who oppose you.
If we fought Afghanistan like Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, we would pacify Afghanistan.
Re:Everyone is an armchair general (Score:4, Insightful)
Deceptions and lies: What really happened in Afghanistan [washingtonpost.com]
Kind of in the same vein as the Pentagon Papers.
False (Score:2)
The USA was providing support to the Afgan government right up to when they gave up. They refused to fight when it was finally their decision.
We had the watches but the Taliban has the time. or something like that; it's what they said and they were right which is why that expression of theirs is reportedly generations old (and makes more sense back when they didn't own time keepers.)
Of course now... (Score:2)
Thank God for great planning, eh?
Re: (Score:2)
And of course now the Pentagon can go with its beggar's hat to get more money, because now they have to fight against their own weapons, so more money is needed to make more weapons.
Do you really think the rugged old kleptocrats running the show over there don't know exactly what they're doing?
It's a cancer, and the only treatment is surgery, but the adult boys love their military e-peen too much.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's happening right out in the open. Everyone involved in Afghanistan knew it made no sense yet trillions were poured into it.
Cui bono? How is this a "conspiracy"? When General Bolger wrote "Why we lost" in 2014 about the Afghanistan war? That part of it too?
Re: (Score:2)
Murphy's Laws of Combat Operations (Score:3)
... the bulk of their fighting equipment has remained simple and easy to maintain (often no more than a Kalashnikov, some ammunition, a radio, and a headscarf)
"The side with the simplest uniform wins".
Re: (Score:2)
The West gave the Afghan Defence Forces large amounts of weaponry and equipment, including helicopters and armoured vehicles. They couldn't use most of it, and the plan before they melted away was to instruct them on how to maintain those machines over Skype.
Well, yes and no (Score:3)
If the West had unleashed nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons they would have sterilised Afghanistan (and probably most of the Indian ocean). The issue is not technology but will.
The US will retain ten times as many troops in South Korea as were apparently an unacceptable "forever war" in Afghanistan.
When it comes to protecting humans and protecting private companies, the US government always knows who's paying the kickbacks.
Re: (Score:2)
If the West had unleashed nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons they would have sterilised Afghanistan (and probably most of the Indian ocean). The issue is not technology but will.
And objective. I'm not sure how a sterilized Afghanistan counts as a "win" for the US. In fact, the moment they decided to stay the "win" they were going for is hearts & minds, which isn't something you can achieve with additional weaponry.
The US will retain ten times as many troops in South Korea as were apparently an unacceptable "forever war" in Afghanistan.
When it comes to protecting humans and protecting private companies, the US government always knows who's paying the kickbacks.
US troops aren't getting killed by a hostile local population in South Korea. There's a difference between troops sent into battle and troops sent to live overseas for a few years.
The old low-tech guerrilla problem (Score:3)
This sort of thing tends to end in a stalemate: the insurgents are unable to defeat the larger occupying force, even unable to disrupt normal everyday life all that much. On the other hand, the occupying force is unable to root out the underground opponents. The only thing to do is to install a local government able to keep the insurgents at bay, and pull out. And then find - as in this case - that it does not take a majority of the populace to have a successful revolution; the Taliban only needed to be the right thing to the right people to overrun the scant opposing forces remaining.
Re: (Score:2)
It's very simple. The Afghans wanted to win. Their enemies were basically there to make money - from the lowliest contractor to the haughtiest general.
Misleading headline and article. (Score:5, Interesting)
This article is just a hit piece trying to make the West look bad and applaud the Taliban.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Misleading headline and article. (Score:4, Informative)
Who won? The Taliban. Your advanced technology didn't win over clever use of consumer technology. Your billions wasted couldn't defeat a bunch of second-hand tech.
Well this is simply false. This was not a military loss , it was a political loss. The US military had no trouble defeating the Taliban, as it was able to keep them out of power for 20 years. But there was never a successful political plan for what to do after the military had won. The military just stayed there keeping the Taliban at bay while politicians tried unsuccessfully for decades to build a somewhat stable government in the country.
That consumer tech was never able to defeat the US military. But it did allow the Taliban to be more cost effective in combat, something that can probably said for every insurgent military ever compared to a more dominant military throughout history.
Re: (Score:3)
Well this is simply false. This was not a military loss , it was a political loss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] "War is the continuation of politics by other means."
A political loss is a lost war.
The US military had no trouble defeating the Taliban, as it was able to keep them out of power for 20 years.
They were out of power. But they still existed, and evidently gathering support all over the country.
The military just stayed there keeping the Taliban at bay
ie, not winning, but in fact, losing.
That consumer tech was never able to defeat the US military.
It did defeat the US military. They evaded destruction, while keeping the US military there and ever losing more and more of the US population's support. The Taliban achieved its objectives. The US did not - that is defeat.
Real life isn't a movie. Y
Re: (Score:2)
A treaty was signed by Trump saying we would pull out.
Biden pulled troops out.
The Afghan National Army fell apart. Many were sympathetic to the Taliban. Many took bribes to lay down their arms. The few remaining were completely outnumbers and overwhelmed.
That last part was inevitable. What the Taliban did is the exact same thing Afghans have done with EVERY foreign power. They go to ground, harass them, wait until they pull out and things go back to the way they were befo
Re: (Score:2)
"LAWS ARE BUT SAND, CULTURE IS ROCK."
Idiotic to think Technology was barely even a factor in a society with extremely limited technology and which shuns or terrorizes things that undermine culture.
If even if Americans weren't ignorant and and leaders were extremely competent; this is the hardest nation on earth to fuck with their culture.
Biden is actually doing a good job but it's a shitstorm and nobody comes out clean. 4 years of a gutting the state dept, surrendering to the enemy LAST year, pardoning 1000
Re: (Score:2)
I think the point TFA is making is that US technology was supposed to win the war, but the Taliban soon learnt how to overcome it.
For example the NSA was known to be listening to almost every phone call in the country, complete with metadata that gave approximate location, and voice recognition to identify speakers. Yet somehow the Taliban survived and even improved its communications considerably.
The US and allies had great tech but as TFA points out, it was mostly designed to protect their own people and
Re: (Score:2)
The contention that the Taliban has innovated more is false on it's face. They are still traveling by motorscooter and pickup truck and using primarily weapons from 1950s and 1960s.
Not any more. They were just gifted a whole lot of newer vehicles and weapons.
Slashdot support (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
In every way people hated Trump, Biden is measurable and objectively worse
Wrong. Biden is not worse at blathering about stupid shit on Twitter.
That alone was worth ousting Trump.
They didn't 'win the techlogical war' (Score:2)
Technology evolved for everyone involved. It was a bit more dramatic on the Taliban side simply because consumer tech did a fair amount of 'catching up' to state of the art military tech. Despite the improvements, they are still at a technology disadvantage overall.
It's not technology that made Afghanistan turn out the way it did.
nt (Score:2)
For me the biggest embarrassment is the US leaving its military junk behind for the taliban to grab.
Seriously...if you're going to take your ball and go home don't leave the damn ball behind.
The US lost the innovation war... (Score:2)
Certainly you could argue that the US does indeed have access to more advanced technology. The problem is - thanks to the entrenched military industrial complex, true innovation comes at a glacial and expensive pace. There is no "desperation" forcing the issue, bypassing red-tape and bureaucracy. See the "Old Space" industry as another example of this..
They just outlasted us. (Score:3)
No one will care in a few months (Score:5, Insightful)
In a couple weeks the last of the evacuations will take place, no more troops will be in the country and America will be out of the ware completely which is what the majority of Americans have wanted for years now from both sides of the aisle.
Were there terrible issues in executing the end of the war? Sure. Should the admin been more honest about the reality of the ANF and the Taliban? Absolutely. Do American citizens really care about this? No.
If you look at surveys around election time foreign policy rates pretty middling to low on Americans concerns, every time. By the time November 2022 rolls around we'll have been out of the country for a year and this debacle will have been a distant memory. Sure, Republicans will frame it as "Biden's great blunder" and Democrats will crow about how "they finally got the US out" and it will cancel out.
Everyone wanted out, it seems like the admin is on track to get all American citizens out of the country and a good number of refugees and translators out as well.
Unless some terrorist strike originates from Afghanistan on US soil again no one will care how this went down. The media will continue trying to play it up over the next few months because they need something sensational to fill their airtime and deep down they love a war but the electorate is always prioritized about the economy, healthcare and domestic issues.
The best thing to come out of Afghanistan and Iraq is we now have entire future generations that are going to be massively skeptical of any foreign intervention for a long time.
Re: (Score:3)
Bah (Score:3, Insightful)
The US has been more interested in such things as "diversity" and trying to appear oh so nice and inclusive than on anything so silly as winning wars, for decades now.
We have rainbow draped embassies, and pregnant fighter pilots. So to a certain sort of mind, we are "winning".
The question is, what exactly you want to win. And against who. Wars, against our foreign enemies? Not so much, anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
Technology saves lives.. (Score:3)
While the US is constantly involved in foreign wars there aren't that many soldiers dying. It is certainly a major weakness of the US that the motivation to go and die for the US at the other side of the world is understandably not very strong, so there is a massive effort to reduce the death toll. Outsourcing to local clients and mercenaries , and doing things through remote control strongly reduces death toll, at least on your own side. But you have no idea what you're doing anymore.
Droning people is not good at winning hearts and minds though. It's more like 'kill one, create 10 more adversaries'. It does make an awful lot of money though.
Which is to say that the drone war alone cannot be responsible for why the amount of jihadis went up a thousandfold since the US made the world a safer place.
Didn't really need a war in the first place .... (Score:3)
The events of 9-11 could have best been addressed by targeted assassinations, IMO. That's what you have spies for....
But like others keep saying here, this was more about profit-maknig for the right players.
Taliban greatly profited by piggybacking West Tech (Score:4, Interesting)
I was really surprised to see no-where in the summary that the Taliban made heavy use of western communication tool, notably WhatsApp.
In the biggest case of closing the barn door after the horse have left the stables even, Facebook only just recently chose to block Taliban WhatsApp accounts [france24.com].
Meanwhile, The Taliban continues to post away on Twitter mocking the US and showing off the vast arsenal handed over to them (600k fully auto machine guns, to start with), while Trump is still kept off because he is a "Danger" of some unknown sort. So the Taliban are even handily beating the west in online PR!
History (Score:3)
Orange man is constantly praising them (Score:5, Insightful)
IED attacks would usually be recorded by mobile phone and uploaded to one of the many Taliban Twitter feeds to help with recruitment, fundraising, and morale.
Orange man bad, but Taliban good.
Look it up.
“The Taliban, good fighters, I will tell you, good fighters. You have to give them credit for that. They’ve been fighting for a thousand years. What they do is they fight,”
Donald J Trump, August 17.
So biden inherits DJT's deal to pull out...executes it within a few months of DJT's actual pull out date...and suddenly, DJT's plan is a huge colossal failure because Biden inherited it? He is doing EXACTLY what DJT would have done if he won the election.
The weirdest thing is now apparently many of you are now pro-Taliban?...all because they're the enemy of your enemy? You really think Joe Biden is a greater enemy to the United States than the Taliban, don't you?
I wish people like you were Americans first and Republicans second.
Re: (Score:3)