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> but attacking it with force only makes it stronger. Nazism and Japanese militarism were both attacked with force and defeated.

• rbanffy 5y ago
  Yes, but they were offensive national forces with long supply chains and highly structured military. Afghanistan is much more like Vietnam than WWII and the failure follows a similar pattern.
  • koheripbal 5y ago
    Afghanistan is like Vietnam in that they had a 3rd party foreign neighbor supporting them - Pakistan. ...whereas Japan and Germany had no support after the war to continue any sort of rebellion.
    • rbanffy 5y ago
      And that serves to illustrate that you don’t win a political war with guns alone.
      • RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
        I think the Mongol Empire illustrates that if you have overwhelming military advantage and are prepared to be absolutely ruthless in using that advantage, you can actually go pretty far with pretty minimal diplomacy (which is basically offering a chance to submit before you invade).
        • rbanffy 5y ago
          Well… American military are immune from prosecution for crimes against humanity, so that’s one possible route. Consider, however, opposition will be much more violent and relentless and that both Soviet and British strongly recommended suicide before allowing oneself to be captured by Afghans, so I imagine that wouldn’t end well either. Again, diplomacy is cheaper, in both money and lives.