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The best rebuttal I've heard to this line of thinking is: "Some say we lost Afghanistan because we weren't willing to be brutal enough. Well, the Russians were
by suoduandao3 3y ago
The best rebuttal I've heard to this line of thinking is: "Some say we lost Afghanistan because we weren't willing to be brutal enough. Well, the Russians were willing to be brutal enough, yet they also lost Afghanistan."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thriftwy 3y agoI don't think so why there is this underlying assumption that Russians were "brutal", but when USSR took their forces from Afghanistan, they actually left a secular regime there that has survived for a few years and actually significantly outlived the USSR itself. Maybe it would hang around longer if USSR was intact and assisting.
- genman 3y agoPossibly, but Russia internally felt that they lost. And this was significant contributing factor to the collapse of their empire.
- thriftwy 3y agoI think it was different and more like the Vietnam fallout, "with the new reconassiance data, it turns out we fought against ourselves" The idea which ended both wars was that continuing this war is a war crime against our own nation even as we continue to score victories.
- genman 3y agoUSSR simply ran out of resources to continue the war. They would have happily continued if they could have been able to afford it. In the end the country had dire deficit of even basic everyday items including food. But similarly to the Vietnam war it was not able to "sell" the losses to their own people, especially on the occupied territories (Soviet Republics), where it was seen as another Russian expansionist invasion.
- thriftwy 3y ago> especially on the occupied territories (Soviet Republics) A majority of these republics were founded by the USSR by carving them out of RSFSR, without the regard of wishes of people who ended up split by these borders. I guess its karma when USSR wanted to be the example of affirmative action socialist state ran by ethnic minorities, only to get framed for imperialism by the autonomous republics it has created.
- genman 3y agoI'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. I'm talking about Soviet Republics (SSR) post WW2 e.g. the occupied territories that were not in RSFSR. These "autonomous" republics were anything but autonomous. They were autonomous within the very strict framework provided by Russia. Puppet states would be the closest description, but even then not fully accurate. On top of this there was no need for Russian help to "create" these fake republics. Nations were completely capable to create their own governance like was for example the case with Ukraine. All what Russians did was to use the cover of communism to continue their imperialist ambitions. RSFSR contained ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics) and these had even less autonomy. Most of these nations should have also been given the opportunity to have statehood as they wanted. If you were talking about ASSR before WW2 that were transformed into SSR then again, see the previous point.
- thriftwy 3y agoI don't believe you have the full context and reading Wikipedia on the subject will yield a lot of surprises. USSR got the following bits and pieces after WWII: * Kaliningrad, added to RSFSR * West Ukraine, added to Ukrainian SSR * Some ex-Polish lands added to Belorussian SSR (Poland get even more of better, ex-German lands though) * Baltic states * Tuva. Of these, perhaps three Baltic republics were not happy about Afghanistan (and everything else), but they were quite small. The rest of stuff, such as UkrSSR, BelSSR, Caucasus and Central Asian SSRs, were carved out of RSFSR (Russia) in the 1920's by the USSR, after being part of Russian Empire for a century or more. Most of them did not exist as a separate state previously, especially in the assigned borders. Some briefly existed, often as anarchist or German puppet states, between 1917 and 1921. USSR did indeed gain control of various Eastern European countries such as Poland or Romania, but they were not part of USSR so they did not have to fight in Afghanistan. The rest of stuff about nations and statehood opportunity is frankly bullshit. These ASSRs were also carved by USSR out of Russia, and almost universally have 40% to 80% of Russian population within them - the only separatist opportunity they have is to be a particularly poor reissue of Bosnia. People are not stupid and they understand that.
- genman 3y agoIn both cases, Vietnam or Afghanistan, US won, until it lost its sight and pulled out, leaving everything on the shoulders of a demoralized and ill-equipped local governance. Now this was unfair fight because this replacement was not willing nor capable to project any actual force and they crumbled fast. This is what I was talking about. Afghanistan government resistance failed because they were terrified about the perspective of them losing in the fight and then receiving the wrath of Taliban. This perspective looked real enough for them after Taliban had broken the agreements and no US retaliation followed. Finally all of it spiraled into humiliating cowardly escape of the remaining US forces. US lost because their top of the command was irresolute coward who didn't understand the consequences of his policy, short term nor long term. One bombing raid against Taliban positions may have changed everything. Now we got war in Ukraine and greatly worsening situation in Middle East and Africa because the enemy understood very quickly what the US leader really is and took their changes. We are lucky that Taiwan was not lost and this is only thanks to the bravery of Ukrainians, but all of this is again on the edge because of the insurmountable stubbornness and stupidity of US politicians.
- hef19898 3y agoThe US lost in Vietnam, in fact the Paris treaty came as close to unconditional surrender as it gets without using the term. Same in Afghanistan, NATO lost hard after being slowly kicked out of the country. In both cases, none of the US or NATO strategic goals were achieved, while almost all of the opposing sides were. If you think the US won in Vietnam, Iraq won the Gulf War (number two, in the 90s).