[RussianConservative]

Afghanistan was not clock cleaning...10 years, 1 million dead Afghan and 15K dead Soviet troop (many second rate Turkicks) is not clock cleaning, it is slow bleed of Vietnam variety...same what Iraq is trying to be.

[Polybius]

Afghanistan was not clock cleaning...10 years, 1 million dead Afghan and 15K dead Soviet troop (many second rate Turkicks) is not clock cleaning, it is slow bleed of Vietnam variety...same what Iraq is trying to be.

It does not matter how many Afghans the Soviets killed or how many Vietnamese the U.S. killed or whether the Germans sunk more tonnage that the British at the Battle of Jutland.

A lost war is a lost war and 50,000 Americans or 15,000 Soviets are too many deaths for a losing war.

Military science advances by quantum leaps. Imagine the state-of-the-art air forces of 1918 meeting the state-of-the-art air forces of 1944.

By current U.S. standards, the U.S. military capabilities during Vietnam were downright primitive.

Things have changed and Afghanistan is a case in point. Compare the 15,000 Soviet dead and the 1,000,000 Afghan killed with the very light casualties on both sides that resulted in a complete U.S. victory.

Now, America's critics can only compare 530 deaths to Vietnam.........Well, at this rate it will take another 90 years to equal Vietnam.

The question is: In 2003, could Russia have projected power across the oceans to have conquered Iraq with less than 1,000 deaths?