This is rewriting history.
The Soviets got their ass kicked in Afghanistan.
Our State department was sending the Mujahedeen junk (WWI rifles, etc.) at first. Occasionally, they’d get lucky from a mountain. Eventually Reagan, or someone close enough to him, found out what was going on. Once the Afghanis got their mitts on Stingers, the Soviets were losing about one chopper a day. Very asymmetrical warfare.
Reagan’s genius was giving the Afghanis the means to fight their own war, to protect their own land and people.
“almost won” = lost
Then the soviets never had to fight a war under Obama’s ridiculous Rules of Engagement.
If you take what the writer says at face value, the Russians “lost” Afghanistan pretty much in the same way we “lost” Vietnam. Won most every battle. Decimated the enemy. Lost the political/propaganda war.
We nearly won Vietnam too.
And we almost won Vietnam if we hadn’t decided to lose it. Soooo, the authors point is what, exactly? Is it that if the Soviets had more time they would have been able to kill every man, woman and child in Afghanistan leaving nothing but earth? Or is it that somehow the Soviets were going to be able to ramp up operations in Afghanistan while trying to keep up with the Reagan military buildup of the U.S.?
Once again we see the revisionist exercise of “history in a vacuum.”
LA Times is engaging in revisionist history. It’s well documented and accepted that shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles provided by the CIA to the Mujahideen enabled the precision for shooting down Soviet transport helicopters in mountainous terrain. Because the Mujahideen could exist indefinitely and plan attacks on villages and towns where Soviet forces camped, and then run back to mountainous regions for cover, there was no way the Soviets could ever win the peace.
And this was cost.
During the nine years of fighting, more than 2.5 million Afghans (mostly civilians) were killed or maimed; millions more were displaced or forced into exile. By contrast, 14,453 Soviet troops were killed, an average of 1,600 a year.
INteresting post. Of the almost-wons of history, the most intriguing for me is that the colonials not only almost won but (if it hadn’t been for desertions on one side and a very experienced British commander on the other) should have won the Battle of Bunker Hill.
One of my two favorite books of military history:
http://www.amazon.com/Now-We-Are-Enemies-Bunker/dp/0984225668
I remember the number 70,000 dead Russian soldiers in Afghanistan. That’s worse than our Vietnam.
,,,,,, pure bull$h!+ !!!
...horseshoes and hand grenades...
The only question worth asking is whether the Russian military has a Creighton Abrams-style general officer who has put the army /military back together. And if so, who is he?
Balkans intervention = Grenada.
Georgia = Panama
Ukraine = Desert Shield
Syria = Desert Storm (Are the ready for prime time? Prove it.)
Putin is carving out a nice little defensible enclave for his client Assad. Crimean naval base has been recovered, Syrian/Mediterranean naval base is next. Business is business.
Hey they came in second! That’s pretty good, right?
One thing being in Afghanistan did, was to stop the Russians from invading Poland in 1980, when Jaruzelski begged the Soviets to intervene to stop Solidarity, the Soviets told them they could not do it because of their war in Afghanistan.
They must have been getting ready to break out the horseshoes because the “almost” of the hand grenades just wasn’t cutting it.
I is 20/20 hindsight, but we should have let them win.
We helped the Mujahadeen, they won, the Soviets left. We let Trascanistan ferment for a couple of decades under them, and Voila! 9/11.
I can’t wait for the bill from Iraq and Syria to come due in 20-30 years.
Yeah, and the United States “almost won” in Vietnam. The United States never lost a major campaign, and the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the Viet Cong militarily.
Seems I remember Clinton selling the mooslems Stingers.