Analysis of a number of Soviet vignettes, with analysis by the Frunze, and additional commentary by the author. Maps.

FYI.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

The Soviets were winning that skirmish in Afghaniland until our CIA provided stingers to down the Hind and support aircraft. Is there an expiration date for use on those damn things? we made 'em too good!

We won't be makint the same misakes the Russians did. A couple of big differences I can see right off. First we are not going to be trying to hold territory, aside from maybe some limited area around bases, which will probably be under opposition (friendly forces) control. Our only concern will be hunting down and and killing the terrorists and their Taliban allies.

Second and most importantly, we own the night. The Mujahdeen launched nearly all of their attacks against the Russians at night. Typically the Russians conducted operations in the day and hunkered down in bases at night. The average Russian solder didn't have night-vision equipment. We will be doing just the opposite. We can have day and night recon but it will be most effective at night when humans on foot stick out against the cooler background on IR equipment. And all of our soldiers will have night vision gear. Enemy forces on the move at night can be desroyed by air attacks, or followed by recon drones to their bases, and destroyed there.

I don't think the Taliban realizes this, but they are going to find out. Bottom line, we will be the hunters, they will be the hunted.

If the U.S. tries a conventional invasion of Afghanistan, they're crazy. Since Special Ops people will be lifted into the bush by helo and then hump whatever they, hopefully the only convoys in this war will be Afghans treated to the Highway of Death, Part II.

There seems to be lots of other differences: There is no pipeline of support to the Taliban There are fragmented, maybe 35,000 to 50,000 strong, with other groups opposing them. I've even read some articles that some of these will deflect. As a defense worker, Durability, Maintainability and Logistics are really getting a lot of attention. These seem to be absent from the Taliban. We have modernized a lot since the 1980s with our equipment- night vision is one area; imaging is another. Around 20 years ago, I think the American military doctrine was to go high tech instead of quantity, when we were in a race with the Russians. An excellant public site describing most of our systems is http://www.fas.org/

There must be many ways that this war is different for us. For one we are fighting for different reasons, we are also not limited to fighting the terrorists in Afghanistan, Bush was clear we will follow them whereever they go which means we won't be respecting borders. Also maybe the Afghans aren't as committed to save the Taliban which is a recent government.

If the citizens are against the Taliban which it sounds like they might be if there's civil war, maybe we should drop food and gifts wrapped in US flags with some kind of message from our side. Someone was telling me that use to live there that 95% of the people are illiterate and uneducated and only know what they are told by their so-called leaders who keep them poor, maybe that should change.

Moreover, the Taliban, whatever their propaganda, are not synonymous with the "Mujahideen" who, with our help, defeated and expelled the old Soviets.

Their rise to dominance, like that of the ChiComs in the war against Chiang on the mainland after the end of WWII, seems to have relied more on ideological and psychological initiatives, outside funds and personnel, divide and conquer tactics, subversion, treachery, bribery, encouraging deserters from their enemies, and so forth than it has on organized "military victories" in the field, as noted in SamAdams76's excellent post, Soldiers of Islam: Origins, Ideology and Strategy of the Taliban

As a result, when the Taliban, supported by Islamabad entered the Afghan arena, there was a clear strategy of targetting local commanders of regional warlords in a piecemeal fashion. This would explain in large measure their blitz through southern and central Afghanistan, capturing 14 provinces without encountering resistance. Even in 1997, this policy has been pursued with even greater success in sensuring that their non-Pashtun opponents like Ahmed Shah Masood, Abdul Rashids Dostam, Karim Khalili and Syed Naderi have been’ weakened not through battles but by desertion of men, local commanders and equipment. The Taliban’s recent entry into Salang was facilitated after a local commander, Bashir Salangi, switched sides. Similarly, in Uzbek territory, the Taliban took advantage of the brewing crisis. between General Dostam and Abdul Malik to "buy off" the latter, along with a string ‘ of his local commanders. The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif and the fleeing of a once very powerful Dostam took place only after his entire frontline commanders switched sides for large sums of money.

Regards to all. S&W R.I.P.

A Hind helicopter could barely hover, and comes no where near the helicopters in our arsenal. It was basically an airborne tank. Our choppers are more like agile snipers, with coordinated battle-ground systems for remote targeting. The terrain and enemy are tough, but I'm not sure I can buy-in to the Ex-Soviet doom-and-gloom stuff.

And of course, assassination, as with Masood, on 11 September, was it not?

Regards to all. S&W R.I.P.

Sept. 9, I think was the assassination attempt.

The most important point, to my mind, is not to allow the Taliban to picture this, strictly within Afghanistan, as a "war of national liberation" against the United States and its allies, which they will do, if they can. "For or against 'terrorists'," reads just fine, and cannot be criticized, but "for or against us in open warfare" in which there are always neutrals in regard to two easily identifiable sides has always been stupid.

The ancient rule for success, from Caesar to our founding fathers in the War of Independence, was not to push neutrals into the corner of the enemy, to wit: "If you are against us, we will defeat you. If you are not against us, we will consider you for us." Sorrily, it is too subtle in practice, apparently, for many easily to grasp.

Regards to all. S&W R.I.P.

Don't forget recent advances in satellite imagery. There are commercial images available with resolution of approx. 2 ft. What this means is, a spacecraft flying over head, at an altitude of 450 to 500 miles, can take a picture in which anything larger than 2 square feet is identifiable. Don't forget, that is the stuff we can buy, or even get off the web. The military doesn't talk about what their resolutions are.

Thanks for the correction.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Since we are nearly unopposed in the sky, unmanned recon flights can be put in at any altitude and flight path desired. I don't know what the sensor technology is on these, but I would not want to be trying to hide from it. Any individual might have a chance of hiding, but no credible fighting force will find caves and rocks to be very effective protection. We have learned a thing or two in the last 40 years, and we did have successes against various guerilla forces in Central and South America, and they had the cover of forests and jungles as well as mountains. It won't be easy, I'm sure, but neither will it be impossible.

"Taliban propaganda" above, as, for example, in Movemout's The Hunt for bin Laden Gears Up on a Trail Gone Cold

Even as droves of residents were reported to be fleeing the Afghan capital, Kabul, in anticipation of an American strike, the Taliban, who boasted this week of their country's long history of thwarting more powerful invaders....

Now the Taliban, themselves funded and supported by outsiders, including "Arabi" like the Bin Laden group and Pakistanis, and to a degree actually interlopers with at best one major group in Afghanistan behind them, are claiming not only the successes of the old Mujahideen, for whom US support was decisive, but all of Afghanistan and its history as "theirs".

This again is much like the ChiComs, who did diddlysquat to defeat the Japanese,but thereafterwards claimed the whole victory on the mainland, while making "China" synonymous with "Communist China."

Regards to all. S&W R.I.P.

Satellites are great, but don't work so well through clouds. That's why the Airforce has been putting so much into developing drones. They can stay up a long time and fly under cloud cover.

I agree with your main point about Taliban, but I've got to disagree with you about the Chicoms. They put up a very stout resistance to the Japanese, mostly in occupied teritory. Unlike the Nationalists who fled in front of the Japanese and hoarded US supplies to use against the Communists later. The result was the Communists came out of WWII with a battle hardened army with good morale holding a lot of territory the Japanese had held, and the Nationalists didn't.

Stalin's Handmaids.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Agreed, but there are other instruments on board that provide some pretty amazing information, even through cloud cover.