Throughout history the area we call Afghanistan today was always relatively easy to conquer, but impossible for foreigners to hold. The area has NEVER had a powerful standing army or the material basis for creating one. However its unique geography, hundreds of major tribes and clans, different languages, unifying religion, lack of roads, these all made its mountain villages impossible for outsiders to conquer, and made long-term guerrilla war the norm.
The Taliban was not “defeated” by the Northern (tribal) Alliance backed by U.S. Special Forces. Rural Taliban soldiers just abandoned the cities and returned to the central and eastern mountain ranges they came from. Many just buried their weapons and awaited their next opportunity.
The idea that the Taliban could have been tracked down in the wilds of Pakistan and eradicated is INSANE, for many reasons. Most Pushtans — but certainly not most Pashtun Taliban — live in Pakistan, and any U.S. intervention there would have created tens of millions more determined enemies, and likely led to anarchy, insurrection or revolution in nuclear armed Pakistan.
The same problems I mentioned have also always made Afghanistan very difficult even for any native leader to govern. Although some progress was made in the 1960s and 1970s, these problems by no means disappeared. Outside of Kabul and a few other places, the ethnic and rural/town and tribal problems remained severe. The Monarchy was by no means deep rooted in this tribal society and any outside power trying to bring back a new King would have gotten nowhere. (Actually, the largest Parcham faction of the “Marxist” PDPA itself originally supported a “constitutional monarchy,” and after the Soviets invaded they eventually established their own supposed “Islamic Republic.”)
The new “Great Game” Cold War hostility between the USSR & USA is what doomed first the King and then Afghanistan as a whole. We armed the Mujaheddin jihadists from across the country (giving them “Stinger” missiles) and across the world (remember Osama Bin Laden) to fight against “communism”; then the rural religious Talaban overthrew the murderous and drug dealing warlord Mujahadin; and then we swept in to do our own “nation building.” Our own militarist “anti-insurgency” orientation soon discredited the Afghan politicians we supported, who appeared to be — and soon were — nothing but corrupt U.S. puppets.
Very flawed analysis.
Let me try and help you out. First of all the taliban in Afghanistan were defeated as in forced to run and hide.
Driven from the field of battle by a tremendous casualty rate.
Some went into hiding in Afghanistan with family members or in villages that were supportive of the Taliban.
More along with their leadership--Bin Laden and so forth fled to pakistan.
Bin Laden apologized to his men for the catastrophe he led them into.
The fact that Pakistan has nukes is irrelevant. We have a long standing agreement with Pakistan that if their Nukes are ever under threat from revolutionary forces that we will go in and remove the nukes.
Your notion of tens of millions of pushtans taking up arms against us is ridiculous.
We would not have had to eradicate all of the pushtans.
All we needed to do was to cause them enough pain to neuter them. The same methods we used in Afghanistan could have been used in the tribal lands with much effectiveness.
Special forces in close contact and collusion with our Air Force could have wrecked havoc on the taliban and their supporters in the tribal lands. After a month of such havoc they would have ceased all infiltration and attacks into Afghanistan to stop our assault on the Tribal Lands.
We never had any intention to conquer Afghanistan.
We maintained control of Afghanistan for 20 yrs. with very few boots on the ground and we could have continued to do so.
Our big mistake was to waste billions of dollars trying to make Afghanistan a democracy.
Unfortunately Trump wanted to end it. One of his biggest mistakes.
Though he would have done it in an organized manner without all the chaos we see now because the Biden regime underestimated the Talibans ability to take over very swiftly.
The big question now is will The Taliban allow the evacuation of all Americans or hold them or some of them as hostages?
A bigger question what will the biden regime do if the Taliban takes American Hostages or begins executing Americans.
A belief is taking hold among many that all this peaceful rhetoric we are getting from some of the taliban leadership is a hoax.
We will find out very soon if they live up to their word.
Another factor that should not be forgotten is there may be rogue elements in the Taliban that want to punish and or kill Americans who may not listen to their commanders.
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