Take a look at the territory controlled by the Taliban vs time while we were at this level. They were not contained. We just were keeping them out of a few urban areas.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57933979

I skimming your link, it seems the Taliban didn’t take significant territory until the US pulled out altogether. In the time during which the US was not actively fighting on the ground but was providing logistic support and air strikes and so on, the Taliban were effectively kept at bay.

You need to look a bit more carefully, and ideally at more than just at the one link. The US and gov controlled the country entirely at one point. By 2017 The large swaths of the country are contested.

61% by 2018. The writing was on the wall.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/08/world/asia/us...

> We just were keeping them out of a few urban areas.

How is that not containment if they can’t take major areas?

Afghanistan is about the same size as Texas, permanent occupation is technically manageable. However, it would bring hate upon the US. It’s also a proxy-war with Russia, who might be funding the opposite side, so the costs to colonization are not just occupation, but hedging the spendings of all other countries who don’t want USA to occupy the zone.

So, impossible if we don’t get others on board, among Arab countries in general, perhaps China or Russia too.

> It’s also a proxy-war with Russia

If that's the case, it's a recent development in the last several years. Possibly since the Ukraine incident. Russia and the Taliban have been enemies for decades before.

Many already (and will always) hate the US, and the US has the GDP to outlast declining Russia. If anything, this is a test bed for remote force projection.

If Afghans want US protection that doesn’t require boots on the ground, that seems reasonable considering capabilities already available. “Peace through superior firepower.”

Peace and allies through collateral damage.

Do nothing, do something, we lose in a way regardless.

> the US has the GDP to outlast declining Russia

I particularly look forward to Russia’s declining influence as the world transitions away from oil. As much as people like to criticize US leadership and government, the Kremlin is on a whole different level (and I’m glad that this isn’t such a controversial sentiment among liberals since 2016).

Counterpoint: Global warming can make most of Russian inhabitable, enable farming on vast regions, and the Northern Route of merchandise through the poles can make them a central actor in international commerce.

Meanwhile “every country has a reason to hate US”, hating the US is often the easy game to play in local politics, and maybe all of them are joining the tipping jar to pay those who can make us decline. Loss of trust towards media and institutions, judges ruling that monopolies can keep rolling or judges “not acting” when clearly facing criminal activity, loss of trust towards police, activism groups which I’d wonder how they remain out of prison, that requires funding and bribes; if I were the Talibans, China, Russia, or any country of the middle east really, I would fund them until the US collapses or loses its dominant position. It’s all hypothesis but it’s easy to implement.

It’s not a given that USA doesn’t decline in front of other, less hated superpowers.