> The US just lost a 20 year war in Afghanistan against cave dwellers with Soviet-era rifles, homemade explosives and random bits from the bottom of a toolbox.

To be fair the US left Afghanistan and the remaining Afghani army crumbled to the taliban pretty quickly.

I’d say the two situations are very different, the US successfully occupied a country that was ~7000km from them.

The Russians have so far failed to take a city that’s ~200km from their own border in about 1 and a half years.

To be even more fair, the US lost the War in Afghanistan. It's an unambiguous Taliban victory. That's how it will read in every history book that doesn't have an American flag and a bald eagle on it. 20 years there and all the US did was create a whole new generation of terrorists who will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge.

We lost, but it wasn't a military loss, it was a catastrophic failure of diplomacy.

We had control for a long time.

It was a military loss. When one military quits and runs away really fast that’s a loss. And it’s not the first time. When the US loses they hold a parade and say, “We left.” Such a joke. And American citizens never hold their government accountable. Instead they just believe the BS and do it all over again. Kind of amazing, really. No shame.

Vietnam was a military loss.

If you have control of an area and mismanage it for years, that's not a military loss. Failure at that point is something different.

Sure if you want to frame it that way.

But it’s still not comparable to Ukraine.

The sheer scale involved is completely different and really shows the ability of the US to project force.

Whereas Russia is currently struggling to get 200km from their own border.

The causalities scales are also hugely different. The Russians have taken likely close to 5x the causalities in about 1/4 the time.

Russia is clearly not a super power but that doesn’t mean other countries like America aren’t.

Tbf, it's hard to fight back when a portion of the Taliban was explicitly sheltered by a faction of a nuclear armed state's intelligence service.

The war is showing that Western superpower tech is far in advance of Soviet and post-Soviet tech (in most areas), but that tech can't win all wars. Russia buys drones from Iran which contain parts from many western companies (most of which were manufactured in China), which I think tells you a lot about the relative levels of technology. I doubt the Ukranians would have made it so far with so much relative success without US intelligence and materiel. if we gave them lots more air assets and they used them well, it would give them a huge advantage over Russia, which seems to have somehow lost its air force.

As for Afghanistan, well, of course never get involved in a land war in Asia. But that wasn't a conventional war, and our military is intended to fight conventional wars. Our forces really are not set up to respond to the Taliban.