Re:This Is What Winning Looks Like – Afghanistan War Diary
by bane on Monday May 27, 2013 @10:09PM
(#5777618)
"It kind of worked for a short period of time, but ultimately failed."
So it's almost 100% false, but actually correct?
Re:This Is What Winning Looks Like – Afghanistan War Diary
by nl on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @07:18AM
(#5779278)
They had a strategy that was designed to hold ground (the OP said the strategy wasn't deigned to hold ground).
The strategy failed. That doesn't mean it didn't exist.
Re:This Is What Winning Looks Like – Afghanistan War Diary
by bane on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @08:54AM
(#5779641)
I see what you're saying, but I'd argue that it wasn't a strategy for near on a decade until the top brass had to start facing the hard reality of the complete bankruptcy and failure of the original strategy. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging the other way?
Re:This Is What Winning Looks Like – Afghanistan War Diary
by nl on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @06:25PM
(#5783276)
2001-2002: Invasion and mostly conventional warfare against the Taliban. Successful.
2002-2005: Reduction in troop numbers. Total disaster.
2006-2010: Increase in troop numbers. "Control the ground" strategy implemented. Some initial successes, but many failures.
2011-present: Troop draw-down. This is pretty much code for "hand control back to the Taliban".
Re:This Is What Winning Looks Like – Afghanistan War Diary
by mtdewcmu on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @10:06PM
(#5784160)
Destroying things is what armies are good at. They pretty effectively destroyed the Taliban early on. But, then, I think, it came home to roost that you can't just destroy something and then leave and expect everything to be fine if there was never anything to take the place of the thing you destroyed. We've been trying to solve that puzzle ever since.
That is almost 100% false. For example, read the on-the-ground account in Junger's book War (and the related documentary Resprepo).
The whole aim of the Restrepo outpost was to control entry to the Korengal Valley, and take and hold control of the ground.
It kind of worked for a short period of time, but ultimately failed.
Nevertheless, the strategy was to gain control of the ground, then hand control over to local Afghan forces. There were some fairly significant failures in implementing that strategy though - not least that the government put in place to replace the Taliban was notably worse in many respects for the local population.