With the Taliban controlling most of the southern Afghan province of Helmand, the capital city of Lashkar Gah has looked less and less secure. It looks like that city could be facing another direct offensive quite soon, as major battles were reported just south of the city.
The Afghan government is rushing military reinforcements into the area, and insists the district of Nawa, where the fighting is ongoing, has yet to fall. US officials have similarly insisted they will “not allow” the city of Lashkar Gah to be captured, but whether they can do anything about it is unclear.
The largely rural Helmand Province is the center of the lucrative opium poppy farming operations in Afghanistan, and Taliban control over many districts, including the districts bordering neighboring Pakistan, allow them to control the flow of opium traffic out of the country.
Lashkar Gah, a city of some 200,000 people, would be a significant prize for the Taliban, which they have launched repeated offensives against. The city represents the major, and materially only urban center in southwestern Afghanistan, and would represent a major show of strength for the insurgency, which has been whittling away at smaller prizes in the province for months now.
Think about this for a minute.
Supposedly, we are told, since 9/11, the US and it’s allies have been fighting The Taliban for fifteen years, without decisively defeating them? Really?? The Taliban, has been, since before 9/11, been living in the seventh century. Fifeen years and we cannot defeat the Taliban?? ???
What would happen if we had to fight Russia or China? If we cannot decisively defeat the Taliban in fifteen years, how could we possibly be expected to fight Russia or China?
Now ask yourself if any of this even makes any sense or if any of this even has the ring of truth to it from any and every perspective you wish to look at it.
So it’s either the US Military is so over the top incompetent or else you are being lied to in such an extreme mannor. How else can we reconcile that the US Military cannot defeat the Taliban, THE TALIBAN, in fifteen years??
“If we cannot decisively defeat the Taliban in fifteen years, how could we possibly be expected to fight Russia or China?”
I’m going to assume that by “we” you mean the US armed forces or whatever (I’m not going to be fighting Russia or China; I doubt that you are either).
The answer to your question is: So much as possible — and it’s far more possible than with the Taliban — symmetrically.
The Taliban haven’t actually been living in the 7th century. At the time of the US invasion they were living in the mid-20th century vis a vis armaments and military organization. Most of their weapons and other defense systems were not really much newer than World War II era; the stuff that was newer, e.g. BRDMs and so forth, came without the maintenance infrastructure required for effective battlefield deployment.
This was a disadvantage to the Taliban as a conventional central government and fighting force during the initial invasion.
It’s been an advantage to them ever since.
The US is great at intercepting and decrypting, or suppressing, electronic communications. The Taliban use human messengers to deliver oral or written communications.
The US is great at detecting, and fairly competent at intercepting and destroying, combat aircraft, tank formations, what have you. Truck bombs? Guys with suicide vests? Infantry in ambush? Not so much.
To the extent that China or Russia tried to take on the US in a standard conventional war, they would almost certainly have their asses handed to them within days, with many multiples of the casualties they could inflict on the US.
On the other hand, if the US attempted to invade and occupy Russia or China, the US could never win that kind of conflict because at that point the war would go asymmetric; the Chinese and Russian populations would no longer be using the weapons and tactics the US is prepared to take on.
Ditto if China or Russia invaded the US. Like Yamamoto or whoever it was said, a rifleman behind every blade of grass.