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Post by quincannon on Aug 15, 2021 23:15:23 GMT
Can't dispute your take on Rome in Britannia HR. I think you missed my point though. When Rome did leave, other than roads and a few other lasting vestiges of their presence, everything went back to pretty much the way it was before they came.
Whack a mole is a game to be avoided.
Whatever happened in 2003 cannot be considered a victory by anyone's standards. What happened in 2003 was undone by the end of that year, and has been going to hell in a hand basket ever since. Winning the war is only half of the equation. Winning the peace is the other half and when you are dealing with people who would not know peace if they fell over it, winning is pretty damned hard.
Really glad to have your input though. You stay on top of stuff, and that is pretty rare these days.
The guiding principle of American foreign and military policy must be that - a silk purse cannot be made, when one starts with a sows ear. If we do not adhere to that we will suffer the same fate as Rome.
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Post by herosrest on Aug 16, 2021 0:13:33 GMT
Emulating Rome is one of history's lessons. It takes time. China is an example and resurgent but let's not go there. Middle east's lessons for the west were learnt from the Crusades which brought about the Muslim faithand like all enduring human struggles it is bipolar and constantly at War. Britain reverted from Romanticism (if you like 😊 ) because the military were the rule of law collecting taxes. No army meant no taxes to Rome.
The decision was leave Afghanistan and it is done. The ME should fight its own wars and maybe one day when the religion has matured then peace will break out. I've said elsewhere the ME is a rat's bum infested with cockroaches and should just be ignored. The entirety of it left to moulder and smoulder in isolation. Then they will start bothering their neighbours. It looks as though electric is rapidly to be the future of vehicles so Hormuz falls insignificant and only the Horn is of importance for shipping.
Nothing good ever came out of the ME and this isn't going to change and messing about there, all that can be done, has been a wate of time for 2,000 years and keeps breaking the bank.
I see an image of a Pyramid and cannot but wonder how a society could get into the situation where they actually build them.... That is what they teach me.
Be well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2021 0:24:26 GMT
In addition to you principles Mike, principles that should, in my opinion, evolve into policy, everyone must remember that war, like any human undertaking must have an attainable objective. In war there should never be open ended objectives, and the first time someone suggests moving the objective goal post further away, get rid of them, for no good ever comes of it. PLEASE ADD NUMBER ELEVEN - Never enter a prolonged conflict with an adversary that can out wait you. Your number 11 is a good candidate. I think it may be included with don't get into civil or religious wars, but perhaps it should be something similar to "Long wars do not end well for the (outside, invading, ?) power."
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Post by quincannon on Aug 16, 2021 1:41:45 GMT
I am blowing you a big wet kiss for your insightful comments HR. Thankfully you cannot see me do it, or it would give you a terminal case of the swooning vapors. Eat some chitlins, take two Alka Seltzer, then call your local physic hotline in the morning, for further insights into my character and proclivities. Excellent.
Mike: Make your number 11 say anything you wish, just don't change the thrust line of my comment. We are on the same track here.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2021 1:49:56 GMT
Sometimes I think I should use this phrase I got from a Sci-Fi Novel:
“You are not ready to count your enemy’s losses until you have learned to count your own. And remember that some enemies will never have learned to count.”
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Post by Beth on Aug 16, 2021 16:47:12 GMT
Moved discussion
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Post by quincannon on Aug 16, 2021 22:09:32 GMT
Ian: While it may not be readily apparent, I think China and Russia keeping diplomatic relations open with Afghanistan may be a very good thing for two reasons.
1) If the Chinese and/or Russians get too greedy, and they will, they may get themselves bogged down in that region. It turns out well for no country to have relations with these people. They may be our economic and strategic adversaries, and Chine is both while Russia's economy is not as big as Italy, but to the Afghan they are still Infidels, and the potential is that both these outside countries will probably drain a good part of their economies into Afghanistan and get the same result as the west did.
2) Having Russia and China in there also serves as a means of back channel negotiations with the countries of the west. Back Channel never makes news on the BBC or CNN, but it is present ALWAYS. That type negotiation is going on right now with the Kabul evacuation, bet on it. That's why as I told Mike this morning on our Battle Group private thread (no one is going to be interested in our internal discussion on that matter) I highly doubt that this present thing will be anything like Xenophon's March of the Ten Thousand.
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Post by yanmacca on Aug 17, 2021 5:32:28 GMT
I hope it backfires on them in the long term, as they do like to cosy up with nations whose leaders dislike the west, look at north Korea and Iran.
I get your private thread Chuck, Geir (Noggy) and I have a similar thing on the black board, we talk together on lots of diverse stuff.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 17, 2021 16:25:42 GMT
Disliking the west is a cottage industry Ian. Of course they dislike us. Some of their reasons resolve around envy, some in a passionate belief that they are always right, and we are always wrong. At other times it is our fault, either in the present tense, or as a result of resentment for western colonialism of centuries past. Regardless of the reason, they don't, and there is not a heck of a lot we can do about it. The passage of time may solve some of it, but in other instances it won't. You're still not all that crazy about the Scots, and Culloden was a very long time ago. They feel the same about you, and I am not even going to touch how the Irish feel about the English after Billy thrashed them from the Low Ground at the Boyne. Everyone and every nation carries these things as part of their history. Our job is to make it better while we can, and hope that those who follow us do the same and are more successful than we are.
The first thing that should be learned about strategic thought is looking at each issue presented from the other guy's side of the hill as well as your own. We in the west don't do that very well, and most times not at all. I assure you if I was an Afghan, I would resent the west with every fiber of my being. I don't think I would belong to the Taliban, but I do understand what drives them, and most of our politicians and military leaders do not, nor do they in most cases make any attempt to do so. You would think that when the west was brought to a stalemate in Korea, and had the figurative shit kicked out of us in Indo China, Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan in a seventy year period they would wake up and figure they were doing something amiss. The only one that can reasonably be said as a win was in Malaya, where your people, The Australians, and Kiwis settled the hash with a positive result.
Now I am going to turn on a recording of - "The Skye Boat Song" and toast the King Over The Water with what remains of my glass of orange juice.
The thread Mike and I have going deals with a future force structure proposal, based upon some ideas from the 1950's
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Post by yanmacca on Aug 17, 2021 19:37:29 GMT
Make it the queen over the water and I will join you, but for now here is that tune; link
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2021 0:42:38 GMT
Something telling me that you do not realize what "King over the water" I am referring to. It is the King over the water that the Skye Boat Song was written about - Bonnie Prince Charlie. Charles Stuart.
Something you must always remember about events like Afghanistan Ian. Nothing is EVER as bad as it seems, nor is it EVER as good as it looks.
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Post by yanmacca on Aug 18, 2021 9:05:01 GMT
Oh I knew exactly what you meant Chuck, I just don't like bonnie prince Charlie, the guy who was born in Italy with a polish mum and a dad who was probably a roaming gypsy.
He came I here with a French force to fight with a gang of Scottish scruffs to beat the British, when he lost the battle he said to his new scotch friends "nice knowing you chaps" and fled back to the continent.
That's why I sent you a link to a instrumental version, because the melody is good but the lyrics are horse crap.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2021 13:18:53 GMT
Yes Ian, I understand you would/should know to whom I was referring to. You enjoy the melody, but to understand the problem you must listen to the lyrics. That the same thing in Afghanistan. We sought only to listen to the melody, and never understood the lyrics.
Despite all of the sky is falling rhetoric we hear on TV and see in news print over the last week or so, were I a Taliban military leader I would be more concerned with the rapidity of response of American and other western military forces. It is well to understand that among the 7000 odd troops at the Kabul airport today, many of them were eating Bar B Q and drinking soda pop at Fort Bragg last Thursday. That should be a cautionary tale as to how fast we can upset their apple cart if we decide to do so. I suspect that is the very reason that Taliban leaders are negotiating with the west for safe corridors to and a hands off the airport. It is to their advantage to do so, and it is to us as well. The Taliban want to get to their state of normal as fast as possible, and fighting a brigade and a half of American troops with supporting air power is not a road to that objective.
We should also be mindful that Afghanistan of 2001 is not the Afghanistan of 2021. Too many seeds have been planted. That garden will not grow in the way the Taliban hopes or expects.
The next step is for the west to completely rethink their strategy as it pertains to the entire region from the Med to the South China Sea, and when that is finished build a force structure that fits that strategy and not depend on a force that in construct has not changed all that much since 1945. That is the hard part of all this, but we have a window of opportunity here. As this present window closes, another always opens. It never pays dividends to be a pessimist in the strategy business. If you are not an informed optimist, why bother.
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Post by yanmacca on Aug 18, 2021 18:53:06 GMT
It is encouraging to hear that the Taliban says they will respect Women, not kill the men who helped the allies and also ban all terrorists groups from settling in their country. I think that we get them mixed up with SIS and Al-Qaeda, who are far more deadly, don’t get me wrong the Taliban are no angels so we must be careful. I only wish that their own people will trust them to hold up to their promises and stay, we don’t need a mass exodus of Afghans like we saw in Syria.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2021 19:10:35 GMT
There are people based upon past experience who would not trust the Taliban under any circumstance, and I would have a hard time faulting them for that. The Taliban, like any nation state (they are not that of course) will do what is their own best interest, and what fits their own agenda.
I suspect the Taliban have no real interest in harboring any really radical group from outside of Afghanistan. In fact there are signs that lead me to believe that it is not in their interest to do so, based on a bit of back channel between them and us. They have fingered more than a few for us already, guys they don't like any more than we do. That however must be a wait and see. At one time it was to their advantage, or at least they thought so. It should also be remembered that both China and Russia have their own radical Islam problems, and they are much closer to Afghanistan than we are. The real problem actor in the region, as I see it, is Pakistan, and they are certainly going to get what they deserve in the end. They are like the guy in high school who instigated the problem, convinced others to carry out their bidding, then washed their hands of any responsibility.
It is never as bad as it seems, nor as good as it looks. VERA NIHIL VERIUS
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