Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

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you could say that while they won the battle at Tet, they did lose it on
the political side with the loss in public support and face I believe.

In modern war, the public opinion and politics is very important, I
think some conflicts which were winable were lost on the field of Public
Opinion and Political Debate.

Robyn
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tony Wilkinson 
  To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu 
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 12:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

  John Atkinson wrote: 
On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 1:10 AM, Chris <sepplainer@gmail.com> wrote:
  Does the Soveit/afgan conflict. Make a fair example? I don't think it
does
 but that is as close as I can come after some thought.
    
If you consider the fact that the Afghans made very little progress
before they started getting high-tech missiles shipped in, it kind of
skews it.  The majority of the Russian troops were also exceedingly
ill-trained, and the doctrine they were working with was garbage too.

And you still can't point to a lot of "battlefield defeats" but to
political effects.  In fact, the Sovs didn't actually pull out of
Afghanistan until the sequence of events that would lead to the
collapse of the Soviet Union was already in motion.

John
  True enough but then how often do "insurgents" not have outside help? 

  Don't forget too that the Soviets did deploy quite a few special
forces units (mostly if not entirely Spetznaz, possibly some interior
ministry types) and still lost numerous small engagements. Yes, the
Soviet system did collapse but whether the Afghanistan pull out is a
cause or an effect of that is still a major historical debate. The US
pulled out of Vietnam but it was in no way collapsing. And yes the
irregulars were being backed by NVA, but not to fight major engagements
until the last year or two with one exception. Insurgents, guerrilias,
rebels, freedom fighters, assymetricals, whatever don't win by fighting
major battlefield engagements, they win by making it politically
untenable for the major power to stay.

  If you want a battlefield example then the early stages of the Tet
offensive. Yes the US "won" but it was touch and go for a while.

  Tony.

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