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And 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 -----
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@xxxxxxxxx> 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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