Russian advice: More troops won't help in Afghanistan

[babylonsister]

Russian advice: More troops won't help in Afghanistan

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers


MOSCOW — The old diplomat sighed as he recalled his years in Afghanistan, and then leaned forward and said in a booming voice that no escalation of troops would bring lasting peace.

As the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986, Fikryat Tabeyev saw the numbers rise to more than 100,000 troops without any possibility of victory against a growing insurgency.

Even with President Barack Obama's plan initially to send 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to that mountainous nation this year, the combined NATO-American force will be smaller than the Soviet contingent was. Moscow's failure to pacify Afghanistan, which broke the back of the Soviet Union, doesn't mean that the same fate awaits Obama's efforts, but ignoring a decade of experience there would be a mistake, former envoys and generals warn.

The Soviets rumbled into Afghanistan in 1979 to rescue a weak communist regime, a very different reason from the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, which sought to deny the 9-11 terrorists a haven. The seven years of war since the U.S. intervention, though, look familiar to the Russians.

Many challenges that bedeviled the Soviets confront the American operation today, the retired envoys and generals said. Among them are vicious tribal rivalries, a weak central government, radical Islamists, power-hungry warlords, incompetent or corrupt local military commanders, failing infrastructure and the complexity of fighting guerrilla groups. The former officials also cautioned that trying to bring democracy to Afghanistan, or anything resembling it, will be as fruitless as their attempts to install communism.

"You may elect a parliament, you may invite parliamentary delegations from Afghanistan to visit Europe, but it means nothing," said Boris Pastukhov, whose service as Soviet ambassador began in 1989, the year the Red Army withdrew. "The decisions by parliament cannot be compared with the decisions of a jirga," a tribal council.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/63581.html

[shadowknows69]

1. Pshaw, what would they know about it?

Oh, wait....

[Traveling_Home]

4. The only thing Russia knows is how to lose

These old Soviet and Russian experts lost almost every military confrontation or engagement they tried since WWII. Their only hope for redemption is if the US fails in Afganistan so they can gloat "Even Obama FAILED there!!"

We're the same. It was common to hear in the 80's that we hoped Afganistan would be the Russian's Viet Nam. Russian failure improved our prestige. Part of the 'Big' game.

No differance. No credibility.

[spanone]

5. in afghanistan, i'd say they have quite a bit of credibility.

[Traveling_Home]

9. Why would you say that? They lost cause they were idiots and ....

their military sucks. Obama isn't an idiot and our military doesn't suck.

[knitter4democracy]

11. Their military doesn't suck.

They fight hard. Look at both recent Chechen wars and the latest one in Georgia.

[Traveling_Home]

12. The war in Georgia? Really? That's the military highlight?

I apologize for being so snarky but you need to broaden your reading

This is a recent reuter article from Feb 6, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5152J020090206?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

'MOSCOW (Reuters) - About one-third of all Russian fighter jets should be written off as obsolete because they are unable to fly, the Kommersant business daily reported on Friday, quoting defense ministry and military officials.

Russia grounded all of its MiG-29 fighter jets last December after two of the aircraft crashed near the same airfield in eastern Siberia in just as many months. One pilot died.

Flights of MiG-29s have resumed since then, but hundreds are simply too old even to take off, Kommersant said.

"Russia's Defense Ministry for the first time recognized that around 200 of its MiG-29s are not just unable to cope with their combat tasks, but simply cannot take off," the paper said.'

[knitter4democracy]

15. They've had trouble with the Migs for years. That's not news.

If you're talking hardware, then yeah, their stuff sucks. It didn't when it was new (most of the time), but they haven't really updated or had the money to update for ages and ages. Their subs are still decent, but many in the fleet are aging badly.

I thought you were talking about the people, the software, so to speak. They're better than people seem to think. The skirmish in Georgia was expected to go the other way, and instead, they went in with overwhelming force and won handily. Of course, Georgia expected us to rush to their aid, and we didn't, so that's most of the reason why they lost, but Georgia had held its own with Russia in recent years.

When I was there in 95, it was during the first of the most recent Chechen wars. There were reports in the press of the troops resorting to cannibalism because the government couldn't get food to them (or it was stolen before it got to them--reports of that, too). So, a huge contingent of Russian mothers hopped on trains and headed to Chechnya and got their sons and took them home. In the middle of a war. I've always been impressed by that. By the time the second Chechen war rolled around, they fixed their supply issues.

[knitter4democracy]

7. The only thing Russia knows is how to lose?!

Have you read any of their history at all? They beat Napolean, they beat Hitler, and they sure gave us a run for our money (especially when you figure out how much poorer a nation they really were at the time).

[Traveling_Home]

8. Napolean?? Really?? I said since WWII sheeesh!

[knitter4democracy]

10. I'm just sayin', you can't say they don't know how to win at all.

They're more than a little touchy about WWII, too (or, as they term it, The Great Patriotic War). They did lose over 20 million people in it (mostly due to Stalin's evil ineptitude, but I digress) and take on all of Hitler's Eastern front themselves, so they have a point.

[RufusEarl]

2. That's good advice i hope we listen,

they have just a bit of experience in that part of the world. By experience i mean that got their butts kicked, i hear thats where empires go to die..

Peace!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." MacArthur

Unfortunately, politics usually trumps common sense and history.

[Morning Dew]

14. Montgomery and Vizini said that as well.

Monty - more or less.

Vizini - definitely.

[knitter4democracy]

6. If the Soviets couldn't win--and they shared a border, no less--we can't.

I'm sorry to be pessimistic, but I have been since we first went into Afghanistan. The Soviets were able to load up trains right to the border and take tons of equipment and soldiers in---and they still lost! It's the freakin' foothills of the Himalayas, people! It's a terrible place to try to fight, as the people who live there have all the advantages, and you have zero. Firepower doesn't cut it there, obviously, so now we would do best to pull out and walk away.

[morgan2]

13. we were also arming the afghanistanis against the soviets

can't really compare.. they're still well armed, but they're not being actively armed by anyone with a military as sophisticated as ours.

[knitter4democracy]

16. That's true, but the ones training them were trained by us.

They've got money from Saudis and such, they've got weapons, and they've got stamina to hide in the caves and do hit-and-run attacks. If we could beat the British with similar tactics and a similar difference in firepower, what makes us think we will win here?