MoD Study: NATO Is Repeating The Soviet Union's History In Afghanistan

Afghan government troops, left, ride past Soviet vehicles on the road in Kabul province in 1988 Photo: Reuters

Nato Troops In Afghanistan 'In A Similar Situation To Failed Soviet Invasion' -- Ben Farmer, The Telegraph

Nato troops in Afghanistan find themselves in a similar situation to the failed Soviet invasion and are also waging a campaign which is "unwinnable in military terms", according to a provocative Ministry of Defence analysis.

Both the Nato campaign and the 1979 invasion were initially attempts to impose "ideology foreign to the Afghan people", whose aims were quickly dropped when they ran into difficulty.

Nato, like the Soviets, has been unable to "establish control over the country's borders and the insurgents' safe havens", or "protect the rural population", according to the paper written by retired officers for an internal MOD think tank.

"The [Soviet] 40th Army was unable to decisively defeat the Mujahideen while facing no existential threat itself, a situation that precisely echoes [the Nato coalition's] predicament".

As combat troops leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the country will again be left "with a severely damaged and very weak economic base", reliant for years on vast sums of international aid.

The paper, Lessons From the Soviet Transition in Afghanistan, was prepared for the MOD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), to provoke internal debate and challenge current military thinking.

Read more ....

Update: The REAL reason the U.S. failed in Afghanistan -- Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy

My Comment: My uncle and two of my cousins served for the Soviet military in Afghanistan in 1980s .... and have repeatedly told me the same story over the years .... the West should have got out of Afghanistan circa 2003-2004. The war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda was more or less over and the purpose for keeping U.S./NATO forces in Afghanistan was no longer valid.

But nope .... nation building and God knows what else got involved .... and we are still there and will be for years to come. And as for the hundreds of billions spent and lives lost .... like the Soviet experience .... in the end it will all be for nothing.