Why Is It Difficult To Defeat People Who Live in Mountainous Regions

U.S. Army 1st Lt. David T. Broyles watches as his men leave Observation Post Rocky with Afghan National Army Soldiers in Kunar province, Afghanistan, July 19, 2010. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Gary A. Witte

T. X. Hammes, National Interest: Why Are People Who Live in Mountainous Regions Almost Impossible to Conquer?

There is no clear-cut, academic definition of mountain people. Given their historical ability to drive away invaders, maybe they deserve closer study.

On August 21, 2018, General John Nicholson passed command of NATO’s Afghanistan mission to Lieutenant General Scott Miller. In his final press conference, Nicholson stated the strategy is working and just needs more time. He was the seventeenth commander of Afghanistan and his parting statement sounds very much like the previous sixteen. Given some of the most successful military leaders of this generation have command there, why does Afghanistan still remain unstable?

Clearly, Afghanistan has a very along history of ejecting foreign forces. On January 13, 1842, Assistant Surgeon William Brydon, bloodstained and exhausted , reached the British Fort at Jalalabad. When asked where the rest of the army was, he managed to reply “I am the Army.” Thus the British learned their 20,000-man army in Afghanistan had been wiped out. Though it is perhaps the most famous example of a Western army being defeated by a mountain people, it is certainly not the only one.

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WNU Editor: When the Soviet Union was first established, numerous regions did not approve of this new union and began insurgencies .... particularly in the Caucasus. These wars went on for years, but Stalin was the one who solved it. He simply moved/depopulated the regions that were in conflict, created free-fire zones, and killed anyone who was in it. Within a year .... these insurgencies had collapsed. Bottom line .... these type of wars can be won, but today's morality (at least in the West) will not permit the implementation of these measures to accomplish it.