In August, the biggest melon in the international news was the change of the imperial cemetery in Afghanistan, and the Americans fled from Afghanistan in full view of everyone, and their awkward appearance was no less than when the US military withdrew from Vietnam in 1975.
Afghanistan, a small and unknown central Asian country, is barren and backward, but in the past 100 years, it has successively killed the British Cauldron, the Red Soviet Union and the US Imperialists, such an impressive record is almost invincible. In particular, the Soviet Union and the United States, which were driven away by it, are both super empires in human history, with resources far exceeding those of the Afghans.
So how did the Afghans do it? The same invasion of Afghanistan, a 10-year Soviet Union and the United States who were more miserable.
Who is more miserable
Before the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Afghanistan was already a red socialist regime.
As early as 1973, the pro-Soviet former member of the Afghan royal family, Daoud Khan, staged a coup d'état to establish the Republic of Afghanistan, and became president, ending the monarchy and entering a "republican" system in Afghanistan, but in 1978, the Marxist Afghan People's Party launched a coup again, killed Daoud Khan, established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and Taraki became the leader of the country, and announced the establishment of a socialist system.
However, Taraki's radical social reforms caused unrest in Afghanistan, and another leader of the People's Party, Amin, also fell out with Taraki, resulting in Amin getting rid of Taraki and becoming the new leader of Afghanistan.
However, both Taraki and Amin belonged to the radical "people's faction" of the Afghan People's Party and were never liked by the Soviet Union, while the "banner faction" favored by the Soviet top brass was expelled by the "people", and after Amin came to power, he tried to get rid of afghanistan's pro-Soviet policy since Daoud. At this time, the United States and the Soviet Union were still licking the wounds of the Vietnam War and were generally on the defensive, while the Soviet Union was under the leadership of the "medal enthusiast" Brezhnev, carrying out strategic offensives around the world, aggressively.
Brezhnev, the Soviet decision-maker who invaded Afghanistan
Against this backdrop, Afghanistan's fate is predestined.
In December 1979, a large number of Soviet transport planes suddenly landed at Kabul airfield, and quickly controlled the situation, and with the landing field of the airport, the follow-up army continued to arrive, and then the airborne troops of the Soviet Red Army armed with new AK74 rifles raided Amin's palace, killed his entire family, and quickly controlled the Afghan military, reorganized the government, eliminated dissidents, and supported the "banner" leaders of the Afghan People's Party, Suchmil and Najibra, to take control of the situation in Afghanistan.
The Soviets spearheaded the tactical advance with rapid troops such as paratroopers, and then marched in large armies to control the situation.
Flag of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
After that, the socialist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, just like the Eastern European countries at that time, but because the Afghan People's Party could not deal with the domestic situation alone, the Soviet Union could only send large troops to Afghanistan for a long time to encircle and suppress guerrillas and resistance organizations everywhere, which lasted for 10 years.
Among Afghanistan's many political and military forces, the Taliban are emerging forces, they only rose after the withdrawal of soviet troops, but they are more well organized, more committed, and therefore more effective, and in 1996 they invaded Kabul and took control of most of the country.
However, at this time, the Taliban was extremely conservative, and the means were very simple and crude, and lacked strategy, especially after al-Qaida attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in New York, the Taliban refused the US government's request to hand over os-im Bin Laden, so it became the target of the US anti-terrorism attack.
The events of 9/11 were the trigger for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
In October 2001, on October 7, the last day of China's National Day Golden Week, the United States began airstrikes against the Taliban, with precision-guided bombs and missiles flying towards the Taliban. At the same time, U.S. special forces parachuted into the northern Taliban rival camp northern Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance control area, and together with the Northern Alliance launched an attack on the Taliban.
Like the Soviet offensive, the Americans quickly grasped the situation in Afghanistan. In 2001, the United States supported the Afghan Interim Government, the Transitional Government, headed by Karzai, and later formally formed the Afghan Government.
The Taliban, on the other hand, were blown back into the ravines by American bombs.
Karzai
Both the Soviet Union and the United States, as the world's superpowers, were successful in rapidly beating up Afghanistan and seizing central power, and achieved a quick solution.
It took the Soviets more than a month from the capture of Kabul and the killing of Amin to the establishment of a pro-Soviet government. After blowing up the Taliban, the United States established the pro-American Karzai regime in just over two months.
It can be said that as a superpower, subverting the regime of a third-rate small country is really like probing for things for them, and they have done it in minutes.
However, it is easy to fight Afghanistan, but it is difficult to defend Afghanistan.
Soviet Union: Afghanistan's internal and external difficulties
After the Red Army occupied Afghanistan, it was found that this was only the beginning, and the soviets faced one revolt after another.
The Soviet army exhausted in the Battlefield of Afghanistan
The first is the domestic rebels, which include the local anti-Soviet and anti-government forces in the country, as well as the Islamic religious resistance forces. They formed various types of guerrilla groups, and although they could not confront the Red Army head-on, they were still good at drilling ravines and shooting cold guns.
The second is the intervention of foreign powers, which include several types here
One is the United States, the sworn enemy of the Soviet Union in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the United States in the 70s faced the Offensive of the Soviet Union and was on a strategic defensive position, and in order to counter the Soviet Union, they took a series of measures, including substantive diplomatic contacts with China and improved Sino-US relations. On the Battlefield in Afghanistan, the United States provided a large number of U.S.-made weapons to the anti-Soviet Afghan guerrillas, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and also purchased a large number of cheap and practical Soviet-made weapons through third countries to provide to the guerrillas, and there were even reports that the CIA of the United States was also active in Afghanistan at this time.
Afghan guerrillas shouldering anti-Stinger missiles
The second category is Pakistan. After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Soviet power directly threatened Pakistan. Leaving Pakistan in the back, Pakistan actively funded the Afghan guerrillas, overtly and covertly supporting the anti-Soviet forces, who even trained in Pakistan. This is how the later Taliban moved from Pakistan to the political scene of Afghanistan.
The third category is Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries, who are not only the patrons behind the Afghan guerrillas, but even call on many Muslims to go to Afghanistan to carry out "holy war" against the Soviet Union, and this is how the later terrorist tycoon "bin Laden" rushed from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan to join the anti-Soviet guerrillas.
It was with the financial support of these external forces that resistance in Afghanistan rose and fell, and the Soviet army was exhausted and suffered heavy losses, although more often than not, the Soviets had the upper hand, and the Soviets could not solve the problem once and for all. According to figures released by the Soviet Union, in the 10 years since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the number of Soviet troops killed exceeded 14,000.
United States: It is easy to drive out the Taliban, it is difficult to eliminate the Taliban
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was different from the Soviet Union. Because in the beginning their main target was the Taliban.
On October 7, 2001, while launching airstrikes against the Taliban, the Americans also made a multi-pronged approach, sending special forces into the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance-controlled areas of Afghanistan and organizing a ground offensive against the Taliban with the Northern Alliance, on the other hand, the United States found Karzai, an exiled Western politician close to the former Afghan royal family, as the leader of the Martial League who led the afghan anti-Taliban gate factions.
So the United States initially drove out the Taliban and formed a pro-American government smoothly, and the cost was not high.
However, whether it is the warlords of the Northern Alliance or the pro-American Afghan exile politicians, the operations of the Americans are concentrated in the upper echelons of Afghanistan, and only these upper echelons enjoy the results of expelling the Taliban, and this wave of operations of "no doctors and no courtesies" has made the Americans and the Afghan government barely have control in the big cities, but for the vast rural areas of Afghanistan outside the city, it is the world of the Taliban.
The United States is equally devastated in Afghanistan
As with the Soviet Union, in almost every head-on battle with the Taliban, U.S. and later NATO allies had the absolute upper hand, but Taliban suicide bombings almost never stopped. Americans are just as exhausted.
When the Soviet Union was in Afghanistan, Afghanistan was full of Soviet female deer helicopter gunships, and the American era was replaced by the rushing Black Hawk and Apache.
The Soviet Union spent 10 years in Afghanistan and the United States for 20 years, who is more miserable?
The Soviet Union spent a lot of military expenses, according to online statistics, said that the Soviet Union spent more than 50 billion US dollars in military spending, with more than 50,000 casualties. But you know, at that time, the Soviet Union did not have a financial market, they spent real money on the military in Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union in the 80s was already full of internal problems, so the wealth of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan was indeed unbearable for the Soviets, and in 1989 the Soviet Union finally announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, but after 2 years of withdrawal, the Soviet Union collapsed, from this point of view, the Soviet Union received more losses.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991
The Americans spent more on military spending. According to relevant statistics, the United States directly invested more than $1 trillion in the Afghan battlefield, but if all kinds of expenditures are counted, it is more than $2 trillion, and the number of US troops killed in Afghanistan exceeds 2,000, and the number of casualties exceeds 10,000. It's just that the United States holds world financial hegemony, and many of the $2 trillion invested in Afghanistan are leeks that Americans print directly from printed money and then cut from other countries in the world. Two years after the withdrawal of soviet troops, the Soviet Union collapsed. The Americans have just withdrawn their troops, and what happens to the United States remains to be verified.
But there is one thing that the Soviet Union was more successful than the Americans.
After the Withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1989, the Afghan Government Army fought independently for 3 years, and in 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated, and the former pro-Soviet Afghan government government continued to persist until there was a rebellion in this army in 1992.
By the way, the general who led the army to betray the Afghan government in 1992 was called Dostam, who later became the great warlord of Afghanistan, and after the Americans came, he also became the vice president of Afghanistan.
The Americans are much more difficult to see, the Americans directly spent more than 80 billion US dollars in Afghanistan to form a 300,000 Afghan government army, but the United States began a large-scale withdrawal from August, before the withdrawal was completed, the Afghan government army began to collapse completely, August 15 the Taliban has already captured Kabul, let alone 3 years, not even 3 months to survive.
Great escape from Kabul airport in the United States
From this point of view, the Soviet Union was really much more successful than the Americans.
But there was one thing the Americans were the most successful, something the Soviets simply could not match. That is, according to foreign media reports, during the US invasion of Afghanistan, the shares of the five major military giants such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Grumman and Lockheed Martin increased by 9 times, becoming the biggest winner.
And why can't the Soviet Union and the United States get rid of afghanistan, a small country?
There may be many reasons, but one reason may be the most fundamental, the people in power in Afghanistan in the Soviet era were people who spoke Russian better than Afghan Pashto (the official language of Afghanistan), while those in Power in Afghanistan in the American era were people who spoke Better English than Afghan Pashto, and those who only spoke Afghan Pashto could only follow the Taliban at the bottom.