What is the problem with the Taliban?
The history of invasions on Afghanistan in long and depressive. There have been many nations and armies, which have tried to win that weak-looking military forces. And there was always some kind of a disappointment (1).
The figure is always the same. The attacking army has been got the victory in open battle and controlled the cities quite easily, what has been happened in the Soviets and NATO-operations. But then the warfare has been turned to guerrilla fight, which has been caused many casualties when the guerrillas, who have operated at the mountains have made "hit and run" strikes against convoys.
When we are thinking about the peace treaty between the USA and the Taliban is causing discussions about the power and willingness about the attitude to the organization, what has been justified as terrorists. There is always remembered that the Taliban has been caused terrible losses to the western armies and crushed the Isis. But when we are looking at the backward in history, we might remember that the Taliban also kicked the soviet army out from that country. And also British empire faced this kind of fate in that very rough road (1).
In the first Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842) the British empire lost 4700 soldiers in the battles and most of the victims were camp followers, and 12 000 of them were killed. So the casualties of that conflict on the British side were over 16 000 persons (2). The number of Afghan casualties is unknown. In the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) British military expedition faced tough resistance and 9850 fatalities Afghan side fatalities were over 5000 (3).
That meant that there is a long tradition in that kind of warfare, where the superior military force has faced the unexpected and very effective resistance in that country. So when you are looking at the list of unsuccessful military actions in that country (1), that is quite depressive to read.
The problem in Afghanistan is similar to this kind of guerrilla warfare usually. Those local troops are easy to win in open battle, by using massive firepower. But when the area is almost cleaned, the guerrilla combatants are harder to find. When the guerrilla group attack against convoys they are easy to detect, if there are some spotter planes in that area. And that means that this kind of situation allows use missiles and the newest military technology like remotely-operated drones.
But if those attacks are done in urban areas, the drones cannot locate those people so effectively, what they should. If the combatants are fleeing in their home villages or of course they can live in Kabul, that means that locating those combatants is difficult. In that kind of case the use of missiles and recon planes is useless.
The combatants must search by the house to house and the patrols must also search every single room in the house. This makes that kind of operation slow. But the reason why the United States wants to bring their men home is that they are seeing, that their men are dying in Afghanistan for nothing. That war has been so long and bloody, that there must be some other solution for that kind of situation, that terrorism is always rising without depending on the actions, what the military forces are doing.
The thing is that finding the Taliban combatant in the middle of thousands of people is quite a difficult thing. One of the best motivators for those combatants is the poor environment and the other thing is that the trust for authorities is near zero. Also, afraid of extortion has been caused, that the motivation of those combatants has been very high. The highly motivated enemy has been caused very strong psychological stress for the military forces, what is operating in that area, and this is, of course, the main reason, why Western nations want to leave that area even without the military victory.
When we are thinking that the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan in 1979 (4) and those forces left from that country in 1989, and after that, there was the civil war, then the USA invaded Afghanistan in 2001 (5), and the war or "unstable situation" continues today, there have been over 40 years of war in that area. This thing causes traumatic memories, and those memories will be not lost in minutes. So there must be found some other than only the military solution in that country.
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