Vanir Ausf B

Yeah... it doesn't so much contrast as it does obscure.

I've been a little loose with my terminology. It will be more than a "few" thousand. There will be at least 10,000 because that is what the Pentagon considers the minimum for force protection. And I don't think the ANA will be indifferent to protecting their air support

As you have likely gathered by me previous posts, I don't agree. Karzai will go eventually, and probably his regime. Everyone is not going to suddenly jump up and join the Taliban.

Imagine what big fat juicy morsels the 100,000+ ISAF personnel presently there must look like.

If by "return" you mean commit 100,000 troops, I completely agree. But keeping a few thousand in country in a support role is not a problem politically. Once the steady drip of casualties dries up the issue will subside into the background.

How nobel of them. But the shortcomings of the Karzai government do not abrogate those of the Taliban. The foreign invaders are mostly leaving anyways. And the Taliban will not accept any deal that does not leave them in charge. Given the small number of troops required the answer to all of those questions is "yes". Here's the thing you are not understanding. Or one of the things. There will always be opposition to the Taliban. Always. Their ideologically harsh and authoritarian brand of governence guarentees it. We back the opposition. Whether that opposition involves Karzai or not is ultimately not of critical importance. You're posts are what wishful thinking looks like.

You're in trouble if Womble reads this. Usually the US Secretary of Defense. Sometimes the President or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Sometimes the ISAF commander especially back when Petraeus was in the post. I think the handover timeline is still on track because there is no indication I am aware of that it has been changed, nor is there any reason why it must be changed. That fact that some minority of ANA soldiers are not trustworthy is not a reason for the handover to not happen. I somehow doubt 100% trustworthiness was ever the goal to begin with. The Vietnam canard, again. I think I mentioned before that the US Congress passed a law making it illegal for the US to provide direct military assistance to South Vietnam after 1973. And the South Vietnamese government was toppled by an invading army, not a popular revolution. Lots of differences with Afghanistan. I don't know how much longer Karzai will last. I do not think his personal survival is necessary, as if his life force were the only thing holding the Taliban at bay. This is your end game scenario? The Taliban don't win by conquering everyone, they win when everyone joins the Taliban? The Shia Tajiks and the Shia Hazara and the Sunni Tajiks and the Hazara all forget about that little unpleasantness in the 90s and decide to join up? That is pure wishful thinking, and completely preposterous. The ethnic and religious divides, the competing ambitions of warlords and nation states that tore the country apart in the 90s have not magically disappeared. The Taliban are still the Taliban, except probably even more religiously intolerant than before after years of close contact and cooperation with al-Qaeda. Most of the senior commanders of the ANA are former Northern Alliance. No matter how much of a turd Karzai is at least he's not cutting off people's heads for listening to music or stoning them to death for not growing their beards long enough. They will be welcomed as liberators? Really? Super duper NATO trooper

I wonder if the number of new products BFC is working on is a factor to some degree. I haven't made any kind of survey, but it seems to me that a large chunk of the scenarios submitted to the repository are made by the same people who contribute scenarios to BFC's products. With 3 (!) new games scheduled to be released in a roughly 18 month time frame, and probably 2 or 3 modules as well, I would think BFC would either have had to recruit some more scenario designers or the existing designers may not have as much time for freebies.

With regard to Saudi Arabia it is simple. It's the same reason they are not supporting the Taliban right now. And that is their relationship with the United States is far more valuable to their national interests that their relationship with the Taliban. And although I can't say for sure, I suspect that their recent experiences with al-Qaeda attacks on their own soil may have altered their view of the Taliban's alliance with that organization, compared to what it was in the 90s. Pakistan is more difficult to predict. They presently support some elements of the Afghan Taliban while fighting an insurgency of their own against elements of the Pakistan Taliban allied with al-Qaeda. Pakistan's support seems to take the form of a wink and a nod towards the activities of those groups rather than material support. But I think at the least they are unlikely to resume the level of overt material support they did in the 90s because there would be serious consequences both in terms of their relationship with the US and other Western nations and also because of their own insurgency problems.

No. Maybe. I didn't see the original quote, so I'm not sure of the context. On track in what way? If by that he meant that the process is going smoothly then that is clearly not the case. If he meant that the time table for the handover is on track then that could well be true, and I suspect that is what he was referring to. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19642555 Rassmussen? To be honest, before this thread I had never heard of the guy. I have no real opinion on him one way or the other. If you mean NATO, I try to judge every piece of information on it's own merits. Having said that, based on what we know I do not believe NATO is engaged in a widespread systemic coverup of the sort you seem to believe in. Oh I think you have been very clear that you have a very low opinion of NATO and NATO service members in general.

Why would you suppose that only "vast" amounts of support will prevent the Taliban from doing something that they were unable to do in the 90s against a foe that had less-than-vast amounts of support? They have because they had to, not because they wanted to. And the point remains that they have no means of capturing and controlling territory outside of their ethnic areas without resorting to a more conventional posture. They do, but to a lesser degree than in the 90s.

Well, yeah. Where did you get the idea that we were planning to withdraw everyone? http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/03/us_withdrawal_from_a.php You mean the non-Pashtun areas. About 1/3. Um, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that the Taliban made their gains in the 90s though an asymmetrical insurgency campaign similar to the one they are waging today. That is not how it happened. They operated as a fairly conventional military force. And it is worth noting that the Taliban were actually losing the war against the Afghan government up until support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia began flowing in.

Without any ISAF help? No. But with air support and a small number of special forces teams on the ground, yes. And I think that because that is essentialy how the Taliban were driven from power in 2001. Perhaps in the Pashtun areas where they have support from most of the civilian population. Not so much in the Northern areas. Even in the 90's when the Taliban was stronger than today and it's opposition weaker they never were able to control the whole country.

Just because I don't automatically assume something is false doesn't mean I uncritically accept it as true. I've made this point before, and I think you are being deliberately obtuse.

So numbers that are not relatively easily checked should be assumed to be manufactured until proven otherwise? I'm not going to do that. I prefer to judge different bits of information on their own merits as opposed to making broad assumptions. I have no problem reading one statement as implausible based on what I know and another as plausible, even from the same source. They also rode into the base on the backs of sandworms.

Right. But that would be a completely new game with new units. I'm talking about making use of units already made.

After the Bulge and Bagration to Berlin games are out something that would be very cool would be the ability to pit the late war Soviets against late war US and UK in a Patton Goes East (or Zhukov Goes West)-type game. The units would already be done, we would just need a module to get them in the same game.

Oh, and one more thing that I neglected to mention earlier. NATO may often put a positive spin on assessments that are essentially judgement calls, i.e. how's the war going, but they typically do not fudge numbers. We are arguing over a number.

I do accept it as plausible, just not uncritically.

1) No 2) Some time next year. 3) Don't know. I think it unlikely as BFC have been generally negative about the idea in the past, but they've been known to change their minds

Although relative cultural sensitivity may not have changed, the atmosphere in which the cultural interaction takes place almost certainly has. The attacks create distrust and suspicion which makes interaction more difficult, which in turn creates the conditions for negative experiences. Essentially the attacks themselves cause a snowball effect. And of course there is always the copycat effect. I don't think that uncritically accepting everything NATO says as the unvarnished truth was ever the issue. Reliable for what? Viable for what? To kill every last Taliban in the country? Of course not. Viable for keeping the Taliban from overrunning the non-Pashtun areas of the country? I think so, as long as they have support. Remember, when the Taliban were driven from power in 2001 it wasn't the 1st Infantry Division doing the driving out. It was primarily the Northern Alliance and some bribed warlords, with imbedded special forces teams. The Taliban's ability to stand up to any conventional force in large operations is extremely limited. I've already said I think we are looking at a defacto partition. No. But then again, the "track" was created primarily with domestic political concerns in mind so it's not surprising that events in Afghanistan are not being cooperative. Did this actually happen? I've seen far more protests over a Youtube video than I have over Afghanistan. I would call that a hypothetical. Muslims who are into violent world-wide jihad have a belief system that did not originate from events in Afghanistan and predates our involvement there. All perfectly reasonable. But it's also predicated on happening after the West leaves. When is that? We are drawing down, but contrary to popular belief there is no timetable for complete withdrawal. Hmm, I'm not sure what the withdrawal of the surge troops has to do with the discussion. As I'm sure you are aware, a date for the withdrawal of those troops was set before they had even deployed. That was done purely for domestic political consumption*. Their withdrawal is indicative of nothing other than that their withdrawal date has arrived and they have been withdrawn as scheduled. * Specifically, it was a sop thrown by President Obama to the anti-war wing of his party. Much grumbling has resulted.

International support isn't going to dry up after 2014. I don't know where the assumption that it will comes from. In fact NATO hasn't even said it will be out by 2014, only that they intend to transition from a combat role to a support role. South Vietnam was invaded and conquered by the North Vietnamese Army, not the Viet Cong. There will be no Case–Church Amendment for Afghanistan. NATO air cover means that it is nearly impossible for the Taliban to effectively transition to a conventional military campaign. It's hard to capture and control territory with IEDs and suicide bombers, especially in the northern non-Pashtun provinces where the civilian populace is more likely to have relatives in the ANA than in the Taliban.

That was an example of one possible reason. There are countless possible others. I don't pretend to know what all the actual reasons are. The report I saw put the ratio of Taliban related green on blue attacks at about 1/4 of the total. If you believe this is not correct then tell us what the real ratio is. It would be more accurate to say that I don't believe there is enough evidence for us to judge either way. But if you can tell me what the true ratio is I will reconsider. So far all you've put forth is that we should not believe what NATO tells us, whatever that may be, because it comes from NATO, but should believe what you tell us instead because it comes from you. Does not the NATO statement that 1/4 (roughly) of the incidents are Taliban related constitute a confirmation that the Taliban are using it as a strategy? Seems to me that is does. I see no conflict between the two statements. How many al-Qaida training camps are there in Afghanistan presently? Whatever their presence is, it's a fraction of what it once was. We'll see. It's not the first time they've said that. So let's be clear. You think the Taliban is going to win the war outright. They will overrun the country, let al-Qaida set up shop and they will party like it's 1999 all over again. Is that correct?

To most grogs casting aspersions towards Jentz is akin to cursing God.

I'm going to address your points slightly out of order, if you don't mind. Or even if you do I don't find the report that most, not all, but most of the incidents are motivated by personal grievance difficult to believe on its face. Men in that part of the world are highly protective of their personal dignity and honor, which is fine but can become a problem when you are trying to instill military discipline on them. They also tend to react violently to perceived slights, as anyone who has been watching the news in the past few days can understand. I find the idea that you are a more accurate source of information on the subject than NATO amusing. Not being involved in a conflict does not mean you are a dispassionate observer, it just means you're an observer. If you can provide something that is not purely speculative I'm willing to listen. That's assuming that creating a modern state was the primary reason. It was not. There are plenty of failed states around the world, but we are not invading all of them and we did not invade Afghanistan because of an overwhelming desire to improve it's sewage treatment systems. We went there because the organization that carried out the 9/11 attacks -- and many others previously and subsequently -- was there. You are focusing exclusively on the nation building aspect in order to frame the larger narrative from the most negative perspective. My guess is that the professional officers in the NATO forces have a more nuanced view of the situation than you appear to. You freely toss around words such as "beaten", "defeated" and "failure" in relation to the NATO efforts, but the political and military situation is too complex to be characterized by absolute declarations of total victory or abject defeat. As mentioned above, Afghanistan was not invaded in order to transform it into some kind of south central Asian version of Las Vegas. We were primary concerned with destroying al-Qaida*, or at least destroying al-Qaida'a ability to continue carrying out attacks on us (and by "us" I mean the West in general, not just the United States). In that we have been largely successful. * (There was actually internal debate about whether we should target the Taliban at all, or if we should attempt to target just al-Qaida and leave the Taliban in power. In was eventually decided that the two organizations were too closely integrated to effectively separate one from the other and that the Taliban would probably choose to fight us either way.) Right now it seems likely that Afghanistan in the near future is looking at effective partition between the Pashtun areas dominated by the Taliban and the rest of the country run by the corrupt government. That is less than ideal, but I think we can live with it. After all, we're not there to conquer the place (it would have been in some ways far simpler if we had been). We've been able to effectively attrit the remnants of al-Qaida in Pakistan from over the border, and if the Taliban are foolish enough to let them back in Afghanistan in significant force I don't see any reason we can't do the same there as long as we maintain access to near-by bases. That isn't a win, exactly, but it's not really a defeat either. In fact, I feel confident stating that no matter what happens from here on out it is very unlikely we are going to be "beaten" or "defeated" because to a significant degree we have already won. Now you could certainly argue that from a purely cost/benefit analysts perspective it would have been wiser to call it good enough and left years ago, and I wouldn't disagree with that.