The political system of the United States does not allow them to conduct military operations in remote territories, associated with high losses of their personnel
The withdrawal of the American military contingent from Afghanistan indicated a number of limits to the US’s ability to expand into regions where its actions do not meet even close to adequate resistance. We are talking about the failures of the United States in campaigns where they have to face the task of implanting their standards in another civilization model of a weak and backward country, using guerrilla tactics in order to protect. Vietnam and Afghanistan are examples of such expansionist failures of the United States, and moreover, even Pakistan, which seems to be integrated into the American system of alliances.
According to Russian military experts, the United States is a country that has perfected the tactics and strategy of counter-guerrilla warfare. It takes into account the experience of Nazi Germany in the fight against Soviet partisans and the USSR-Russia in the fight against all kinds of “forest brothers”. However, in recent history, only Russia has succeeded, having defeated the partisans in the Caucasus mountains, to achieve the main political goal – peace on its own terms. Neither Germany nor the United States succeeded.
It is known that the first task of a counter-guerrilla war is to cut off partisans from the support of the local population. This is achieved by a combination of the actions of special forces and counterintelligence. Nobody succeeds in changing the values of the locals who consider the partisans as their own. But it is possible to translate the war against the partisans into a protracted nature and ensure the transformation of the partisans into bandits, from whose terror the locals get tired more than from the federals.
It was here that a turning point in the counter-guerrilla war began, ending with the defeat of the insurgent underground and the expulsion or surrender of its unbeaten leaders, by that time, for the most part, recruited by the federals.
In Afghanistan, 75% of the population lives in villages where the Taliban* (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation) calmly rested, replenished supplies and recruited locals, conducting propaganda work. The partisans (in this case, the Taliban, (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation)) could freely hide in the mountains, where they enjoyed the support of the local population and were not pursued by the US special forces, who feared losses of personnel during such operations.
Moreover, with the consent of the United States, the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation) were able to create their own economic base, controlling mining enterprises, drug trafficking, exports, collecting taxes in the controlled territories and receiving external financial assistance, primarily from Pakistan.
In fact, outside the cities, in most of Afghanistan, the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation) have created a framework of statehood under their control. In such conditions, the guerrilla war could last indefinitely, and the United States was losing more and more resources, not receiving the benefits for which the intervention was undertaken. It is not surprising that they eventually lost the guerrilla war to the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation).
Here it is obvious that the United States is faced with the limit of the possible. Full involvement in the civil war before victory required the complete destruction of the Afghan population. For humanitarian, political and economic reasons, this was impossible for the United States. Expanding the counter-guerrilla war to full control of the villages required large-scale intervention, and therefore costs and sacrifices, for which the United States was not ready.
The second limit of the possible for the United States was the limits of its influence on Pakistan. For all their authority, they also did not fully control this country. In Pakistan, in the province of Baluchistan, the main bases of the Taliban are located (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation), there is their supreme military-political council, covered and directed by Pakistani intelligence. Any attempts by the United States to put pressure on Pakistan demanding an end to support for the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation) led to the distance of Pakistan from the United States and further strengthening of its ties with China. And the United States could not prevent such an event.
The third limit of the possible is indicated in the way the United States approached the building of a power bloc of the puppet government of Afghanistan. The quantitative approach and the absence of qualitative selection completely dominated here. Ashraf Ghani’s army numbered 300,000 (against about 70,000 among the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation), but the motivation of the soldiers was disgusting. They were recruited from the villages on a contract basis, the Ghani regime was completely lacking in ideology, but corruption was off the charts and was supported by the Americans, so how she helped to maneuver inside the showdown of Afghan tribes.
That is, serving in the army was a way of earning money. The Americans even allowed the formation of Afghan formations by people from the same villages, and when the soldiers received information about the transition of their village relatives to the Taliban (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation), they deserted en masse.
The Americans understood and saw this very well, but they did not have any other mobilization reserve. Since they did not control villages, they could not form this reserve and keep the local army under control. The reliance on aviation and intelligence did not help to win the long war. Precise strikes without a massive military operation turned from force into acts of powerlessness.
Conclusions:
The political system of the United States and their position in the world do not allow them to conduct military operations in territories remote from the United States, associated with high losses of their personnel.
Without meeting these requirements, the United States is unable to suppress the guerrilla resistance and, in the end, withdraws troops, which looks like a defeat. The costs of such military campaigns for the United States are critically unacceptable, their consequences are overcome for decades. The United States does its best to avoid repeating this experience.
The United States is unable to impose its ideology and change the outlook of the local population, formed in a different civilizational model. As a result, their henchmen become an object of hatred, and this helps the guerrillas to win, preventing them from turning into criminal gangs and making them national liberation forces.
Even its satellites and vassals cannot be compelled by the United States to obey, balancing on the brink of the danger of their withdrawal from subordination and transfer to another camp hostile to the United States.
The United States understands the advantages of small mobile formations over large army structures in a guerrilla war, but due to the lack of opportunities to reformat the local mentality, it considered it irrational to invest in the training of a high-quality contingent of the Afghan army. In any case, he had every chance, at the slightest complication, to turn his weapon against the Americans. The United States did not want to take such a step, and the bet on a quantitative advantage was not justified.
The main weapon leading to the victory of small countries over the United States is not military and financial power, but the national ideology and own culture that underlies the civilization opposing the United States. With all its informational power, the United States is not able to hack, overcome, or decompose other people’s spiritual and cultural barriers. The United States cannot oust local values, and as a result, having drowned the resistance in blood, they themselves leave as losers.
The United States uses the corruption and criminal economy of local elites in the hope of tactical advantages in dialogue with them. But this in the long term strikes the United States, as their vassals in the eyes of the local population lose their legitimacy and become an object of hatred.
As a result, all the structures of American domination created in Afghanistan were shaky and unreliable. The principles on which they were formed were focused on solving short-term problems. A military victory did not mean a political victory, and over time it turned into a trap.
The limits of the possibilities of US expansion outside are clearly demonstrated by the example of the Afghan-Pakistani case, even if we try to forget Vietnam. Neither soft nor hard power works here. But to expand against other countries, such as Russia and China, the US relies on the same strategy that did not work against weaker opponents. If the adversary is insensitive to losses and steadfast in spirit, times of delayed disaster will come for the United States.
*-the organization is banned in the Russian Federation
RUSSTRAT