Money is power. You cannot have power without money. But what seems like infinite money is being poured into Afghanistan and what seemed like infinite money was being poured into Vietnam. People say that we can’t win the war and should just stop fighting these wars with “Unconquerable Lands” gaining trillions of dollars of debt or more specifically 2.4 trillion dollars of borrowed money (keep in mind this is estimated). But it’s not the land we are fighting on that’s the problem it’s attritional warfare, killing public support of the war, hiding then hitting, then hiding again specifically targeting near anyone with a camera. It is with these tactics that anybody can defeat anything.

The Tiger and the Elephant  

“If the tiger were to pause, the elephant would impale him with his tusks. But the tiger will not pause, and the elephant will die from exhaustion and loss of blood.” - Ho Chi Minh ( former prime minister of Vietnam) The U.S.A and its entire alliance in this case are the elephant and North Vietnam was the tiger. The worst years of the Vietnam war and the turning point of it was the Tet Offensive when Vietnam launched tons of Viet-cong attacks on Americans or more specifically the Americans with the cameras affecting home base morale making US citizens concerned for the sake of their loved ones and putting more demand on someone who would end the war and pull the troops out of there as quickly as possible, and so the cuts started to really bleed and eventually the South Vietnamese were defeated along with the entire Anti- Communist alliance.

Guerilla Warfare in Afghanistan

It’s been nearly 17 years since the U.S first invaded Afghanistan and the Taliban are doing exactly what the North VIetnamese were doing, biding in caves hitting where it’s soft and running where it’s strong. Making sure they bomb areas as much as possible so mainstream media reports on it to the general public making them wanting to get their soldiers out of their not just for the sake of the Americans there, but for the sake of the Afghan citizens hoping the Taliban will stop.

The Almost Unconquerable Land

Not the Soviets, not the British, not Alexander (maybe), none of them could conquer Afghanistan completely. But I said almost unconquerable. Persia did,Timur, and Genghis did conquer them. The main reason we will lose this war is the public perception of it making a high demand for someone who will withdraw troops more and more until there are almost no troops in Afghanistan, they are playing mind games trying to get into our heads making us fear them or fear losing the ones we love, making this war so much more personal to us trying to get us to fold and quit. Whether we will win or not is still up for debate. But it is unmistakable that we will lose if we think we cannot win just because others couldn’t.

Sources: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-usa-funding/u-s-cbo-estimates-2-4-trillion-long-term-war-costs-idUSN2450753720071024

The Tiger and Elephant: http://indochine54.free.fr/vm/tiger.html

The Almost Unconquerable Land: https://www.britannica.com/place/Iran/The-Mongol-invasion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpT2xaIc90I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7c_DLMh3xM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSjy_x9d5TM