The British in Afganistan

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Originally Posted by Tiberius

You were supposed to get rich. The plans failed though, and now it's costing a lot more than you bargained for.

Not just nukes, nuclear technology. While you're not using as much as France you are still using them. Anyway, nukes are more of a deterrent than a weapon. I don't see them being used unless another major war occurs.

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Oh, we were supposed to get rich... How exactly?

Nuclear tech? Erm, America didn't help the British get their first nukes. The Uk built their own nuclear reactor. India make nuclear reactors. How much help were they again?

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by AntiochusIII

And did the US troops really pulled out en mass?

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IIRC, US troops were never in Afghanistan en masse. The Northern Alliance took Kabul assisted by US airpower and apparently CIA briefcases of dollars to buy off local warlords on the road to power. There were some US special forces etc. but they were not "en masse". I guess some did come after the fact and were then replaced by other NATO forces, but I am not sure it was a very large deployment.

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The manpower, focus, and resources were there to actually pacify the damn country and establish some semblance of modernity until somebody decides that Saddam annoys him more and drives that way instead, so yeah.

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Again, I think Afghanistan was always done on a budget. I don't think there ever was the manpower, focus - remember the controversy over Tora-Bora and letting OBL slip away - or resources.

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The dead Taliban's back from his grave, alive and kicking, because apparently the corpse was left to be necro-ed back to fight instead of proper burial.

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With a country like Afganistan (or most other failed states), it is fairly easy for a foreign power or their proxy to seize the capital. But pacifying the countryside is quite another matter. Was it said of them, an Afghan's loyalty can never be bought, only rented?

Unlike Iraq - where the Coalition was widely criticised for going in too "light" and a bigger footprint initially might have stopped the insurgency gaining strength - I think this strategy of relying on proxy forces made sense in Afghanistan. The Afghans are a notoriously fierce and independent people. I can't see 3000 British troops doing much good. And they risk stirring up the kind of hornets nest that drove off the Red Army.

I also thinking burning poppy fields is a futile and deluded policy.

Afghanistan does need infrastructure but it is not obvious why the British army should be the one to provide it. With a country so poor, domestic labour - and indeed security - should be cheap.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

The masses in the USA didn't want to go to war. And indeed Germany declard war on the USA. Intervene??? :inquisitive:

The bottom line is that the UK should never have got into WW2 in the first place.



The Americans didn't so much as beat Britian as make Britain decide that fighting was too costly.

Ragnar, nothing wrong with bieng a patriot. Lots wrong with bieng an ignorant patriot.

"Best be silent and people think you know nothing than to speak and for people to know it"

~:smoking:

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You might want to learn your history. We forced two british armies to surrender. Ever hear of Burgoyne? Yorktown?

You're entitled to your own opinions. Not your own facts.

If tommorow half the Americans in Iraq were forced to surrender by the insurgents, you wouldn't be saying "no big deal we just wanted to leave anyway". Especially not if it happened twice.:laugh4:

Yorktown: 7,000 British soldiers were captured by a combined French and American force. 1/4 of the men in America at the time. So, something like 21,000 troops in America.

How many in the British Army at that period? 100,000 or thereabout?

America didn't break the back of the British. They showed that winning the war was not profitable. The area of land was fairly small, and not amazingly profitable. There were more impartant things in the world than fighting the Americans.

To America this might have been an historic event, but apart from causing a government to fall in the UK, nothing else really changed.

~:smoking:

Heheh, this thread has lost focus and direction quicker than the mission in Afghanistan. :balloon2:

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Heheh, this thread has lost focus and direction quicker than the mission in Afghanistan. :balloon2:

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Very much so.

By the way I believe that there is currently still American Forces in Afganstan.

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Originally Posted by 2005 Article speaking about March-April United States Troop strength in Afganstan

The reduction would bring U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to about 16,500.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...n1143289.shtml

If the British army in is prime couldnt conquer the Afgans. What are a few thousand peace-keepers, or whatever Bliar is calling them now, expected to do.

Yes so we take a few drugs off the streets, by destroying the poppy crops, which are by-the-way the consequence of the Taliban being overthrown.

If Bliar is trying to re-kindle the empire maybe he is going about it the wrong way.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

Yorktown: 7,000 British soldiers were captured by a combined French and American force. 1/4 of the men in America at the time. So, something like 21,000 troops in America.

How many in the British Army at that period? 100,000 or thereabout?

America didn't break the back of the British. They showed that winning the war was not profitable. The area of land was fairly small, and not amazingly profitable. There were more impartant things in the world than fighting the Americans.
To America this might have been an historic event, but apart from causing a government to fall in the UK, nothing else really changed.

~:smoking:

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The colonies were huge compared to Britain, and they were a vital part of Britain's mercantilist trading system of the time. To give some perspective, Philadelphia was the second largest English-speaking city in the world at the time after London and you can see the scale of Britain's loss at the time. She may have recovered but the loss was significant.

But the colonies were still thought of as expendable when the effort to win them was examined.

Britain was still aquiring colonies at a extremely fast rate (for example Canada 30 years previously, as well parts of India).

A significant loss, but one that could be replaced with far greater ease elsewhere.

~:smoking: