People have this strange idea that you win wars "honorably". You dont. You "honorably" lose or create a multi-decade insurgency.
If you want to win, you negotiate a peaceful solution (not a war) or you win the war by destroying the enemy. Not by lining up in an open field to take turns murdering each other, but by utterly destroying the enemy. As in you identify where the enemy is, destroy key military positions through targeted strikes, and then carpet bomb everything else until either the enemy (including unlawful combatants) totally surrenders or everyone is dead.
Exhibit A: Japan. Firebombed until it should have surrendered, then nuked twice to get the point across.
Exhibit B: WWII Germany: Bombed and then invaded so thoroughly that Naziism is literally illegal there now.
The USA should have done the same with Afghanistan: either negotiate (preferable), or obliterate it. If that meant setting up a free fire zone for anything moving within 20 miles of the border and nuking every population center...too damn bad. War is hell, lest we should grow too fond of it.
True. If your enemy refuses to make reasonable negotiations to cease hostilities and continually violates any agreements, then you annihilate that enemy.
In Afghanistan I still don't understand why first the Soviets were there pussy footing around and pissing off survivors in villages they tried to wipe out and then when efforts failed to Sovietize them they pulled out and we found an excuse to go in and start all over again with our own ideology. Why were Soviets there and why were we there? There must be a common objective beyond ideology which was to me looking like just an excuse.
Mining rights? What does that area have that's of such vital importance?
The USA should have done the same with Afghanistan
But then how would we have our forever war to suck away our bravest to be killed for kikes?
Japan didn't surrender because we dropped two nukes on them. They were willing to endure an invasion by the Americans. What got them to surrender was when the USSR declared war against Japan a day or two before. They didn't want a Soviet invasion because they new the outcome would be far worse.
With Afghanistan, and the Soviets found this out as well, is you can't bomb a country into submission if the majority of the population already lives in stone age conditions. That war was strickly to have control of the poppy fields.
You're misunderstanding conquest vs war. Bombing stone age people for conquest works poorly. If you just want to eliminate a threat (war) it works great. E.g. the Taliban cant export Jihadis if their cities are nuked, fields destroyed, and borders a 20 mile free-fire zone.
As for Japan, sure, the Soviet entry into the war precipitated surrender and the USA was planning an invasion, but that reflects overplanning more than necessity. Sitting back and bombing the home islands was 100% viable. An island nation bombed into the stone age is no longer a threat because they cant leave.
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