...The NLF (Viet Cong) and the Taliban would like a word with you. You don’t go toe to toe with the US military, you bleed them dry in a people’s protracted war if necessary. In such a situation time is on the side of the guerillas, as their very existence is a continuous threat to the government’s legitimatcy and a humiliation. Each flight of a jet plane or drone, every laser guided missile, every day a ground force has to remain mobilized costs millions of not billions of dollars.

For example, the Taliban would pay some villager $3 to go on top of hill by a military base, unload a mag from a AK47 in the general direction of the base and then immediately leave. The base would then be placed on high alert, search and response teams would have to be mobilized, maybe they’d fly up a helicopter to look around. Of course they’d always find nothing, as the villager had already went home and had dinner while the American soldiers were trampling through the mountains looking for a Taliban strike team that didn’t exist. The Americans would then return back to base tired and demoralized.

Once the base had been declared safe again and all the soldiers had settled in to rest, another villager would come and shoot off another mag at them, forcing them to go through the whole process over again because if it was a strike team they’d be fucked if they ignored it. And they’d do this everyday, week after week, month after month, year after year. Cost for the Taliban? $20 and some 50 year old Soviet military surplus. Cost for the Americans? Hundreds of gallons of fuel, the soldier’s morale, disruption to the base’s function, national pride. Hell if the locals were feeling ambitious maybe they’d leave a few IEDs around a blow up a truck or a guys right leg. That’s another news story back in the states, another asset lost to the quagmire with nothing to show for it. And if some fustrated “operator” decides to take it out on a local Afghan?? Well he’s just made all their male relatives and friends Taliban sympathizers if not fighters. That’s asymmetric warfare in a nutshell right there, done by the best in the business.

Now look at the state of Afghanistan. The Taliban control like 75% of the country, the president has been basically reduced to being the mayor of Kabul, despite the US dumping trillions of dollars and thousands of troops into this conflict. Just in February the American Empire was forced to the negotiation table with the Taliban and is straight up about to run away with it’s tail between its legs.

NOTE: I don't endorse the Taliban or anything like that, they're fundamentalist fascists, but they've kicked the asses of two superpowers and you just gotta hand it to them, they're effective.

(This was initially a response to a comment but I got into the writing move and cranked this out so I think it's worthy of its own post.)

  • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
    1·
    4 years ago

    meaning that they’re completely unprepared to deal with any local ‘action’

    The state will have informants in any revolutionary group

    in the imperial heartland i’d wager that your average dipshit is more likely to have had some kind of military service but even if not those afghans didn’t wake up one day as unstoppable killing machines

    The taliban had expert bomb makers before the war even started, and many were experienced from fighting the soviets

    and almost completely undefended as are the factories, airports rail yards and ports.

    The air bases where they will land the supplies in the event that you are even moderately successful are protected with machine gun nests and APCs. You won't be able to hold the factories and the idea that you can deplete their stockpiles of equipment, ammunition, and aviation fuel, to the point that the factories will even become relevant is ludicrous

    you can have one but not the other. that support will last right up to the moment where the air force vaporizes the wrong school bus and then it’s gone forever.

    Are we talking about the same USA? The police vapourised an entire block to murder a group of black people and noone outside of lefty circles seems to care, plus the current gestapo knockoff going around dragging people off the street while the majority ignore it. Do you think the public won't rationalise the collateral damage to protect their country from "dangerous terrorists"?

    a guard armory is probably in your town, full of infantry small arms and defended by a lock and an alarm

    That alarm will bring down heavily armed soldiers and possibly armoured vehicles into the area and they won't leave until the hardware is found. Better hope noone rats you out. And small arms aren't the problem, you have no anti-air, you have nothing to deal with armoured vehicles. The Taliban had anti-tank weapons and some anti-air weapons left by the soviets.

      • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        like they had informants in the Taliban and every fighting group in Iraq and yet…

        The main difference being if one of the informants over there say "The members of the group are..." the US doesn't have access to every single detail of the fighters' identity, for their own citizens they have access to every record of your life since birth

        like I said the wars have been going on for long enough that this is a moot point, plenty here have lots of experience too

        They have experience of fighting as a conventional army with proper equipment, the Taliban had experience fighting guerilla war with whatever they could find, there is a big difference

        they’re protected by a chain-link fence and civilian cops at most, even the MPs are only carrying M9s and maybe a few M4s at the stock house and that’s it.

        Considering that the USAF airbase near where I live (UK) has two bradleys on the tarmac, and machinegun nests around the tower with the airfield security carrying M16s, i find that hard to believe

        but you can destroy them

        Meaningless, they have production capability around the globe and allies who will supply them

        lmao no it won’t, the cops might show up thirty minutes later and that’s that.

        You seriously believe that the military won't care that a load of heavy weaponry got stolen?

        molotovs if you find any armored vehicles stupid enough to come into a built-up area after you

        Molotovs don't work on modern armour, the abrams is pretty much watertight, plus getting close enough to throw one and then get away without being mown down would be difficult

        those were given by other countries in a trickle compared to the firehose Norinco would point at California

        Assuming they don't get embargoed

          • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            at least in Iraq they did, yes.

            Was Iraq as fond of spying on its own citizens as the USA though?

            from experience, something being used on you is maybe the best teacher.

            Fair point

            I live miles away from one of the largest and most important air force bases in the US. I’ve been inside of it multiple times and flown out of it once, I assure you, they don’t have bradleys and the MPs aren’t carrying M-16s. Bases off CONUS are different, naturally.

            Fair enough, but if any revolution gets off the ground, surely they'll step up security at least to the level of bases in friendly countries.
            Just out of curiosity, it isn't Whiteman is it?

            and we’re back to the total lack of defense of ports and airports and rail yards etc

            To hit all of them you will need a hell of a lot of people scattered all across the US

            Do you have any idea how many weapons go missing every year? How many straight-up get sold off by armory staff or just fall off the back of a truck?

            Surely they would react differently to a breakin than to someone skimming guns off the top

            I assure you from experience that they totally work on modern armor

            I'm confused as to how, the way a molotov knocks out a tank is by killing/incapacitating the crew, cooking off the ammunition, or igniting the fuel. How does that happen when the tank is watertight?

              • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
                ·
                4 years ago

                It was actually us doing the spying for Iraq

                why am I not surprised by that

                in the event of a civil war or revolution the military would fracture and it wouldn’t really matter.

                Once the revolution has built momentum (assuming it isn't dead before that point) I can see that maybe happening, but if you're grabbing those guns early on, when it's a minor insurrection, would they react as if it were wartime?

                If you toss one on the engine deck the burning whatever will work its way into air intakes and set filters on fire and melt wires, belts and hoses; then the tank’s a mobility kill. It would be out of the fight at least until recovered or it would be abandoned in place and destroyed.

                I was lead to believe that would be a difficult shot at the best of times, even more so if you are in danger of being lit up by the coaxial machine gun, or is that wrong?

                  • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    In the UK I can’t imagine that there is a single patch of land that isn’t at most an hour away by helicopter from the nearest large military post.

                    This is mostly true, there are places that would take longer to get to because of how the bases are distributed. But one thing working in our favour is that our army in particular has been cut back to the bone, there are only ~73,470 (as of last november) active personnel, the lowest it's been since the 2nd world war

                    ideally you’ll be trying to kill it from above it in town or a city.

                    I was under the impression that tanks operated with infantry support, they sweep buildings then the tanks advance, then rinse and repeat, or is that just us and the French?

      • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Making bombs seems pretty easy. You need a little bit of electrical knowledge (i.e. don’t be Terry Robbins) and some materials. There’s lots of information online, and tannerite and consumer drones can both be bought at Walmart.

        True, even as a teenager here in the UK i DEFINITELY DID NOT play around with making ABSOLUTELY NOT thermite and COMPLETELY FAKE gunpowder, but there is no substitute for years of experience