...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.)