Comment by hnbad
13 hours ago
> If one doesn't believe there was a conspiracy, then the assassination attempt on Trump would exemplify this - one guy with a rifle nearly single-handedly killed one of the most guarded men alive.
Sure, but that being a failure mode is a design choice. Look at Iran: we've seen how many decapitation strikes now? At this point there shouldn't even anyone be left that was in the original chain of command but clearly they're chugging along quite nicely because they decentralized military operations exactly for a scenario like this, knowing anyone appearing on the US' or Israel's radar too prominently was one bad day away from needing replacement.
> This is how Afghanistan, with basic weapons and religious extremists running around in sandals, managed to defeat not only the US but also the USSR.
Not quite. The US managed to "defeat" Afghanistan. The problem was just that nation building was never really on the menu. The US was extremely hands-off during the occupation because their priority was making sure more US soldiers don't come home toes-first when the war had officially been declared won than to build any kind of legacy. This also led to massive subversion of the supposedly US-backed government. There were very few incentives in supporting the US more than necessary not to get shot at, especially after it became clear the US government had no interest in rewarding the loyalty of most of the people who had risked their lives as translators and negotiators, let alone supporting the people who volunteered to join the new army or police. That's why when the US left the supposed new Afghan state just dropped its weapons and ran away and why the Taliban could pretty much just take over without much resistance.
A good counter-example is Iraq where not only did the US have to do much less work to do (because Iraq already had the concept of a powerful central government rather than effectively being a coalition of often loosely connected tribal communities), they also engaged in a lot more active nation building and had reasons to maintain a long-term presence.
If you want to see how bottle rockets vs modern hardware can also play out, look at whatever the IDF is doing at the moment. Granted, the US military being deployed against US citizens would probably show a lot more hesitance and restraint, but again that's a design choice, not an inherent property.
> And trying to punish the population at large to weed out the militants mostly just tends to backfire and create even more militants.
That assumes militants are a problem, not a calculated risk. Long-term social instability is manageable if you don't rely on popular approval as long as it doesn't disrupt supply chains enough to directly threaten the military's ability to operate. Israel for example arguably flourished for decades while having to continuously deal with militants and responding with large scale violence.
In the Iran War, Iran's strategy is much more akin to to a resistance force than a normal military. Israel clearly didn't believe their decentralization would be viable, or they wouldn't have had the US assassinate their leaders - because now they have younger, much more hardline leaders, with a blood debt.
As for Afghanistan I think people don't realize how much fighting was still going on over there. The Taliban forces weren't just camping out in the mountains and defending, they were actively striking all US forces and US proxy forces. In total hundreds of thousands were killed. The Taliban killed thousands of US soldiers, wounded tens of thousands, had a significant minority of land under their undisputed control, were actively contesting control of much more of the country, and rapidly took control of the country once the US left. And yeah nation building was 100% on the menu. There was a friggin George Floyd mural in Kabul lol. But the US was never able to get the country under control, and things were trending worse more than better.
Iraq was much easier for one simple reason - it's a heavily divided country which Saddam (who was himself part of a minority Sunni population) was able to stabilize only with an iron fist. This made much of the country hate him. He was also extremely paranoid, probably in part because of this, and didn't trust his own armed forces which led to direct efforts to limit their power/capabilities, installing commanders based on loyalty over competence, and so on. So it was pretty much an ideal target for a decapitation strike. But even in that ideal scenario we were left waving a victory from flag within tiny little heavily fortified green zones, because stepping outside of them was highly dangerous.
And I don't think Israel is showing anything productive at all. Hamas has comparable numbers today as when the war started, Israel's leader has a warrant for his arrest for genocide, and the future of Israel is probably more uncertain than it's ever been in its entire existence because they've isolated themselves from basically everybody except Trump who will be gone in a couple of years.