As ever more British soldiers are killed in Afghanistan (204 as of writing), ever more questions are asked by the British media and public. Before I go any further I'd just like to state that I support the idea of removing the Taliban from Afghanistan and I believe it should have been the main goal in the region even before 9/11. The resources poured into the illegal invasion of Iraq would have been much more useful in Afghanistan where they could have actually combated an evil/terrorist supporting regime.
Be that as it may, it seems the US/UK still hasn't learned their lesson (or aren 't actually serious about taking Afghanistan?). Somehow, the governments are still playing at WWII tactics and haven't realized that most of their wars since then have been more akin to guerrilla warfare than European urban warfare. I saw an interview with a government official this morning who insists that over the last few months the troops realize they've been making substantial progress. Then, when questioned further on a timeline, he goes on to say that both he and the general believe that very real progress can be realized over the next several years.
What?
He's spouting such a can of hogwash it isn't funny. The short of it is that, as of now, Afghanistan is basically another Iraq (if you consider the real Iraq battles to have started after Hussein was ousted). And that is precisely because the government is being wishy-washy and is not fully committing either way (going full-on or pulling out). Granted, the terrain of Afghanistan does present some formidable problems as does the guerrilla nature of the conflict against an army of fundamentalist zealots. Which is precisely why the governments need to decide go-or-no-go and stick to it. A policy of perpetual war might have been useful for them in the past, but considering the internet for disemminating information/opinion and considering the financial crisis and a wishy-washy policy is far more detrimental to all involved than almost any other option.
The numbers I've seen are that there are an estimated 20,000 Taliban. The report this morning said the UK military is requesting there be 9000 UK troops and the US around 30,000 troops with a total internation forces of around 65,000.
?
Either someone hasn't been doing their math right, or, as I suggested above, they're treating this as an urban European war. If these numbers are correct, the international forces outnumber the Taliban around 3:1 To have any chance at winning a guerrilla war the attacking forces (us) typically requires 10:1 numerical superiority. So, the numbers alone will tell you that this war will not end any time soon (and probably never with a favourable outcome for us).
Conspiracy freaks have your way with this info (i.e. either someone has goofed big time, or someone doesn't want the war to end).
So where do the video games come into it? Only regarding battle experience in relation to numerical superiority. Anyone who has ever played a real-time-strategy game (RTS) such as Warcraft, Starcraft or any of the numerous others in the genre quickly realizes that without appropriate numerical superiority there is very little hope of victory. In fact, the only thing that stops an devastating counter attack is lack of resources by the enemy.
For those of you who don't like numbers, keep hoping that something good will come of it. Those of us who've looked at the numbers know that a finish to this is very unlikely in the near future--and the finish we desire much less so even then.
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