Quote Originally Posted by Firn View Post
I think when discussing this issues it is important to keep in mind what the specific actors wanted and why they used violence to reach their goals. I will try to keep it short and rough. It is of course my very personal opinion.

a) The founders and most prominent members of the Taliban claimed that they want to create a religious model state, out of the shattered reality of Afghanistan (and other regions as well). To reach this idealistic goal in a war-torn and violent Afghanistan violence was a considered to be a necessity.

b) The USA wanted to revenge 09/11 and to punish those who supported an ideology which claimed to revenge the misdeeds of the West and especially the USA against the Islamic world. To do so in a foreign country a good deal of violence was needed.

After the rapid sweep across Afghanistan for many in the USA 9/11 had been revenged to a large extent. The Taliban lost on the other hand their hold over a land they considered theirs. The existence as an organisation and as individuals was greatly threatened. But many won that struggle for survival, could regroup and had a very clear aim nearby to fulfill their political ambitions.


If we consider this very simple construct it makes pretty much sense that the former have a far greater focus on the political aspect as the latter. The Taliban fight for a clear political goal in a region which they consider to be their homeland. The USA (and many other countries) increasingly tried to give the impression of doing some good in a far-away land. For most Americans and Europeans it quickly became a forgotten war, supported by meager ressources.

Firn
The US entered Afganistan with a reasonably clear objective (remove AQ and the Taliban from power, kill or capture as many of their leaders as possible) and promptly transitioned to a very nebulous objective (transforming Afghanistan into... well, something, I for one have never been sure what). In the process, not surprisingly, we lost a good deal of clarity and focus, a natural consequence of pursuing objectives that are uncertain and possibly unachievable.

There are certainly many valid lessons to be learned from the Cold War-era insurgencies, but the insurgency-as-revolution paradigm that emerged from that era is by no means universally applicable to current circumstances, and it has to be applied with discretion.