The last days of empire...

[2pac Shakur]

Originally Posted by IAm@Work.com

Does anyone besides 2Pac believe these statements are true? If you do not, can you briefly articulate why each state collapsed?

My early European history is pretty weak, but wasn't Sparta the aggressive one? Did Athens chose war with Sparta, or was it thrust upon them?

I didn't hear any arguments that disagreed with my assessment above.
I heard a lot of excuses why large militaries might have been necessary, but no denying the weight of military did in all of the above empires.
W needs to brush up on his history.
The similarities with Russia, especially, should be obvious. Doesn't Condoleezza say anything to W? She's a Russian History expert, right? Maybe an expert in the sense that Bush/CHeney are "energy experts"...


So this is what liberation looks like?
By the way, how's the WMD hunt going?

Bremer: costs in Iraq “impossible to exaggerate”

Other administration officials have begun voicing more sober appraisals of the deteriorating situation facing the US occupation. Bremer himself recently declared that it was “almost impossible to exaggerate” the cost of reconstruction in Iraq, saying it would require “several tens of billions of dollars” in funding from other countries.

Neither he nor anyone else in the administration, however, has broached the issue of what it will cost the US government. The $2.5 billion appropriated by Congress for that purpose, together with money expropriated from foreign Iraqi bank accounts, has already run out, and the administration appears poised to seek another $3 billion just to maintain operations in Baghdad until another budget is submitted later this year. Costs associated with the military occupation alone are now running at approximately $1 billion a week. This is on top of the $1 billion a month being spent on continuing military operations in Afghanistan, now approaching the end of their second year.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/se...naja-s01.shtml


We've been in Afghanistan for TWO YEARS now!!!!!!!!

QALAT, Afghanistan - Two American soldiers were killed Sunday in a firefight with suspected Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan (news - web sites), while hundreds of Taliban poured into remote southern mountains to join a week-long battle with Afghan forces and their U.S. allies.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...an_fighting_58

The International Monetary Fund has warned the United States that while speedy economic recovery there would benefit the whole world economy, the Bush administration should pay more attention to the instability threatened by its huge budget deficit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3188495.stm

More specifically, across the wide Soviet empire no other country except Turkey had as geographically distinct boundaries as Afghanistan had with it. Afghanistan was separated from the Soviet empire for 2,300 kilometers, for the greater part by the River Oxus and then by an uninhabitable desert. It is strange to think that the Soviet state would have been unable to safeguard its boundaries against a smaller country, even if a hostile government were in power. After all, the Soviet Union had adjusted boundaries with its much bigger neighbors, notably China, and coexisted with them. Throughout history, conquests and massive migrations occurred as nomadic hordes descended from the north on the settled populations in the south—not the other way around. The concern that the Soviet leaders showed about the “insecurity” of their southern borders was a mere rationalization for their drive for expansion, a drive reminiscent of nineteenth-century colonialism. It was also a reflection of the problems that they had with the Muslim nations of the Central Asian Republics, such as the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, and other groups whose kinsmen live across the border in Afghanistan.

The claims were a cover-up for an agenda the Kremlin decision makers had for Afghanistan. The agenda was to rule it through an outcast group of communists, much as the Soviets had dominated Bukhara in the early 1920s. Since the independent-minded Amin and his government stood in the way, they had to be removed. On 12 December 1979 the Soviet politburo, chaired by Leonid Brezhnev, endorsed the KGB view and decided to invade. In the KGB’s view, “The situation [in Afghanistan] [could] be saved only by the removal of Amin from power and the restoration of unity” in the ruling party. The Kremlin ruling group adopted this view because it considered Amin to be “insincere” toward the Soviet Union; he was pursuing “a more balanced foreign policy” and was bent on purging the party and state of potential opponents. “The Soviets had never trusted Amin, regarding him as a power-hungry politician of dubious ideological convictions.”[50] In waging an undeclared war on the Afghans in what historian Barbara Tuchman has called “The March of Folly,” a few superannuated Soviet leaders ignored the sound advice that their own premier Kosygin had given to Taraki earlier in the year: “If our troops were sent in, the situation in your country would not improve. On the contrary, it would get worse. Our troops would have to struggle not only with an external aggressor, but with a significant part of your own people. And the people would never forgive such things.”[51]

In the present interdependent world, a secret decision made by a few irresponsible men in the Soviet empire to wage an unprovoked war on Afghanistan was bound to be opposed by millions of men and women; it also led to the intensification of the cold war. Luckily, this was the last decision of its kind the Soviet leaders would make.

In installing Karmal, the Kremlin decision makers acted on the view that what counted was success, and that before the god of success the scruples of human behavior did not count. The Soviets had built their empire with this precept in mind. But could they succeed in Afghanistan with the outcast Karmal and his faction of Parcham?

http://texts.cdlib.org/dynaxml/servl...&chunk.id=ch02

[foghorn]

I'm no history expert, so I won't argue, but my hunch is that the list of countries that collapsed because of too small of a military is several times longer.

[IMHO]

Originally Posted by txtd

I'm no history expert, so I won't argue, but my hunch is that the list of countries that collapsed because of too small of a military is several times longer.

Very good point.

[The Drunken Actuary]

Originally Posted by IMHO

Very good point.

Does collapse mean the same thing as conquered?

[Westley]

Our military, as a percent of GDP, is only a fraction of what Russia's was. Theirs was over a quarter of GDP, while the people starved. The comparison is ridiculous. I am sure Condi is aware of how absurd any comparison is.

[2pac Shakur]

A comparison with the 1980s is in order. The 100,000-strong Soviet army operated alongside a full-fledged Afghan army of equal strength with an officer corps trained in the elite Soviet military academies, and backed by aviation, armored vehicles and artillery, with all the advantages of a functioning, politically motivated government in Kabul. And yet it proved no match for the Afghan resistance.

In comparison, there are about 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, plus roughly the same number of troops belonging to NATO contingents, which includes 5,400 troops from Britain, 2,500 from Canada and 2,300 from the Netherlands. Nominally, there is a 42,000-strong Afghan National Army, but it suffers from a high rate of defection.

General Jones has asked for 2,500 additional NATO troops. But the major NATO countries - Turkey, France, Germany, Spain and Italy - have declined to send more. In actuality, it is questionable whether 2,500 more troops would make any significant difference in a country of the size of Afghanistan and with such a difficult terrain.

Distinguished British soldier-politician Sir Cyril Townsend wrote in Al-Hayat newspaper this week, "A realistic military appreciation of the situation would be that to gain the upper hand against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and to start winning over the southeast of the country, will require deployment of at least 10,000 extra, highly trained professional and well-equipped troops with matching air support."

Clearly, a huge crisis is shaping up for NATO. Its credibility is at stake. Sir Cyril does not foresee that the alliance will come up with the required military resources "to beat the Taliban on its own ground". No wonder Lieutenant-General David Richards, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan and former assistant chief of the general staff of the British army, ominously warned in a recent television interview, "We need to realize we could actually fail here."

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HI30Df01.html

[Happy Professional]

[2pac Shakur]

Around 100 people including five lawmakers were killed or wounded in a suicide bombing Tuesday at a sugar factory in northern Afghanistan, one of the worst attacks since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Government officials said the bomber blew himself up outside the factory in the northern province of Baghlan as dozens of people, including children, welcomed a delegation of senior members of parliament and other officials.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Afghan_..._11062007.html

I guess this is different than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Somehow.

[Ronald Reagan]

Originally Posted by 2pac Shakur

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Afghan_..._11062007.html

I guess this is different than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Somehow.

We're doing it this time. So, it's all good.

[Werewolf]

Eastside meets Westside downtown.
No time, the walls fall down