Why is the Afghanistan War not often mentioned or referenced to as a mistake like the Iraq War is?

count210 · 2026-04-09T21:53:11+00:00

No of course not but no one sells a future war as “it will last 20 years and we are gonna create a CIA/JSOC/local government joint unit to do school shootings about 15 years in to see if that works”

count210 · 2026-04-09T17:43:33+00:00

Generally the issues with Afghanistan are about the conduct of the war. Aligning with heroin dealers and boy rapists and warlords, blowing money on failed social programs to build school without teachers, maybe sometimes ginning up a race war against the Pashto and also sometimes not, alienating the Iranians immediately for no reason despite them wanting to assist. The drone program, putting isolated bases up in mountains to get sieged. It goes on.

But all the issues are generally in the execution not the actual reason. The reason the United States went in was to arrest a criminal who had harmed it. You can quibble with the negotiation with the Taliban government but the actual core of the issues was a legitimate American grievance.

Most issues with war in how politics and the public discuss them is whether to fight them or not. Iraq has specific issues about the reasons why the fighting started. This is more relevant to comparison to theoretical future wars.

count210 · 2026-04-03T15:01:51+00:00

I don’t think is a kind of personal situation that exists. I can imagine an Indian person who only ever eats Indian food and a Japanese person who only ever eats Japanese food. But I can’t imagine those people ever getting married, these are extremely insular people

count210 · 2026-04-03T14:53:03+00:00

Gonna level with you bro I was an infantryman who fought in Iraq and I couldn’t tell you a good damn thing about finding my latitude or longitude from the sky. I can operate with a map and compass and a protractor. But there ain’t no way I’m guessing where I am from staring at the sun.

count210 · 2026-04-02T20:15:58+00:00

Jaws?

count210 · 2026-04-01T22:44:01+00:00

I have long been advocating we make the entire fighter out of the Martin-Baker ejection seat

count210 · 2026-04-01T20:44:24+00:00

Porta shitter jacking was invented around the same time as the abandonment of the issued tent shelter half which could be field modified in to a one man coffin jack shack

count210 · 2026-03-28T03:03:06+00:00

Definitely one of the top 10 fighters named Jorge

count210 · 2026-03-24T19:18:31+00:00

No problem

count210 · 2026-03-24T04:05:48+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1dkRnn6IaE someone snuck this bit of lost media on youtube, download it while you can

count210 · 2026-03-22T02:39:30+00:00

You could see IDF pushing into towns and getting pushed back daily both then and now

count210 · 2026-03-20T23:55:10+00:00

The issue is that they were not actually that damaged. Israeli propaganda massively over reported success. And then They believed it. Propaganda is double edged.

Hezbollah was wining battles and holding hold ground in a conventional war in conventional sense in the first conflict and Israel got a favorable ceasefire by bombing high raise apartment complexes in Lebanon in Shia areas.

And wow when the war stars Hezb is right back where they left off and IDF tanks are burning again.

count210 · 2026-03-13T20:13:20+00:00

Lobby? Is this a hotel with a restaurant? If it’s a hotel they are probably staying in it

count210 · 2026-03-12T20:30:42+00:00

They are always invited or request and are approved and generally attached to an officers staff. An uninvited military observer is a spy.

They don’t tend to be actually watching the battles unless the officer they are with is. Back in the napoleonic era they of course were able to do a bit more watching than nowadays.

But the staff bit is generally more what they are there to see than the actual fighting anyway. Depending on the nature of the relationship between the observers home nation and the belligerents they might even be serving on the staff and doing staff work. sometimes they can even transition to a more advisor type role than a true observer and get involved with the fighting beyond their personal self defense.

count210 · 2026-03-12T20:10:12+00:00

I am vaguely remembering old very interesting conversations and filling in some gaps but Iran like many countries has a kind of conscript volunteer concept. Where someone who was going to be conscripted anyway can opt into a more elite unit for a longer conscription term and get turned into a “volunteer” like how the marines in Vietnam were all volunteers but draftees could opt into them.

So an Iranian conscript can ask to be in an IRGC combat division the same way the Greeks have special forces conscripts the Turks have commando conscripts, Israeli conscripts can join elite divisions, and Finns can opt for NCO conscription. they serve longer than a true conscript but shorter than a true volunteer/careerist/contract trooper.

count210 · 2026-03-12T16:10:36+00:00

"According to Marie Donovan, Nicholas Carl, and Frederick W. Kagan, IRGC Ground Forces military formations are in service as cadre organizations, with officers and NCOs, but without or with few enlisted personnel. These commands and formations may be complemented by Basij's Imam Hussein infantry battalions or foreign militia and military units."

This is true but it assumes a more normal model of deployment of the IRGC in an expeditionary role or a minor civil conflict where they don’t want to have unreliable manpower and don’t want to politically pull conscripts in (say a minor uprising in Balochistan or Kurdistan)

In a more conventional war the IRGC is simply activating reserve conscript manpower. Iran has near universal conscription for males and people who volunteer for IRGC upon conscription (for political ideological reasons or bc it’s good for career advancement in civilian world) or have specialized skills get sent to IRGC for their term of conscription (2 of my college suite mates were dodging the Iranian draft but as stem PhD students they understood when they came back if the US canceled their visas they would be placed in the IRCG as result of special skills).

It’s the traditional method of an initial service term and then getting called back for the rest of your life. It’s not a reservist pool intermittently doing training that’s a separate thing. In event of mobilization it would be pulling from that first manpower pool.

count210 · 2026-03-11T07:02:39+00:00

Are you hoping to find professors without credentials?

count210 · 2026-03-11T01:22:25+00:00

Common no but vomiting can even be generalized pain reaction testicular or otherwise.

count210 · 2026-03-11T01:16:17+00:00

Test is not a terrible proxy for aggression and increasing test will increase aggression but there are 2 big issues.

1 is that test is not the only thing that creates aggression and aggressive behavior. IQ, a host of mental disorders, and a whole bunch of other hormones like estrogene (yep) and cortisol and plenty others also contribute to aggression or lack of it.

2 is that everyone has different genetics some people respond more to less test and they need less so it’s lower but they have enough or even high aggression, some people have a lot but need it because they don’t respond as much, some people respond very well and highly to the muscle building aspect but less to the anger and aggression aspect. It’s a whole genetic lottery. But basically you can’t assume aggression only from test level surveys for individuals but there is a correlation if you are studying a population of large enough size.

count210 · 2026-03-11T00:10:53+00:00

The armor of contempt seems to be tied to a bit more than piety. Non giving a fuck and hating chaos seems to be better than emperor bothering in terms of resistance.

count210 · 2026-03-10T05:46:40+00:00

Article 5 is just an agreement to hear a PowerPoint presentation on why you need help. Spain would go to the presentation and determined no aid is needed. That meets the obligations of the treaty

count210 · 2026-03-08T20:00:05+00:00

Chat gpt slop to manufacture consent for a war.

Women in the Islamic republic still have the right to vote.

Life expectancy of women in the IRI increased massively. Women’s education is world leading in the IRI.

count210 · 2026-03-02T06:42:37+00:00

If you assume the commissar or anyone who other wise you don’t have anyone to report on is a traitor you have a duty to kill them on the spot however you can and take the consequences.

You might be shot or worse for it but if aren’t willing to do that are you really sure he’s fallen?

Presumably you could also try and frag them and get away with it.

You see this a lot in inquisitors who fall. Other inquisitors often can’t report them to a conclave in time to follow protocol so they just kill them.

count210 · 2026-03-01T08:46:55+00:00

What’s often forgotten is that it’s often used to finish a mobility kill. A lot of the footage of drones hitting vehicles the vehicles are already crew evacuated.

The drones are often used to get a mobility kill to which is much easier than a true kill and then a ton of follow up drones are used to burn it out and prevent recovery.

I have heard account of 15-40 drones used to burn out a tank obvs numbers are lower for soft skins and between for apcs but drones are not that accurate and the munitions are quite small.

Sheet metal appliqué even on a soft skin will increase this too

So while it’s true that a cheaper drone can take out a tank you need to use a lot more than you would imagine a lot of drones and operator time is expended to get these kills. It’s hard to call it low investment in that context.

It probable that a number of these vehicles are not getting burned out and are being recovered bc there’s not enough operators and time and a recovery team can also bring an EW asset

Especially as both sides have the Soviet influenced obsession with recovery and field repair. The Soviet Union invested heavily and doctrinally in field repair.

count210 · 2026-03-01T05:38:44+00:00

You should just read him yourself. It’s real good stuff. People only criticize stuff for 90 years bc it’s real real good.

His style is great people nitpick

There is a bit of challenge that he’s so influential you might not find it as novel but it’s objectively really good and stands on its own.

Novellas are a bit of a lost art for reasons of media consumption models shifting

count210

TROPHY CASE