Yes they did. The Sandinista government was never toppled by armed struggle. They lost an election and returned to power several years later. The Somoza regime never returned to power which was the aim of the Contras.
Same story with the NLF and PAVN
You’re implying that a people can’t be gripped by reactionary spooks and lead a grassroots reactionary insurgency.
No that’s what you’re doing. The communists had some sympathy in the cities but the vast majority of the population (ie rural people) were deeply, deeply reactionary.
Not even close. The 1978 revolution was literally a coup by military officers. The 1917 revolution by contrast grew out of a mass movement with connections to trade unions, a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, and support from other parties.
I didn’t say abandon it. I said that a full scale troop deployment was a mistake and doomed to fail. In fact all evidence points to the USSR being heavily reluctant to get involved at all. They denied several requests to send troops because they were highly sceptical of the possibility of success.
No they weren’t. Russia especially was industrialized in the cities FAR more than Afghanistan was.
Doubtful. Russian and Chinese rural communities were feudal or semi-feudal, whereas Afghanistan was mostly pre-feudal. Their society was organized around tribal and family loyalties rather than relations of landowner/peasant.
Burgers say the same thing about Vietnam, but do you have any evidence to back that up?
“Mountain areas” makes up almost the entire country. For most of the war up to 80% of the country was outside government/Soviet control.
A handful of stingers is not “the best tech”. Most of the fighting was done with rifles, mortars, and RPGs. Losses have nothing to do with whether or not they had popular support. What does have to do with that is the Mujahideens ability to disperse among the population when the Soviets came and re-occupy a region as soon as they left.
They were literally busy fighting each other half the time. They weren’t particularly disciplined or well equipped compared to the Soviets. The only reason they won was because the Afghan government was even more dysfunctional and plagued by infighting than they were. The Afghan army literally suffered tens of thousands of desertions a month.
Neither were the VC. They were receiving substantial aid from both China and the USSR, and after 1968 much of the fighting was done by PAVN regulars.
Request of interesting thinks
Holy fuck you are stubborn. Like a child going "NO!!! Bla Bla BLA!". I'm not going to continue arguing with someone who is intentionally obtuse on one thing and excessively pedantic in another while also arguing strawmen and false equivalencies. Most of your claims that are either asspulls or completely out of context, and address little of what I say, instead pulling MY WORDS out of context.
Women are all sluts and whores for the right guy or the right price. It doesn't matter the part of the earth they are from–they are all the same.
Even the women you think are "unicorns" will be down to fuck if the circumstance is convenient—there tools for her to evade consequences if caught, the guy is hot enough, and there's something for her to gain–maybe just the pleasure from sex as the case is with sluts.
Investing in women is just foolish for men. They have just one use–fuck holes–and they'll lose that when sexdolls/sexbots improve and become more popular. Feminism is making them feral. The West is a place full of feral women with zero impulse control and cultured men.
Nice bait you have there faggot
Not with you though, apparently
Realistically it all comes down to the claim that the Soviets were on the brink of victory. If you actually have some evidence to back that claim then we can talk about it.
I don't think the US would have supported Osama bin Laden unless they believed the Soviets were going to take Afghanistan.
The mujahedeen didn't start winning against the Soviets untill the US started giving the MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense System) in the form of Stinger missiles, which the US was HIGHLY reluctant to do, for fear of retaliation from the mujahedeen after they were done with the Soviets.
Now MANPADS are everywhere, but back in the 80s NOBODY but nation states had them.
As an aside many people believe the wide proliferation of MANPADS is due to that original sin of the US giving Stingers to the mujahedeen, that some stingers were sold to the black market or North Korea and reverse engineered. No evidence of that though, so all conspiracy theory level speculation.
So does China and the USSR supporting North Vietnam believe that they thought the US would win? Fighting proxy wars was standard practice for the Cold War.
The stinger effect has been disputed, especially by Russian sources.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Not equivalent, namely the Chinese and Soviets were aligned ideologically with their proxies, while the US and the mujahedeen were ideologically opposed (something that would bite them in the ass on September 11th, 2001). Also seeing as how both proxies ultimately prevailed I would say yes the USSR and China believed their proxies would win.
Well what's not in dispute is the effectiveness of MANPADS themselves. They have absolutely been a game changer in guerilla warfare, and conventional forces are terrified of them.
They had no effective defense against Soviet air like the Hind-D, arguably the most effective anti infantry aircraft ever built, then they got stingers, then they won the war shortly thereafter. History doesn't reveal it's alternatives so there's no way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the stingers did or didn't win the war. But the fact of the matter is its clear evidence that at least the US BELIEVED the Soviets could win Afghanistan. The decision to give Stingers to the Mujahedeen was extremely contentious, and they're worries were ultimately proven right with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
