Jimmy did miscalculate just about everything, but he did begin the action that eventually was the real driving force that brought down the Russians. Operation Cyclone took full bloom under the Reagan administration and IMO is the single most important action which contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. There were other factors, but Afganistan busted their balls. I'm sure they're smiling now as we flounder there ourselves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
A complex puzzle, but it could also be plausible that Reagans defense buildup put too much pressure on them as well as keeping up with that was far more costly proposition.
LOL... and we are only failing in Afghanistan due to hanging around for a decade after defeating everything they had in about three weeks..
Our missions are different as well so to compare the two is fallacious. We were on a manhunt, they were trying to take over and assimilate.
Really? Well, our "manhunt" has cost us over 1800 dead, hundreds of billions of dollars, and we're still there a year after the "man" is dead. The "man" was, and could have been tracked down and killed with far fewer men, and a whole lot less money. Common sense would tell us that there's more going on than a manhunt.
Somewhere along the line the manhunt turned into an Al Qaeda / Taliban search and destroy mission. That would have been fine but it inevitably led to nation building which is impossible in that part of the world.
True! Wars are for nation destroying. When we do that, we win. To do otherwise...we see the consequences of our folly.
I agree, but one of the early problems was that Rumsfeld was trying to do everything on the cheap by using local militia. War is very strange, we could have dropped 1 nuke in Tora Bora in Nov. 2001 and ended everything right there with far far less blood and treasure... but oh my, those scary big bombs, let's go over there and bleed for 10 years then we can feel a whole lot better about ourselves.