Zoraptor

Yeah, you need more troops for better security, sure. But was there ever a realistic chance of the US/ NATO sending... ~600k troops to Afghanistan or 470k to Iraq though, especially for the time required? No, not any realistic one. If there was no realistic prospect of it arguing as if it was realistic is simply pointless. 60k troops in the middle of Europe is, well, an order of magnitude easier in multiple respects. The point about an 'advanced' society is that it doesn't become a non advanced one by being bombed for a few years or whatever. The culture is maintained, the education is maintained, the knowledge base is maintained. It takes time to get there, but it also takes time to drop back from there. That provides a far higher platform for recovery than not having that base Gotta be honest, there an awful lot of classic thinktankism there- common sense stuff coupled to doctrinaire assertions made for philosophical reasons. For example, what do 'reintegrated' Afghan fighters actually do- or is it just a way to make it sound like there's an easy solution to a complex problem? Pay them to sit around? Don't pay them and leave them unemployed, per Bremmer in Iraq? Prayer beads or mat weaving? You need an alternative to fighting or opium, and that's far easier to do with advanced countries where you can rely on a set knowledge base, literacy, numeracy etc to provide jobs. I'm also highly amused by them touting infrastructure improvements via loans, not grants, and not just because the Marshall Plan was almost exclusively grants. Loans for infrastructure, that approach cries out for a catchy name to sell it. Belt & Road, perhaps?

I'd have to disagree about women's issues being mission creep, it (in the context of Taliban extremism) was one of the more fundamental reasons given for intervention, behind terrorism. Whether it was practically attainable... look for an easier question to answer, because that one's hard. But if you aren't going to at least try there's not even the pretense of actual nation building going on and the blame for any collapse on western withdrawal shifts more towards nation building having not even been tried instead of having failed. If you wanted to show progress to people to justify continuation one of those measures is women's rights; and it's at least in theory one of the easiest to show progress in too. Just show girls actually going to school: massive improvement. That's also of course one of the things that c/would, longer term, alter the culture to a more receptive one to other western values that would make any further interventions unnecessary, and it is of course a worthy goal in its own right- if your goal is nation building you want 50% of your population to not be uneducated chattel. But that's also a super long term project- as below way more than even 20 years- as you really need a generational shift to educated parents who want all their children to be too. Yes there is, unless we're going to go to extremes in terms of defining cost and what a 'fundamental' difference is. Just for one Germany and Japan already had the vast majority- practically all- of their population educated, with education being culturally valued. In contrast Afghanistan has the vast majority of its population uneducated, and a culture that (largely) does not value education (except, to an extent Koranic studies). That's a monumental difference, and one that can only be changed gradually, on a generational level. Give the Japanese and Germans time and they could have rebuilt their country to a modern level, themselves, with all the teachers, engineers, factories etc supplied domestically- that's what the Marshall Plan less Soviets did, after all. Way easier of course with more outside help, but it's not necessary. You can't throw money at Afghans and have them suddenly educated to German or Japanese (or Bosnian, or Soviet) level though. You need trained teachers who can speak the language(s). You need parents who care and want their children educated. You need a societal structure that values knowledge. You need religious types who don't think science is a tool of shaitan. Or you need a strong state that believes education strengthens their control. Educating their populations and industrialising took the soviets and chinese ~40 years, and that with totalitarianism and a lot of excess baggage. But if you want imposed nation building in Afghanistan that is the reference time frame required, not the ~10 years for Germany and Japan post WW2; and that 40 years is a, hmm, 'best case' scenario for the Afghans where there is a strong national government. Bosnia is also a poor example of nation building, since it's not really 'nation' building. It was already 'advanced' as part of Yugoslavia, certainly compared to Afghanistan. It still has two parallel governments, and ultimate power rests in an externally imposed Bremmer style Vizier who isn't even Bosnian- you'd think that an essential part of being a nation is control of your own country rather than ultimate authority being vested in an EU Gauleiter. Given a free choice the Serbs areas would still join Serbia and the Croats would still join Croatia. If there was a free choice. The 20k surge was also 20k for a single province and on top of those already there, ie ~160k troops in total. Fundamentally we're in agreement on that in any case, not enough initially, not enough in the surge, not enough long term. The fundamental problem with all of this is one of arguing practicalities vs theoretics. Theoretically, the US could have sent 500k troops to Iraq or Afghanistan. Theoretically they could send a million. Theoretically they could stay in Afghanistan for 40 years. But if practically they can't/ couldn't then the theoreticals of it are of merely academic interest.

The fundamental problem with an argument for NATO staying in Afghanistan is the lack of improvement or any prospect of it. This collapse would have happened 5 years ago, or ten years ago. To put it in perspective, the supposedly reviled pro Soviet regime of Najibullah lasted ~3 years after the Soviet withdrawal, the Ghani government may not even make it to the point of US withdrawal. If they stayed for another twenty years, would there have been any difference? Probably not, if the ANA simply doesn't want to fight/ the Taliban is so strong and that doesn't change. It isn't really a troop numbers or money thing, at least within the realms of realistic expectations. Technically of course the US could have sent a million troops and spent a trillion dollars a year and it may have made a difference, but that was also never going to happen in any realistic scenario. Sending lots of troops has been tried before too, and all it did was suppress things (eg Soviet intervention, and The Surge in Iraq. Indeed, The Surge could only be sold by explicitly making it a short sharp shock type deployment intended to be temporary). Some of the things you really need like education and cultural mores cannot be given/ changed simply by throwing money or force at them. 'Nation building' has only worked in countries which were already what might paternalistically be called 'advanced' such as Germany and Japan, and the term is a bit of a misnomer as they both had a very strong national identity to start with. The only realistic argument to stay is the geopolitical one- better to fight your enemies overseas than at home and you don't want to surrender the whole region to your geopolitical enemies (along with the prestige hit of seeing a client collapse spectacularly). But if there's no improvement those costs are going to be paid at some point anyway.

Looks like Kandahar is taken now too- still nothing official, but the number of pro gov people saying there has been a 'tactical retreat' of ANA forces in the last hour or so is... significant, and precisely what has been the immediate precursor to other losses being announced. So that would potentially be the 2nd and 3rd largest city falling within a few hours of each other.

It's a good game and certainly worth playing. It's got enough differentiation from a standard city builder to be interesting on its own, and some strong narrative aspects in its scenarios (which are also its biggest weakness, because it's scripted there's a lot of scope and a certain amount of requirement that you game the system knowing what is coming). I'm not as wholesale in my praise as the average games journo was but I'd still solidly recommend it.

At this rate a week before the US leaves might be being generous. Two more provincial capitals fall in Afghanistan, including its 3rd largest city Herat. The only real positives, such as they are, are that Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif are still holding out so far. The government is clearly trying to do what the Iraqi government did with the Hashd/ PMU vs ISIS when their western trained army disintegrated by trying to arm the general populace. But there's no Iran or Soleimani equivalents in Afghanistan- or at least none on the government side as the obvious comparison would be Pakistan, for the Taliban- very little willingness among the ethnics to fight, only a small shia minority (also the only ethnic group willing to fight, and notably the Taleban have made little progress in Hazara areas) and due to the conservative nature of rural areas and the Taliban such recruits as they'll get will mostly be inexperienced urban types. Hashd/ PMU, and for that matter the Syrian rebels, worked because they already tended to have training from previous conscription.

Koreans, Tibetans (and Vietnamese for that matter) sure, but the mongols and turkics gave at least as good as they got, historically. Three out of five of the last dynasties of the 'Chinese' Empire were turkic or mongol, and the mongol invasion killed more people than WW1 (maybe WW2 or the Taiping/ Heavenly Kingdom rebellion too) at a time when the world's population was much lower. Not going to get any argument from me over them trying their luck with their neighbours now though, only observation I'd make is how monumentally stupid and counterproductive antagonising all your neighbours simultaneously is and how antagonising India specifically lead to far more damage than the possible benefit gained. Same with the wolf warrior diplomacy, plays well at home and seems effective there where the rhetorical playing field is so very slanted as you can just throw anyone disagreeing in jail, and it makes you feel strong. But it makes everyone else think you're a bit of a knob, at best. I thought you weren't going to talk modern politics? (If it is then so is the WB/ IMF. At least the B&R stuff goes into actual concrete projects; for most of their existence the IMF/ WB gave money to despots that they 100% knew would be simply stolen, to create a debt trap and prop up western friendly regimes via arms purchases etc)

I liked the original a fair bit, and while I had some issues with its 'morality' system it was a step up over This War of Mine in that respect.

Erdogan definitely tries to play the US and Russia against each other. He's not going to do any of the stuff that would really cut Turkey loose like quit NATO though, and the US has no desire to try and force them out when all they really have to do is wait for Erdogan's mistakes to catch up with him (and at the moment there's only ~5% between Erdo's AKP and the CHP in opinion polls). Same with Poland, whatever the issues are they'd prefer to wait them out if at all possible, and the issues aren't that serious compared to even just the S-400/ F-35 issue.

Poland is nowhere near the level where the US would cut them loose. Far too useful as a proxy in Europe and as a stalwart attack dog v Russia. (Compare with Turkey/ Erdogan, the US isn't anywhere near cutting them loose despite their shenanigans being a lot worse, for much the same reasons. Different leadership in either and the whole situation changes)

Eh, Ethiopia has a very strong sense of national identity. One of the few African countries that does. It just doesn't stop the different ethnics from fighting each other. That's especially true when the rebels are getting a lot of help from outsiders hoping they'll blow up the Grand Renaissance Dam. China had the largest economy nearly continuously from the 15th to the late 19th century, that's a fact. Largest GDP/c... probably not, but it would have been up there, and for the time period it's a... limited way to measure things*. Many of the apparent challengers actually had ludicrously small Gross DOMESTIC Products because they were colonial powers whose money was made overseas, indeed the lack of Gross DOMESTIC Product was precisely what sent Spain bankrupt a dozen times despite having massive amounts of New World gold flowing into the country. *Consider the British Empire. Exploited its colonies, starved 100 million Indians, and- if you include all its colonials- its GDP/c was pretty low. Wouldn't call the BE poor by any measure except that though. Or the Roman Empire. The economic conditions of the vast majority there were pretty awful, and it ran on literal literal slave labour. It was also incredibly rich in absolute terms.

Governor Deathantis, surely. It's even a homophone. If you've got a lisp.

Pretty much nothing new there even if they have got a tablet. Not like anyone's mercenaries are renowned for their adherence to the rules of war, that and the deniability factor are precisely why they are used instead of regular forces. You can also tell a lot by what has been left out. ie, no mention of Pantsirs. Because they were absolutely 100% documented as having come from a UAE purchase and supplied to Haftar along with Wagner operators. Of course, the UAE is a strong British ally, so the fact that it was them rather than Russia supplying and paying for Wagner in Libya is just a bit too inconvenient to bother mentioning.

Taliban add 2 (3) new provincial capitals to its recent captures. The most recent and significant capture- Faizabad- isn't mentioned in that article; it was absolute core Northern Alliance territory previous and never came within 100+ km of being captured in the war of 1996-2001. Mazar-e-Sharif is also under siege, if that falls all the previous long term NA territory is gone. That leaves the Pakistan border as the one least (overtly) controlled by the Taliban. You would have thought the US would have had a plan to get the Uzbeks/ Tajiks to prop up their minorities via the NA as the Russians had last time, the only conclusion to be drawn is that this time that isn't what the Russians (or Chinese) want and the Uzjiks have made the calculation that US influence is gone permanently and unlike the Russians they can be ignored. The US envoy is now desperately trying to get the Taliban to hold off capturing the whole country until after the US formally withdraws, hard to see them lasting that long though with every supply line either cut or under threat.

Ten is far too many. The 5 (?) top tier leagues in Europe- Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain- are clearly miles better, but the secondary level not so much since they tend to have super clubs that massively skew perspective. The MLS sides might struggle to beat Celtic/ Rangers for example, or Ajax/ PSV, or Benfica/ Porto- but then so do the other teams already in those domestic leagues. (to be honest, the whole european model is kind of broken in that respect and the US one typically results in a far 'flatter' comp, and I say that as someone who dislikes franchise type set ups on principle. The average MLS team would probably perform fine against the average tier 2 Euro domestic team though, the only one I'm sure is better is the Dutch one though that's based on a couple of years ago when we had both MLS and a bunch of little e european leagues on free to air)

Yeah I know, I just can't resist taking comparisons to their logical conclusion. And unfortunately the logical conclusion from a comparison between covid vaccines and the world's anti doping approach is that you can justify testing and disclosure (etc) using that example, but, you'd also end up allowing a bunch of exceptions to the practical results/ effects of that testing and disclosure based on the same comparison. Why indeed. I'm not entirely sure if I were appointed God that I wouldn't make vaccines compulsory, but then I could just vaccinate everyone with a wave of my finger. From a practical political standpoint it almost certainly isn't worth the effort it would take to enforce in the vast majority of situations because vaccine uptake is already high enough.

Yep, hence things like the 'original' Toyota War, AKA the Chad Chad vs the Virgin Libya.

I can't see anti doping as being a great parallel for making vaccines compulsory- since there are so many exceptions to the anti doping rules granted. More than a third of elite cyclists have through dedication and hard work overcome the horrendous handicap of asthma, purely coincidentally, by having to be allowed to take performance enhancing salbutamol. The obvious comparison is that if you have 33% of cyclists allowed to use salbutamol due to exceptions you end up with... 33% of people allowed not to vaccinate due to exceptions. Which is actually worse than in many countries. (Personally, I'd sack every last border worker here that refuses a vaccine. It's their choice but it's also their consequence; and they don't have the right to potentially kill several thousand of their fellow citizens)

The 'funny' thing about the ISIS blitzkrieg were the Toyotas (well, Ford in the most famous case) that were advertising random plumbers and the like because they never got the sign writing removed when the CIA shipped them off to help the 'moderate opposition' in Syria- though not quite as funny as the US government having the balls to ask Toyota how ISIS were getting them when Timber Sycamore existed.

Taliban have taken 5 Afghan provincial capitals since Friday. Somewhat to be expected, especially if they were in the south, but two were ~heartland Northern Alliance holdings in Kunduz and Taloqan (albeit Kunduz had been briefly taken before).

The bad ref/ judging issue has got a lot better since Seoul with its ludicrous boxing tournament. That was too much even for Samaranch era IOC. Glorious New Zealand 12 13th on the medal table (thanks Brazil, now we'll get three years of bad luck). Or 4th on the proper, per capita, measurement (and as some wag put it, the rest of the top of that table is the start of a Beach Boys song). For the next three years I will be able to live vicariously on the achievements of others, which is certainly the most low effort way to live. Funniest result has to be Non Official Russia outperforming Official Russia's last 4 Olympics. Guess the moral of the story is to get caught BALCOing more often.

That isn't going to be changed. The Russians push it because of multiple reasons including their olympic 'ban', but also for more...objectively reasonable ones too such as Sharapova getting banned for taking a prescribed medicine in meldonium that has no confirmed performance benefit- while medical exemptions were and are handed out continually for others. Indeed, not only have a disproportionate number of (western) elite athletes overcome ADHD to achieve greatness, coincidentally requiring that they take ritalin, but many have also overcome asthma, coincidentally requiring that they take an otherwise banned drug (salbutamol) to open their airways and improve their breathing.

The protests tell you who really has the support. Anti lockdown protests may not have the best turn out, but pro lockdown protests never have anyone turn up to them.

Probably more likely to not get paid because their commander has pocketed their wages. That was the situation in Iraq when their army collapsed at Mosul for example, most of the nominal troops had literally deserted and a whole division existed only on paper as a way for its commander to embezzle funds. There are also a couple of major differences between the ~2000 situation and 2021 in Afghanistan which are having a big impact in how things are playing out. Prior to the western intervention while there may have been a lot of anti Taliban lip service in the west their role as clients of pro western interests (Pakistan, Saudi) and perhaps even more importantly an anti Russian/ Iranian bulwark meant there was no practical support for anti Taliban forces from the west, but plenty from Russia/ Iran and the neighbouring 'stans. Hence the Northern Alliance's main strength and holdings were in the north, along the border with Tajikistan, and there was an open insurgency against the Talibs in the west and around Herat supported by Iran. The Taliban now are getting support from their traditional Pakistani backers for traditional Pakistani reasons (and, let's be frank, as geopolitical utu for the US intervention taking out their pet project) and their traditional enemies in Russia and Iran because the Afghan government is a western puppet. Hence you have areas that were held continuously by the NA (or up to just before Sept 2001) around Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Faisabad already taken and only the cities barely holding out, for the moment. There's also been somewhat of a shift away from ethnicity- the Northern Alliance was largely Tajik (vs mostly Pashtu Taliban) and held the NE of the country pretty solidly on that basis, but as above almost all the territory it held is now held by the Taliban, excepting the cities. At the moment the division seems to be almost completely along rural/ urban (conservative/ less conservative) lines instead, with cities being pretty strongly pro government and rural areas almost completely pro Talib.

Might upset an agenda based narrative, but the best that was expected of her here was maybe a bronze. She was well behind at least two other lifters in terms of form and PB. And as I mentioned elsewhere, there was never any question of her transitioning just to get an advantage which is the usual knee jerk accusation. I do hope the olympics now do a proper review of their guidelines instead of ad hocing everything. Compare the situations of Hubbard and Semenya and it makes the organisation look extraordinarily stupid.