20 years after the fall of Collectivism…

Lam Pho.
We won the Cold War without a shot being fired. President Gorbachev said “we both lost” but that’s his saving face remark.

Lam Pho.
Times have changed. During the Cold War, which lasted for 45 years, we were engaging the Russians to curtail their communist agenda spheres of influence. According to President Gorbachev both sides, East and West, spent 10 billion dollars building up our military. The Russians were paranoid over our Star Wars, SDI.
History should have taught us that guerilla warfare is not the same as an identified army in uniform. Ask the Russians, who after 10 years, eventually pulled out of Afghanistan (when we provided Stinger Missiles to the Mujahadeen guerillas).
There is a major difference in strategy and tactics in fighting a war in rugged mountains against those with a national will to win. To overocme some of the obstacles Russia should have sent in at least another 100,000 troops but that’s being aMonday morning quarterback. Further, this is way above my pay grade.

Why was the surge successful in Iraq? Think about it. In addition to providing more troops and equipment you must win the hearts and minds of the people who live there.

How do you measure victory? Are you familiar with the USSR? The USSR was a block of 15 Eastern European Socialist Republics who now enjoy freedom. That’s how you measure victory. We were with the president of the Czech Republic at the Reagan Library last Friday. Although they were not part of the USSR he shared their current freedom as did the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and the Prime Minister of Estonia.(which was one of the 15 Socialist Nations under the USSR hammer and Sicle).
Hopefully that answers your question.