Russia and China, in the real world, are why we went to Afghanistan in the first place, and Iraq, since we were gettting to strong for their taste, and so the Russians and Chinese wanted to bleed the American hegemon; xorosho e hen hao.
That's what really happened, if its impolitic to connect all the dots too openly, since that has always raised the concern of, "Well, if we said they did Y, then people might get really mad, and of course they don't know we did X, which was to be fair was only in response to V, which was... but they don't and can't know that, since they wouldn't sleep well at night and it can't be changed anyway, but if we said Y, then people might want us to do Z, which we think though would be Omega, i.e. a nuclear war, and so, we pretend instead."
As to their "assistance in exiting Afghanistan," course, for the Russians, the irony cannot be lost, and for them must be as sweet as for us it is bitter upon reflection.
Somtimes it is also wise to live to fight another day too, and this may well be one of those times, if and only if this goes well.
In Russia, there will be toasts in some quarters as to "payback's a bitch, Americanets," as to certain unstated and unpleasant facts of life as to why the Obama Administration decided to effectively speaking bail on the Afghan project, if Afghans mainly have to look in the mirror as to their unwillingness to live on terms compatible with the modern world, and instead take arms from foreigners and fight each other with other people's weapons, Pakistanis, Chinese, Iranians, and Russians, and of course ours.
Then again, in 1988, KGB General and Director Kryuchkov asked the Reagan Administration to do a deal like the Obama Administration is attemtping to secure now, and we decided instead to stick the knife in.
Since that didn't go very well, and with dead Afghans everywhere, hopefully, the parties in Afghanistan will see the handwriting on the wall, and do a deal like was suggested in 1988 by the KGB, which also gets the Chinese and Indians the natural resources they need too, the latter of which in global markets is actually good for Americans too.
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We'll see how it finally works out. I'll also note that there are still an estimated 10 million Soviet land mines in Afghanistan. I wonder how many of our guys those took out. Oh yeah, the Russians ARE having a laugh at our expense.
OR. we could do what actually works, and has been demonstrated to work (the strategy which Patraeus now advocates) which is to clear out the drug lords, build a school and provide a few other basic services, and then act as a defense against any new drug gangs that try to invade the village that we would be defending.
Basically, fight the criminals, defend the good citizens, and throw them a bone for their trouble in all of this.
Russia was never going to win in Afghanistan. The more progress they made, the more Stinger Missiles we would have provided the Taliban (at that time, the Mujahadin...sp?).
And, while China did take advantage of all of this, and like we did to the Russians, and I would bet the Russians did back to us this time, the Chinese probably did act as a weapons supplier to our enemies, but the only thing we could do to them in that region by continuing to war is fuck up everything that they have done for themselves while we continued to be distracted by whatever it is that continued to distract us (dystopia???)
I really think you overestimate Russia's ability to oppose us at the moment, and China's capacity to care. They are winning their war with us on every other front, and all without any violence. And, that's the great thing about a billion screamin Chinamen - no one is gonna fuck with a billion screamin Chinamen. And, China knows it.
Its like frenemies more than pure enemies, unless we make ourselves too vulnerable and ask for them to try a kill shot, not very likely.
They love the mining industry there, I am told.
We, however, aren't seeing any financial returns for our efforts.