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Seriously, you don't try to hold Afghanistan. Risk is by far one of the most simplistic and least nuanced simulations of global warfare, but it is at least able to show, just like more advanced simulations show, that trying to hold this region will cost way more than you have. History, reason and simulations all show this. Afghanistan can't hold Afghanistan.
I can understand that the low grade idiot war-gamers who signed the Neocon letter to Clinton making this mistake. They had this idea that our technology could allow them to simultaneously go into battle on multiple fronts and win every war we started. All the brilliant generals at the time knew better. They had read history and knew that it would finally boil down to an occupational army and a nightmare.
They got rid of the good generals who knew that police actions should be run by police, and not by armies. The generals of the day knew this and they were gotten rid of. Now we have neocon plants, authoritarian evangelicals and fainting-goat yes men as our top brass.
There is of course a way to transform this. Secure jobs in an environment with a future for family and children. This is what it take to have domestic peace. With people invested in their society, the tendency to turn criminal or to harbor criminals goes way, way down. Sadly, the entire reason we are in Afghanistan is to satisfy wealthy authoritarian narcissistic bastards. The historical evidence is that we will have to tax the wealthy authoritarian narcissistic bastards about 80% if we want to have prosperity and domestic peace. The last thing that the wealthy authoritarian narcissistic bastards want is for the people of Afghanistan to get even the smallest share of their countries wealth. Now they are throwing around the figures like 1 trillion and 3 trillion in minerals and trying to convince us this matters.
We won't see that 3 trillion. The people of Afghanistan will not see that 3 trillion. At best we will go belly up while paying to defend mines ran with lower standards than even U.S. coal mines. Our sins will increase, our reputation fail, and the rich will pay lower taxes while our soldiers are used up, mind and body, to defend the indefensible. If we want to keep that loot out of the hands of terrorists and evil governments, we need to start these mines and have them enrich the people who mine, not the people who exploit. The investment needs to be attractive to the investors, but the jobs need to be attractive, long term, to the communities that grow around them. They don't need to be environment destroying toxic waste making pits. In the end, the mines need to be owned and managed by the native people in the area where the mines exist and they need to be managed in a way that provides long term benefits for these people.
If the people in an area have futures and a reasonable lifestyle, then they will start to provide stability. This will only work if the stability can be spread. The stability can only be spread if the lifestyle can be spread. Bandit leaders will never make stability. Just as wealthy authoritarian narcissistic bastards will never make stability.
So in Afghanistan it boils down to the same question that it boils down to here. Is Obama going to listen to wealthy authoritarian narcissistic bastards or is he going to use history, reason and well thought through extrapolation to guide his decisions.
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