SAW:��First impressions

[Ozgur Budak]

Tactically we had no choice but follow the Soviet criterion while deciding the victory conditions of scenarios. That is, how many Mujahideen Soviet commander killed or captured. Nearly in all of the Soviet battle reports officers define victroy or defeat on the Mujahideen corps they got. Maybe there is no alternatife tactically. However even this criterion is misleading in guerilla warfare since gureilla can always find new soldiers committed to the cause if they can maintain the political link between the party and the people. So head counts never worked in Afghanistan. It was a loosing war from the beginning. The linkage between the resistance and the people was the real enemy. Even brutal Soviet methods such as depopulization of the rural areas and destruction of the farmlands didnt break this link. One can derive many lessons for today's conflicts.