Excellent article on Afghanistan

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by Snipey

If the Red Army could deliver supplies to Leningrad, you can be damn sure they can deliver supplies to Kabul.

They actually did. BUT they could not supply enough to prevent both mass starvation taking place in Leningrad or any hypothetical massive escalation in Afghanistan. In both circumstances being able to do something did not mean you could
arbitrarily do more of it.

Originally Posted by Snipey

Then you improve to road network.

They did what they could. Remember, it was the soviets who had built the bulk of the roads in the north of Afghanistan in first place. But there is only so much they could accomplish once the shooting started.
You would have to bring in more vulnerable convoys with construction materials and construction sites themselves would be vulnerable. This would be just part of the problem of course.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?s...&article=23577

See the issues described in the above article and remember that the soviets had it at lot worse on every count.

You also coordinate with allies

What allies?

improve overall strategy

They were fighting abroad to protect an unpopular government
which was fundamentally at odds with the way of life of most locals, in a country where terrain and tradition favored guerilla warfare and bordering with a state willing to provide santuary to the guerrillas. IOW a strategic nightmare.

And none of the above had any simple fix.

use bombs and air force in intense battles

They did.

but gain the ground

They did.Holding was the problem.

I do, but I think you're wrong. Keep in mind that in the USSR there was no unemployment, everyone had jobs, and most people had a roof over their head and food to eat, as well as quality healthcare.

Hindsight.
All the people knew, back then , was that they had to wait for years for a cheap *** car and that there were always shortage of the most basic goods.
And they were pretty fed up about it (and Internet would only make things worse, as the knowledge that in the West they had no such issues would become even more widespread). And it was not going to get much better anytime soon because the economy was not growing anymore at decent rates.
They were not expecting an economic collapse.