Excellent article on Afghanistan

[Marcello]

It wasn’t me who brought Leningrad up. I previously said:

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.

Emphasis added.

Note: they DID supply their limited contingent, they DID supply the DRA army and security forces AND they DID supply the afghan population under their control, Kabul included. They had to ship half million of tons of wheat for civilian consumption during a single year. There certainly was no mass starvation in Kabul, to the best of my knowledge.
HOWEVER every single source on the matter notes that they had a hard time doing all of this. Adding, say an half million of troops or a massive reconstruction program of the 40.000 km of roads in Afghanistan or similar massive efforts would have in all likelyhood broken the back of the logistical system, even as it was the Salang pass had to be run on a one way system for example.

You wrote

Mass starvation took place in Leningrad, before the Road of Life was built, not afterwards. Preventing further mass starvation was the whole point of the Road of Life, and the plan succeeded.

Then you backtracked to

Once again, that was during the first two months of it being established.

Actually it was opened in late november, as per your source. People were still dying en masse three months later, in no small part because it failed to supply the planned tonnage in December when only a portion of the 2000 tons (and still below the 1000 or so which were the bare minimum) planned by Leningrad Front for delivery that month were actually delivered. It was a incredible effort, by any standard, but you cannot use it as a proof that every logistical problem can be handwaved away.
That is what I am trying to get across.
They could do only so much and a lot of peple died because that “much” was not “enough”.

In addition, if they could supply 640,000 in Leningrad, that would be above the requirements of supply needed to carry out the operations in Afghanistan.

What are you trying to say here? They did carry out operations Afghanistan after all. Or are you trying to say that the they could post there several additional hundreds of thousands of soldiers because they were feeding a similar number of civilians in Leningrad (and some troops engaged in defensive operations)?
Do you realize how massive is the difference in supply requirements between civilians on survival rations and modern mechanized troops engaged in offensive operations? If not, please read something about it.

But let’s assume for a moment that logistics was not an issue

In addition, you have to keep in mind that the Red Army couldn't devote all of their resources to the Siege of Leningrad, like they could to the path to Kabul.

Sorry, the Red Army still could not devote all of their resources to Afghanistan,regardless of logistics, for the very same reasons it could not concentrate on Leningrad during WW2: it had others, equally or more pressing priorities. Or are you suggesting to rob Peter (the western theater military forces, the strained economy etc.) to give Paul (a useless backwater ) when Peter is obviously far more critical than Paul ? Do you realize what was happening elsewhere during the afghan war? They could not afford to throw endeless resources at a secondary problem.

Now let’s examine what you are proposing that should have been done

simply set up ambushes

Ambushing the Mujahideen? Do you realize that it was done ad nauseam?
Read the first link I posted to “The Bear went over the Mountain”. There is an entire chapter dedicated to examples of soviet troops ambushing Mujahideen. It was a standard operation.

If the leader you are supporting is unpopular, you simply switch support.

Do you know how the whole adventure started ?
That’s right, overthrowing an unpopular leader. Does the name Hafizullah Amin rings any bells?

can use tanks to escort convoys.

Bad idea. Tanks:
1)Wear the road fast
2)Wear themselves fast when used for prolonged road marches
3)Use up a lot of fuel
4)Could not often engage the enemy due to insufficient elevation of the main armament

This was practical experience. A lot of the tanks originally available with the units were sent back because they simply were found not useful and only a smaller number was needed. Which is not to say that they were never used for that purpose but they were not as useful as you seem to think.

I could go on on the other points if you are interested but really, the 90% of the things you are touting as solutions or that you seem to think were never done fall into three categories:

1)They actually were the standard tactical repertoire.
2)They were tried and did not work.
3)They were obviously unworkable.

The remaining 10% may or may not have worked but were not enough to make a difference. Find me a war where one side did 100% of what it could have conceivably done.
Really it seems to me your animosity towards Gorbachev and Breznhev is blinding you to the actual constraints the soviet leadership was operating under. Whatever you may think of them, they were not operating in a vacuum.

[Snipey]

The didn't supply the Afghanistan contingent properly. Yes, there were supplies, but it wasn't enough. My quote was that the Stavka failed to supply the escalation. Your counter-argument is that "they did supply the limited contingent". Your counter-argument fails to address my argument.

Of course they had a hard time, this is war. Rarely do you see a war that's easy. The US war against the Iraqi Insurgency is no Operation Cakewalk.

I brought up Leningrad for a comparison to show what the Red Army could do. I didn't bring it up to start a debate over it. We both agreed that 640,000 civilians were supplied from scratch via a treacherous road.

In the Siege of Leningrad there was limited supply that the Soviets could give to the city, because, uhhh geez, I don't know, maybe the Great Patriotic War was still going on? When the Red Army fought against Afghanistan the USSR had no other wars. In the Vietnam War, the US had over 550,000 men in Vietnam. Why couldn't the Red Army do something similar? It took the Red Army under three months to bring over one million men, all the way across the USSR to help take out the Japanese Army in Manchuria and capture 600,000 POWs, and destroy the previously undefeated Japanese Army in a matter of weeks.

The Western Front was far more criticial then an actual war? Are you serious? After Hungary, and especially after Czeckoslovakia, it was pretty damn obvious that NATO was going to invade the USSR. On the other hand, after the Berlin Airlift and the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was obvious that USSR wasn't going to go after NATO. The War in Afghanistan started in 1979. The Western Front wasn't going to be an issue. Carter wasn't going to invade. Reagan's new program focused on providing a counter to USSR nukes, and then using US nukes to threaten USSR to give their natural resources to the West. Bush followed Reagan's foreign policy until the USSR collapsed. No ground invasion was even possible here. The front was idle, not because both sides balanced each other out, but because of the strategies employed by the USSR and NATO. Major powers tried to avoid going to war after World War II, for some strange reason, maybe total devastation of the agressor had something to do with that.

So according to your logic, you keep your best troops in an idle front, while you have your average troops fight an actual war. Gorbachev and Brezhnev both supported that logic and that's how you lose wars. On the other hand, the Red Army leadership opposed it fiercely. If you have an actual war and an idle front, you send your best troops to fight in the actual war. That's how you win wars. But now I see why you agree with Brezhnev and Gorbachev.

You think there were enough ambushes. I think more could have been set. It's a difference of opinion on what's enough.

I still don't see why the Red Army couldn't switch support from an unpopular leader to a popular one. On the local level (city, neighborhood, town) the USSR actually had honest elections. Could have done the same for Afghani tribes.

If tanks no work, get better tank. Have tanks with less wear and tear, and raise the main armament. The T-34 was a product of World War II. Surely if the Soviet effort was placed towards the War, something like the T-34 could have been done. If tanks aren't useful, you make them useful. The T-34's predecessor sucked. But the T-34 model that was used at Kursk, albeit with more casualties, was able to stop the Wehrmacht tanks in a tank v. tank battle for the first time.

You still failed to address my point about using third world country militaries, in the manner that I've described, that is SpetzNatz training, fight a year in Afghanistan. You also failed to address my point of giving the local Afghani forces that were pro-USSR more responsibility.

Find you a war where the army performed at 100%? US in the Persian Gulf War. Red Army from post-Stalingrad to pre-Berlin campaign. Ike's forces at Battle of Normandy. Suvorov's campaign in the late 1700's, early 1800's.

But you and I think differently. I think in the pure military mindset; I'm against the best resources in idle fronts when actual wars are being fought.