The Taliban never have functioned as a tight military organization. Knocking out Mullah Omar's Kandahar headquarters will not necessarily affect their ability to fight. Taliban groups could easily return to guerrilla warfare, against which bombing will have only limited effect.

During the decade-long Soviet conflict, it was this lack of a central leadership that proved to be the greatest strength of the resistance. As one British military source noted, "We would be fools to assume that the battle has been won."

The question now is to what extent the battle for Afghanistan will harden, with Taliban groups fighting on their own turf. Another is whether they will have local support, particularly if outside Arab funding or backing from Pakistani intelligence stops. A further factor is the willingness of the hard-line militants of al-Qaida and other foreign Islamic organizations, who constitute up to half the Taliban fighters, to persist in a country where they are not wanted.

Those are legitimate questions, but it's important not to become too bogged down in the problems we face, so as to forget the problems that they face. For one thing, the guerrilla operations against the USSR are not comparable to a hypothetical guerrilla action by the Taliban. Even a guerrilla action has to be supplied, and that means you need access to at least one friendly border, plus patrons elsewhere willing to provide you with the money needed to keep the guerrillas in supply. In the 1980's, that border was Pakistan and the foreign patron was primarily the US, which poured $3 billion into supporting the Mujahideen. But if the Taliban head for the hills, they will not have access to any friendly border (because there aren't any: all six neighboring nations hate the Taliban). Smuggling is still possible but it is far less efficient and not enough in the way of supplies will get through. But that can be tolerated if there is substantial support from the local peoples. Only problem is that right now it appears that even in the Pashtun south there is little or no support left for them: several years of brutality and control by foreigners has made that nearly certain. (The general Pashtun uprising in progress confirms that.)

While the areas around Kandahar are relatively flat, and thus difficult to defend, much of the war may now move into hazardous mountainous terrain in the east. This will enable the Taliban to mix more readily with civilians, making it harder for the U.S. to use even highly discriminate airpower. Red Army officers, who fought in Afghanistan in the '80s, see the real war as only just beginning.

Most of the hard core of the Taliban that will escape and continue the struggle won't be Afghans. You'll still have a few religious zealots, but most of that force will be foreigners (Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks, Pakistanis), and they are roundly despised now by nearly everyone in Afghanistan. For all intents and purposes there is no Taliban any more; what will be escaping is al Qaeda. Most of the native Afghans, including Pashtuns, who were part of the Taliban military force have defected or deserted. The foreigners will get no support, and they will not be able to hide among villagers, especially if shaving and brightly-colored turbans come back into fashion, which already seems to be happening among the Afghans; these Taliban and al Qaeda men will be easy to pick out by their long beards and black or white turbans, not to mention their accents and lack of fluency in local languages. Afghans will have no trouble spotting Pakistanis and Chechens and Arabs in their midst.

Nor is this report correct that bombing will be ineffective. In particular, the upcoming winter will favor us and make bombing quite effective, because men need to be warm and Afghan winters in the mountains are very cold. The US has weapons and sensors that the Russians did not; their problem is not our problem. When the guerrillas light a fire, they'll be spotted. If they're in a cave complex, it will be warm and there will be a heat plume on the cave's ventilation system, which will be spotted. Caves are not safe against our munitions; we have one specifically designed to destroy them. It won't be necessary for us to attack them from the ground to root them out; we will simply bury them with high explosives. There may be dozens or even hundreds of prepared caves out there, but that isn't really all that many in actuality given that each one can be taken out in a single bombing mission once it's spotted, and that any which is in use will be spotted in fairly short order with infrared sensors.

If you're out in the open and you light a fire, you'll be bombed. If you don't, you'll freeze. If you hide underground, you'll be buried. If you try to blend in with the populace, you'll be spotted and shot. If you avoid all those fates and remain in Afghanistan, you'll starve. If you try to escape to the Pakistani border, you'll be bombed while you move and then will have to fight against the Pakistani army once you get there. What are they to do? If we have problems, theirs are vastly worse. This situation is far from hopeless for us; it's actually looking very good indeed. (discuss)