Think long and hard before trying to solve any problem militarily. Talk of all other peaceful means as exhausted is often baseless: An alternative is always available. If, however, a great power makes the mistake of entangling itself in an armed conflict, it shouldn't make things worse by arrogantly refusing to heed warnings of dire consequences.



I think we could have stabilized this country.

The cost in life would be enormous, and we would only resort to this in the most dire circumstances. How were Japan and Germany brought to their knees? Two countries that had very strong "religious" beliefs, that would have been horrible messes if approached in a diplomatic mode when decisions were critical. In the end, when things got very tough, we restorted to massive widespread destruction. Wipe the slate clean. We would not resort to all out massacre. This is an alternative that is not discussed by Gorbachev who is a diplomat.

Again, one lesson from this situation is not necessarily to try and stay out. Use diplomacy. The lesson could be, go in to win. And in hindsight we did not do what was necessary... 100,000 troops for a country this size? We needed to take our time planning, and go in with a half a million. Plan what we would do in every city, at every important oil facility, city power plant, and other imp. infrastructure. But we were not willing to make that commitment or be that patient. We wanted "partners" in this percieved noble quest, and our allies would have never agreed to an enormous commitment. We wanted to win quickly with some semblance of an international blessing.

If the 1/2 million troops had accomplished the above, we might be in sorry diplomatic shape with the rest of the world. Or it is possible, that Iran would not be a problem and other there would be new books written about Nation Building. There are a world of possibilites that are very hard to predict. People constantly look back after events have been played out... this was no win, or if we had only done it like this... and none of these are necessarily correct. This is not like predicting where the moon will be in 2 years... we know exactly where it will be, the rules are simple.

The whole premise Gorby makes is based upon assumptions of how a "war" is approached. The more total control scenario is not mentioned in the article at all, it would be considered a diplomatic nightmare by Gorbachev. Nonetheless it is was a possible solution.