China's strategy in Afghanistan.

Richard Santos said:

yes, but mainly between 1931 and Sept 1939, when the Soviet Union and Japan agreed to a cease fire after the Nomenhan border incident in Manchuria.

Stalin had judged the defeat of japanese Kwangtong army during the battle of Kulchin Gol at Nomenhan afforded sufficient deterrence to the japanese so that Soviet Union’s eastern flank is adequately secured, so he no longer needed to continue to irritate japan by supporting KMT/ROC to tie down the japanese. From Sept 1939 to June 1941 Soviet diplomatic attention was essentially fixed on the war in Europe.

After Germany crushed France, Stalin sought to further secure his easter flank diplomatically so he could concentrate on the west by concluding a formal Neutrality pact with Japan in early 1941. This neutrality lasted until Stalin decided to break it in August 1945 to honor his new commitment to the US and UK made in Yalta, but mainly to be in on the spoils on mainland asia and in Japan if the war between the US and Japan turns into a grinding invasion of japanese home island, which seemed probable in May-July 1945.

So during all of WWII in the west, the USSR provided almost no assistance to ROC/KMT

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I don't blame Soviet since hey face mortal danger from Nazi in their front So it is natural for them to concentrate on their war effort . But 1931 to 1939 is critical time of Chinese war effort without Soviet help at that time there will be no China. by the time 1939 come WW II is in progress and Chiang know the day of Japan is numbered that is why he save his best division to fight against the communist and not Japan.

Hendrik_2000 said:

I don't blame Soviet since hey face mortal danger from Nazi in their front So it is natural for them to concentrate on their war effort . But 1931 to 1939 is critical time of Chinese war effort without Soviet help at that time there will be no China. by the time 1939 come WW II is in progress and Chiang know the day of Japan is numbered that is why he save his best division to fight against the communist and not Japan.

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By 1939 Chiang’s best divisions were either destroyed during the 2 years of intense mobile warfare, or have have settled down to corrupting more or less peaceful and profitable coexistence with the Japanese across a more or less static front line. These surviving divisions would prove how worthless they have become in 1944, when the Japanese renewed large scale land offensives in China and mowed them over as if they didn’t even exist.

Basically, by the end of 1939, Japan had ran out of logistic capacity to support further large scale land offensives in China, while KMT had ran out of of resources to conduct large scale mobile defence. So the war in China proper settled into a series of skirmishes from then until 1944. The main focus shifted to defending the wartime capital of Chungking from Japanese air attacks, and keeping open supply lines to the south.

in some ways, the period of Sino-japanese war between 1940 and 1944 mirror, on a enormously larger scale, the US Afghani war from maybe 2002-2020. In both wars, the invaders took snd held key territories that makes the occupied country a normal functioning peacetime state, But the invaders in both cases were unable to carry out addition sustained offensives that resulted in key territory gains, while the defenders lacked the power to mount resistance on anything more then small segment of the front. so the war settled into a stalemate.

The ultimate difference is, however, holding onto occupied chinese territory was of existential importance to the japanese empire, while holding onto occupied afghan territory was only of marginal importance to the US.

Tse said:

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Yeah so now we have three people claiming to be the head of state of Afghanistan.



The democratic choice, ladies and gentlemen. US university professor and World Bank staffer. 4 cars and a helicopter full of cash.

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He talks nicely and eloquently though, the key hallmarks needed or must for a foreign backed "leader".

Richard Santos said:

not true. the US provided considerable material and personnel aid well before pearl harbor. Relation with germany withered to effectively nothing well before pearl harbor as Nazi Germany relented under japanese pressure to break off relationship with KMT/ROC. KMT/soviet relationship also withered to effectively nothing between late 1939, at the conclusion of Nomenhan incident in Manchuria and roughly coinciding Stalin’s attention turning west with the beginning of the war in Europe, and June 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

For 2 years between the end of 1939 and Dec 1941, the US was the only major power providing significant material and personnel assistance to ROC/KMT

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This is getting a bit off-topic and should probably go in the WW2 thread. But I disagree with the commonly peddled myth that the US was always a major supplier/helper to the KMT during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Germany's motivation in the KMT was trade for raw resources. Japan promised them compensation for breaking off the relationship with the KMT (the compensation never materialized in the end). The USSR, UK and USA were supplying the KMT in order to stall the Japanese in their land war. Aid was kept to the bare minimum needed to stalemate the situation (this was always a Europe first strategy for the USSR, UK and USA). The American Volunteer Group was only active from April 1941 to 4 July 1942 with a strength of roughly 60 aircraft.

When you look at the numbers, the argument that the US provided vast amounts of military supplies before 1945 evaporates. Let's start with rifles, LMGs and MMGs.

Starting with Rifles:
Hanyang Rifle Production:

CKS Rifle Production:

Rifle Imports up to 1940:

Notice that the US is entirely absent from rifle imports in the early war. The US supplied 20,000 rifles in 1942 to the Chinese Army in India (Chinese troops trapped in India after the Japanese captured Burma). Requirements for new rifles were recognized in 1943, but were not received until 1944. 43,969 rifles were shipped by the US in 1944 and 182,206 were shipped in 1945. However, this does not account for the actual number of rifles received by the Chinese forces in China due to logistics issues. By the end of January 1945 only 5,891 rifles had been issued to Chinese forces in China. By the end of May 1945 100,710 rifles had been issued to Chinese forces in China. For the period of 1940-1944 KMT foreign weapons imports dried up significantly. It was only until 1945 that US military supplies began reaching Chinese forces in China in any significant numbers.

Light Machine Guns:
* Estimated

Note that the US is absent from the table.

Medium Machine Guns:
* for Chinese Army in India

Again US supplies only start arriving in 1945.

wxw456 said:

This is getting a bit off-topic and should probably go in the WW2 thread. But I disagree with the commonly peddled myth that the US was always a major supplier/helper to the KMT during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Germany's motivation in the KMT was trade for raw resources. Japan promised them compensation for breaking off the relationship with the KMT (the compensation never materialized in the end). The USSR, UK and USA were supplying the KMT in order to stall the Japanese in their land war. Aid was kept to the bare minimum needed to stalemate the situation (this was always a Europe first strategy for the USSR, UK and USA). The American Volunteer Group was only active from April 1941 to 4 July 1942 with a strength of roughly 60 aircraft.

When you look at the numbers, the argument that the US provided vast amounts of military supplies before 1945 evaporates. Let's start with rifles, LMGs and MMGs.

...

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Now with heavier weapons:

Anti-Tank Guns:

Again US supplies only arrive in large numbers in 1945.

60mm Mortars:

Again US supplies start arriving in 1943 well after 1941.

81mm/82mm Mortars:
* US shipped ~2,000,000 rounds in total from 1943 onwards.

Again US supplies don't arrive until 1943 onwards.

15cm Mortar Production:

Only 42 US 107mm (4.2-inch) M2 Mortars ever made to Chinese troops in China by 1945.

Finally field artillery pieces received from the US:

• 389 75mm M1A1 pieces reached Chinese forces in China by from 1944-1945.
• 105mm M2A1 were shipped into China starting in February 1945, but the first artillery battalion was still in training when the war ended.
• US 155mm M1918 were deployed in Burma by CAI units, but never saw action in China.

There you go...the numbers say it all. The US was NOT a major arms supplier to the KMT from 1937-1942. Get ready for some interesting conclusions:

• Belgians shipped 107,461 rifles and 7,412 LMGs from 1937-1941.
• Czechs shipped 99,997 rifles, 17,013 LMGs and 851 MMGs from 1937-1941.
• Germans shipped 100,310 rifles and 144 AT guns from 1937-1941. (I am not counting license manufactured weapons.)
• USSR shipped 50,000 rifles, 7,000 LMGs, 1,327 MMGs and 630 AT guns from 1937-1941.
• France shipped 925 LMGs, 1,991 MMGs and 552 mortars from 1937-1941.

The US shipped 0 rifles, 0 LMGs, 0 MMGs, 0 AT guns, 1 mortar and 0 artillery pieces into China from 1937 to 1942. You know somebody hasn't kept up with the historiography when they talk about the "large" amount of US supplies to the KMT before 1943. The KMT should thank the Belgians and Czechs more than the US, USSR and UK!

Richard Santos said:

foreign troops won’t be there for weeks and weeks.

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That's even worse then.

The US has 100,000+ people to move out from Afghanistan

What about those left behind?

I think the next big question is whether we will see a mass exodus of refugees like we saw after the US intervention in Syria.

And if Afghans are allowed to cross Iran to reach Turkey and then onto Europe, we would see another political earthquake.

Except this time, it would be firmly blamed on the USA.

AndrewS said:

That's even worse then.

The US has 100,000+ people to move out from Afghanistan

What about those left behind?

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Why do they have 100,000+ people to move out?

solarz said:

Why do they have 100,000+ people to move out?

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See below

More than 300,000 Afghan civilians have been affiliated with the American mission over its two-decade presence in the country, according to the International Rescue Committee, but a minority qualify for refugee protection in the United States.

Article below

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Kornfeld and IRAP have filed several petitions to order the State Department to evacuate all Afghans who have applied for special immigrant visas and their families -- some 100,000 Afghans in total, the legal advocacy group estimates.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/afghan-familys-harrowing-account-kabuls-airport/story?id=79520843

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