The fact that “major Taliban offensive” is even a story is quite troubling, and not indicative of success.
It's proven itself to be an ideology and movement that can't be defeated with bullets and bombs, thats for sure. Over the last 20yrs, how many tens of thousands of Taliban fighters have we killed? Buildings we've destroyed that were being used to house fighters, manufacture IED's, etc, etc.
We've killed tens of thousands of them. At least. And the situation hasn't changed much, in the end... their ideology is there to stay for the foreseeable future, and their organization will always replenish itself because of that.
Do I believe the Russians were putting bounties for every American soldier killed? No, I don't. Why pay the Taliban money for something they are already happily doing for free whenever they get the chance? I hadn't seen ANY intelligence of ANY kind to support that, minus whatever the mainstream media had 'leaked' to it....which I'm guessing was nothing.
However, I DO believe that China COULD have covertly involved itself in the last few years, or will do so in the near future. (Perhaps in form of providing weapons and those kinds of capabilities, perhaps just in the form of money, or perhaps with enabling kit such as night vision goggles, etc. (There have been numerous reports of Taliban patrols who were found in possession of night-vision devices and fairly new AK's, and that goes back a decade or so.) There are WWWAAAYYYYY too many Rare Earth Metals, and huge oil reserves, for the world to not still keep Afghanistan in mind. China has the benefit of geography (not having to transport all of their troops and kit across the globe, and keep them supplied) - as well as manpower. As well as the financial & foreign policy resources to make friends with the Taliban.
I think a 'major Taliban offensive' was inevitable whenever the west decided to pull the plug on any conventional forces. The only thing preventing that from happening would have been an official peace agreement, or some sort of power sharing agreement with the government.
I imagine it will remain a CIA & SOF operation for quite some time to come. Some folks far more intellectual than I have made very compelling arguments that it should have perhaps been approached that way in the first place.
I've always thought of this challenge as analog to an ant hill. You can step on every ant that walks far enough away from the ant hill -- ants won't stop coming out of the hill. The ants are the radical extremists - humans - and they can be picked off easily enough. The anthill is their ideology, and we have no idea how to really eliminate that. Especially in modern times with the internet, videos, etc etc.
I agree with your sentiment Brihard. The fact that the Taliban was able to launch such a 'major offensive' isn't comforting after the continuous efforts made over the last 20 years. But, as much as it sucks, I do think it was inevitable without some sort of agreements in place first.