I had a friend who was one of the first troops in Afghanistan and we had a chance to talk hours before he left.
He was concerned because the afghanies had held Russia off so long and damn near devistated the Russian forces.
I told him then that he was going at the best time, early. I predicted that we would start out with unleashing the kind of hell that had hadn’t been seen since WWII and then our political and social support would quickly wither as we the free and easy forgot why we sent them there and we would ask again for them to police the uncontrollable.
I think I called that right down the middle.