if you just looked at it via the actual battles. but this military dominance that we had on the battlefield did not translate into us essentially winning, i guess, you could say winning the larger argument. and, frankly, you could argue the cold war, you know, the hot parts of the cold war didn t go well for either side. so, what is the lesson to take away from this? well, there are many lessons, obviously, but the overwhelming lesson that i take away from it is we have got to muster more patience than we ve brought to the field so far. it became the joke years ago in afghanistan and a statement attributed to the taliban. you americans have the watches but we the taliban, we have the time. we can outlast you. of course, that s just what they did.