Facing attack by the most modern army on earth, the Taliban's antiquated arsenal seems an easy target, but their black-turbaned fighters are masters of defence against a modern army and can wage a protracted guerrilla war.
Despite repeated sabre-rattling by Afghanistan's Taliban leadership, their fighters are unlikely to engage US forces on anything other than their own terms, analysts say.
The Taliban have vowed to declare a jihad, or holy war, if the US attacks in pursuit of wanted Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, who lives among them as a "guest".
The United States has vowed to punish his protectors in retaliation for the devastating attacks by suicide hijackers on New York and Washington last week for which he is blamed.
"This talk of martyrdom and dying for Islam is hyperbole to a certain extent," the publisher of an intelligence newsletter said.
"The Afghans are not given to suicide. Revenge possibly, vengeance possibly, but not suicide. It is not in their culture." Estimates of the hardware and manpower available to the Taliban vary so much it is difficult to build up a clear picture of their real strength.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, which publishes an annual Military Balance of armies around the world, says poor maintenance and a shortage of spares have severely depleted the Taliban's arsenal.
But an impressive array of Soviet weaponry poured into Afghanistan during Moscow's decade-long occupation, which ended in 1989, The United States, meanwhile, provided arms for the Islamic mujahideen guerrillas fighting the Soviet invasion.
How much remains in service - or even in the Taliban's hands - is questionable. The anti-Taliban Northern Alliance also grabbed a slice of the national arsenal as it was beaten back to the small northern corner of the country it now controls.
The Military Balance says the Taliban have at least two dozen helicopters and perhaps half-a-dozen aircraft, but with a lack of aviation fuel and the overwhelming superiority of US airpower, these are probably already being hidden in caves or bunkers.
Air attacks, while expected, will almost certainly catch the Taliban by surprise. Afghanistan has no air defences apart from shoulder-launched Sam-7 heat-seeking missiles and the country's only radar system was donated by the International Air Traffic Association to monitor commercial flights emitting transponder signals.
They may have some US Stinger missiles, but military experts say most are probably past their sell-by date, and are now only good for parades.
But the Taliban do have some heavy artillery - including the dreaded "Stalin's organs", mobile multi-barrelled cannon that are a modern version of the gun that forced the bloody halt of the German advance into Russia at Stalingrad during the second World War.
They also have around 100 tanks - but these are mostly the rumbling decades-old T-54 or T-62 behemoths that would be sitting ducks to the sophisticated Apache tank-busting helicopters that the United States has been itching to use in combat.
Any fixed batteries, runways, bunkers and other military installations are likely to be pummelled into rubble in the first phase of any US attack.
Outgunned, the Taliban will have to rely on the strengths that have turned the country into a graveyard for many an occupying force - its people and terrain. "They probably have around 25,000 fighters at their immediate disposal and could raise 35,000 to 45,000 with a rapid mobilisation campaign," said Mr Rashid.
One improvement the Taliban have made to traditional Afghan guerrilla warfare is the introduction of four-wheel-drive pick-up trucks as mobile, easy-to-hide troop carriers, based on the "technicals" put to deadly use by Somali militiamen during the ill-fated US intervention in the Horn of Africa.
From the rugged hills and valleys of the countryside, the Taliban fighters could spend years punishing an occupying force.
"Regardless of the scale of any initial US response - if it is forthcoming - this will not end quickly," said Mr Rashid.