And of course, the original supplier of arms to the people who formed the Taliban was the United States. The goal for the US was to arm and empower the Islamic extremists who had launched a jihad against the secular Afghan government, and to disrupt Russian efforts to support it.
You aren't really improving my confidence in American military strategy.
The question is: would russia (who has mostly stayed out of the NK issue) intervene on NKs side. I'm saying they would for all of the reasons I listed. And their willingness to intervene in a conflict they have little geopolitical interested in (compared to NK), is an indication of their willingness to do so in other conflicts.
But large parts of the Mujahideen were actually part of the Northern Alliance that fought against the Taliban until liberation in 2002.
The CIA reactivated many of the same contacts from the Soviet war in 2001 to help them against the Taliban.