Opinions Afghanistan has fallen. What can the United States do now?
As noted in this space a few days ago, the analogies between Afghanistan and Vietnam are going to be fast and furious for the near future. And, you know, fair enough. But it is also worth remembering that predictions of post-Vietnam declinism proved erroneous.
1975 was the nadir of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. One of the aftermaths of that debacle was that the national security system endeavored to learn from its mistakes. The U.S. military turned away from conscription to become an all-volunteer force. The intelligence community, prompted by Congress, established stronger rules and limits on what it could do and where it could do it. Elected officials and civilian policymakers took efforts to avoid the mistakes of the past. At the start of every subsequent military intervention, someone asked, “Will this be another Vietnam?”
As it turns out, Vietnam mistakenly encouraged the Soviet Union to expand its foreign policy ambitions, leading to disastrous interventions in Afghanistan and Poland that ultimately led to its demise. Meanwhile, the United States recovered, won the Cold War and experienced a second wave of hegemony.
Full-spectrum policy failures like Vietnam or Afghanistan are not just an end — they can be a beginning, provided that the system learns from its mistakes and minimizes the damage to collateral interests.
-more-
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/opinions-afghanistan-has-fallen-what-can-the-united-states-do-now/ar-AANpzTB
= new reply since forum marked as read
