With Afghanistan in the Rearview Mirror, Have We Learned the Lessons of Vietnam This Time?
Afghanistan is a different story. Unlike Vietnam, which had a long and rich history of national identity before we intervened, Afghanistan is a multiethnic and mostly tribal society with well over a dozen language and ethnic groups spread out over various regions.
As horrendous as Taliban rule has proved itself to be, they have earned important support from some Afghans, particularly in the country’s vast tribal areas, as an alternative to the notoriously corrupt central government.
Whether they approve of the Taliban’s ultraconservative brand of Islam or not, people tend to, at least, tolerate outsiders who become part of their local village life more than those who are dropping bombs or firing missiles at them from drones.
Lesson two: Avoid “mission creep.”
Our policy toward Vietnam changed repeatedly as we tried to figure out what would work with an enemy whose motives we didn’t fully understand.
Our initial mission in Afghanistan could hardly be more clear: Find and eliminate Osama bin Laden and others behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mission accomplished. It turns out that would have been a great time for us to have declared victory and come home.
Lesson three: No “nation building.”
In other words, don’t try to build or strengthen a sense of national identity and create a politically stable and viable state in a country that’s not ready for it.
I mean no insult to those fighters for the South Vietnamese or Afghan military who fought heroically. But even they, too, often found that their own governments, our allies, didn’t have their backs.
Biden assured reporters that defeat was not “inevitable” because “the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban.”
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