August 21, 2021

Pundits have been comparing the “fall” of Kabul to Saigon. The pandemonium is certainly similar. But today the Vietnamese work very hard for their living, just as they did during the war. About three-quarters of them live in country areas and villages growing rice and fruit trees or raising livestock. More importantly –as far as is publicly known- there are no mass executions. Perhaps 50 years from now –if humanity is still around- the current animosity in Afghanistan will have subsided and people will be living their lives out more or less normally.

The Vietnam fiasco did not have consequences in terms of the propagation of communism; in fact, the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1989, and China subsequently adopted many capitalist reforms that propelled it to the growing powerhouse it is today. These events were unthinkable as American helicopters lifted desperate people out of Saigon’s embassy rooftop in 1975.

The similarities between Saigon and Kabul are misleading, coincidental and superficial. Nixon ended the Vietnam war primarily because the American people did not support it and Congress refused to continue paying for it. Today the geopolitical reality stemming from the unprecedented, meteoric rise of China’s economic and military might is an entirely different matter. The quality, quantity, efficiency, and technological sophistication of its navy and air force continue to grow in leaps and bounds, and so is their nuclear arsenal.

Viewed in that context America’s departure from Afghanistan is reminiscent of Rome’s futile withdrawal from Britannia around 410, to help fend off the barbarians who had crossed the Rhine in the winter of 406-407. It still didn’t prevent the Empire’s demise 66 years later, in 476. From a military perspective Afghanistan, a landlocked country, is a dead-end mousetrap consuming lives and vast economic resources that could be advantageously redeployed elsewhere. It is surrounded by nations hostile to the U.S. –Iran to the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (former Soviet Republics) to the north, China to the east, and Pakistan (a dubious American ally) to the south and southwest.

In short, the preemptive but ominous withdrawal from Afghanistan, a course of action on which former President Trump and President Biden agree, makes sense. The U.S. and China are squaring off, among other things, over the South China Sea and Taiwan, and no one knows how that’s going to play out.