Leave or Stay

[Dayuhan]

Face saving exit?

Applies purely to the domestic audience. Not likely to convince anyone who's paying attention, but most aren't, and most just want to get out of there.

Let me get this straight... we're on a course where vast sums are being spent in a place where no critical or even significant US interests are at stake, and you think we should "stay the course" because if we don't people will think we're ditherers? I say ad infierno with that nonsense. If changing what doesn't work is dithering, then by all means let us dither. The course we're on was set by a government no longer in power, one with a track record of poor decisions and of overestimation US capacities and underestimating risks and the potential for adverse unintended consequences. Obviously that course has to be reassessed on a regular basis: only a fool follows a course blindly without regular reality checks. If the course is not taking us where it's meant to go, or if cost clearly exceeds benefit, the course has to change. If somebody thinks that's dithering, that's their problem, not ours.

On the issue of the US has 'survived' losing Vietnam, I would have preferred not to comment. However, since it has been raised, I will say it is a matter of conjecture. The very fact that you mention Vietnam, indicates that the US has still not 'survived' or reconciled to the 'loss' in Vietnam under circumstances not very pleasant.

One has to understand that winning a war is not child's play. It took years to win WWII, which was also then felt would be over in a jiffy.

What wins wars is National Morale inspite of reverses.

You make my point rather well.

National morale is produced by the perceived necessity of the conflict at hand. WW2 was perceived to be an existential battle, therefore national morale was high and the will to persist despite reverses was there. Vietnam was perceived - accurately, as it turned out - to be a war where no critical US interest was at stake, and where cost vastly exceeded any potential gain, therefore morale and political will were low.

Morale and political will are purely a function of the perceived necessity of the conflict. Nobody, anywhere, has demonstrated that any critical US interest is at stake in Afghanistan. No credible suggestion of strategic or economic value has been made: a few have been claimed, but they don't stand up to critical analysis. There's no existential threat and no significant gain at stake, therefore there is little political will to continue... and that makes perfect sense, given the costs involved. Remember, great powers are far more likely to fall because of overextension and wasting of wealth in pointless conflict than by failure to impose themselves in faraway places.

People should not find excuses or be apologetic over minor reverses or momentary impasses by indicating the the US and the US Govt is a lot of dithering coves. I wonder if they are such ditherers, because then one wonders why the same ditherers were not taken to be so when the US stood united to embark on various wars to include Iraq and Afghanistan. Knights in Shining Armour out to save the world cannot suddenly become dithering dolt, can they?!

Choosing a foolish course is dumb, but it happens. Staying on it after it's proven itself foolish is folly: the pursuit of policy known to be contrary to self-interest. You'd think no nation would ever pursue policy contrary to self interest, but it happens all the time. The driver is typically ego, and a refusal to change course because one is afraid to admit a mistake. In the short run admitting a mistake and correcting it may be a transient ego blow, but in the long run that does less damage than staying with the sinking ship.

Notwithstanding the posts which attempts to show the US as being disoriented in its policies and endeavours, I don't think it is so. The US is quite focussed; more focussed than many, and they are aware of what they are doing and they have the wherewithal to ensure their will, even if the economy is not ideal.

The orientation and focus change on a regular basis. That's both a strength and weakness: it diminishes continuity but it enhances the ability to adapt and to change courses that aren't working.

Some of what you fear makes little sense to me. Supposing the US moved out of Afghanistan and the Chinese moved in. How would that hurt the US? Chances are they'd find themselves exactly where we are... so what? Even if they succeeded in pacifying the place, set up a few mines, built a railway and pipeline to Gwadar... so what? What would be the threat to the US there? Even if one assumes that China is a threat to be confronted and contained - an assumption that has IMO very little merit - why choose ground for a confrontation that has so little at stake for the US and where the US operates at such a disadvantage?