I don't think we are going to gain a more accurate appreciation down the road, but rather revisionism, slanted to support politics, ego, and to protect folks' necks.If we live long enough, and get to read a more dispassionate and accurate history of this war decades down the road it may start making sense. I'm not sure there were any particular turning points during our war, I think they happened prior to the war.
We gained a more nuanced understanding of Vietnam through the Pentagon Papers and other reams of classified paperwork from the war years. The history is more delicate and fragile nowadays. The number of operation orders, emails, and briefings hanging out on classified servers is mind-boggling, and chunks of it get lost every day. Blow an external teradrive or two, and three years and five unit rotations are gone like so many candles blown out.
Some serious questions need to be asked though, about what could have been if NATO wasn't forced to slug it out pretty much on its own for so long, and we had simply committed the forces earlier, or said to hell with troop ceilings, or had a totally different approach once Karzai's aims came into focus.
Bookmarks