Another Vietnam?

The Vietnam War plays an important role in the history of contemporary war because it represents the first major defeat of the United States as a superpower.

In a relatively short time, the Americans had gone from being an isolationist nation to defeating the Axis of Evil in World War II, and later becoming one of the leaders in the West. However, shortly after discovering the limits of their power, there were serious social fractures, when the use of force does not have enough social support and fickle public opinions are risky.

For the enemies of the United States, Vietnam was proof that the U.S. was only a “paper tiger” after all, a great power endowed with formidable means of destruction but inhabited by people with very limited endurance, for their attachment was to life and property.

The history of that war has become a manual for defeating any Western state in an asymmetric conflict, where the main battlefield is public opinion and the best weapon is the newspaper The New York Times. If victory is perceived distantly, with vague national interests and with many victims, especially women and children, and if the intervention smacks of neo-colonialism, we have the perfect cocktail for the media to undermine the will to win, forcing an embarrassing retreat.

In Afghanistan, there are political and geographical conditions for the United States that may cause another defeat, which include the geography and the lack of political will of the current president. Neither the contingents deployed, nor the time limitations seem to defeat the Taliban militias and consolidate the new regime. They just have to stand and wait for NATO to withdraw because time is on their side.