Fearing the withdrawal of “high-speed Saigon”, the Taliban made rapid progress in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal. There are several key differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam.
On the one hand, South Vietnam does not support democratic elections. In contrast, the Afghan government, not the Taliban, welcomes elections as a means of consolidating its legitimacy.
Although the Vietnamese nationalists are fighting for the unification of Vietnam, the First Vice President of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, believes that the Taliban is essentially fighting to “divide Afghanistan. Although the Viet Cong is very popular, the Taliban has never been affected.” Welcome.” Moreover, he pointed out that although North Vietnam has no choice but to fight for liberation, “the Taliban are worried that they will retreat without a fight.”
But in these two cases, the way the United States treats its allies is similar. These undermined Washington’s moral authority.
In both cases, the United States negotiated peace with their enemies separately, without including their former allies. This allowed Saigon and now Kabul to fight against that enemy. The timing of this peace is very bad: instead of negotiating with the Taliban when it is weak, it is better to negotiate when it recovers.
In essence, the international community did not understand the political characteristics of the conflict in Afghanistan until very late. The retaliatory sentiment in the United States after 9/11 meant that it did not intend to reconcile with the Taliban and achieve an inclusive settlement.
Vietnamese Rufus Phillips described the difference between American views and local aspirations as “a fog of incomprehension.” The same abyss of misunderstanding also applies to Afghanistan, especially in determining that Afghans can exclude political reasons other than the Taliban agree and the Americans believe it is worth fighting for.
Both wars have a key human dimension. In Afghanistan, outsiders generally fail to grasp that Afghans can reach deals in a way that can compete for power and cooperate to make money.
These failures reflect a lack of understanding of the Taliban and Afghanistan itself, coupled with a tendency to irony, and the consequences of poor planning and limited patience. When General Stanley McChrystal arrived in Afghanistan in 2002, he said: “I think we are like high school students walking into a Mafia-owned bar.” It is said that Washington does not engage in nation-building policies. As a result, everything at first was about bear hunting, at least until the West realized that they would not be able to defend their interests without establishing a friendly government in Kabul.
Just as the United States failed to establish a country in South Vietnam with the same cause as the North, it did not do so in Afghanistan. Its solutions, strategies and tactics are not effective enough. If the West sends out long-standing signals like South Korea, the Taliban’s abacus may change.If faced with the prospect of a long-term military stalemate, they are more likely to commit to a political solution rather than use it as a trick to buy time
The West also does not realize the extent to which Afghanistan’s politics is personal and tribal, rather than national, and the importance of regional influence. This should not dilute the role of the Afghans themselves in their misfortune, or Washington’s tendency to ignore obvious political weaknesses, as it tries to paper a cohesive Afghan system without a peaceful solution.
The last echo of Vietnam is the method and consequences of the U.S. withdrawal. If it wants to leave, the Afghan government has to reluctantly accept this choice, not the way it leaves. The West’s attempts to evade its moral obligations to the Afghan people will have consequences, especially the value of its promises, and of course the millions of women who are now at the mercy of the Taliban’s theocratic rule.
History has exacerbated this influence on Western authority. In the 1980s, Islam was instrumentalized and weaponized by the United States to help defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Just like in Vietnam, the US negotiates for retreat, not victory.
In Vietnam and Afghanistan, failing to understand their allies and enemies and the nature of the conflict put Washington on the wrong path. Of the two, it fundamentally got politics wrong.
Like South Vietnam, Kabul now manages the chaos, pain, and uncertainty of Western troop withdrawal. Although the West-centric environment has been centered on the West for 20 years, from pursuing strategic issues such as diplomacy to tactical methods involving expanding Western bases and relying on air power, Kabul is now quickly having to make another plan.
There is still a possible huge difference here. If Kabul now successfully fights the Taliban, which is necessary for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement, then Afghanistan will not be South Vietnam.
Dr. Greg Mills has served on four missions with the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul and Kandahar, and led the Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg
