Analogies to Vietnam, made by those who categorize America’s pulling out of the area in 1973 as a “surrender,” are misleading. In reality, the Nixon administration negotiated a settlement and the withdrawal of US forces precisely because it knew America was in a pointless and unwinnable war. The US had no credible South Vietnamese partner and couldn’t eliminate enemy forces in sanctuaries in neighboring countries. South Vietnam fell two years later, but all the other dire predictions about what would follow a US withdrawal — for example, “falling dominoes” (the common term used to describe the prediction that states in southeast Asia and beyond would rapidly collapse in the wake of an American defeat) — never materialized and the damage to American credibility was minimal.
Staying in a war that cannot be won doesn’t demonstrate resolve but rather a failure to grasp reality. It also leads to tragic and unnecessary US deaths. Since the US formally ended its combat role in 2014, 42 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, according to a report from the New York Times.
One American dying in a seemingly endless war where we cannot achieve any of our goals is one too many. The Pentagon estimates that the war in Afghanistan is also costing it $45 billion a year.
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