American analysts:
The United States no longer wins wars like it used to
Biden does not want to get involved in another foreign war.
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Washington did not achieve a resounding victory in its foreign wars after 1991. From the source
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Since 1945, Washington has not achieved a resounding victory in its foreign wars, with the exception of the 1991 Gulf War, where its withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq reflects its problems in dealing with guerrilla warfare. A few days before the fall of Saigon in April 1975, an event marking the end of the Vietnam War, the commander of the US Army, Colonel Harry J. Summers Jr., chatting in Hanoi with a North Vietnamese Army colonel, Tu, during peace negotiations between the two sides. “You know you will never defeat us on the battlefield,” Summers said. The North Vietnamese colonel thought for a moment, then replied, "It may be so for you, but it is not so for us." This conversation appeared in Summers' 1982 book on Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War.
This dialogue illustrates the American contradiction in most of the conflicts that will come later.
After 1945 the United States became a superpower, and the fall of the Soviet Union made it the world's only leader, but it basically no longer won a war.
The country did not achieve a clear and indisputable victory after the 1991 Gulf War. The nature of wars has changed, as most of them have become civil conflicts in which the enemy takes the form of terrorist groups that are divided into countless small factions in every direction;
What a pure quagmire.
Curse of the Vietnam War
Summers, who became a writer and scholar on the Vietnam War, concluded that his North Vietnamese counterpart was right: Regardless of battlefield action, Americans lost the 20-year war so disappointingly that it became a symbol and motto: "We don't want another Vietnam." ».
The American people did not want another Vietnam in Afghanistan, nor in Iraq, nor one of any of the wars the United States fought in the early twenty-first century, which quickly turned into stalemate. These are struggles in which they did not lose but also did not win, and it became difficult for Washington to abandon them. In the case of Afghanistan, it took two decades. The last US forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan on August 31, leaving the country at the mercy of the Taliban fighters, who are getting stronger by the day. And in Iraq, the site of the most unpopular war in modern US history, President Joe Biden agreed on Monday to end the combat mission by the end of 2021, after 18 years.
These are struggles that end without surrender and also without a victory ceremonial, where the enemy is hardly seen or in uniform.
Biden acknowledged that, moving forward in Afghanistan, the administration cannot expect any results different from those that America has already obtained.
In a speech in April, the president said it was time for US forces to withdraw from there.
The reason for losing America's wars
Dominic Tierney, professor of political science at Swarthmore College, subjected the subject of America's wars to a deep analysis in his book "The Reason for Losing War... America in an Era of Conflicts It Didn't Win," and says: "The United States is very effective in winning wars if the war is between nations, This is the reason for its victory in the 1991 Gulf War, but nowadays 90% of conflicts are civil, in which guerrillas, terrorists and rebels fight against the invading forces in the same country, and the invading forces face problems due to their lack of understanding of local politics or internal dynamics. Afghanistan is a very clear case, because it is a war in which the United States suddenly entered with the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and I hardly understood anything about the country.”
Then-President George W. Bush launched an attack with his allies a month after the September 11 attacks on Afghanistan, because the Taliban was harboring the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders linked to the attack.
The goal was to destroy this terrorist group and expel the Taliban from Afghanistan.
Tierney says that this work should be described as a failure, the United States did not succumb to the attacks of the Taliban, but it incurred a very costly campaign that lasted 20 years, both in terms of lives and financial cost, and the end result is that the Taliban is on the rise again.
The author adds: "If we can go back to 2001 and tell people that the Taliban will still be around two decades later, they will be terrified."
Waste of life and wealth
Tierney adds: “In the early days of the campaign, there was a sense of victory, because few soldiers were able to expel (the Taliban), and this misguided move encouraged Bush to consider invading Iraq two years later, but over time, two basic problems emerged: The first is that (Taliban) enjoys great support among the Pashtun population, and that Pakistan was a haven where they could turn and recover before returning to war.”
He stressed that "the war is over for the United States, but not for the Afghans."
Quincy Institute defense analyst Mark Perry, author of dozens of books on foreign policy and war, partially disagrees with him.
In his view, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the disintegration of "Al-Qaeda" were the two main goals of the campaign, which means that Afghanistan should not be added to the list of American defeats, even if this is certainly not a victory.
The problem, Perry adds, is that the United States has tried to do too much.
He says, "We were never good at nation-building, and we wasted lives and wealth in the midst of our attempts to do so. The same thing happened with Iraq and Syria, although Syria is a special case, because we did not try to enter there."
The United States has about 200,000 troops deployed around the world, although this number varies constantly due to withdrawal and reinforcement decisions that are made almost daily, which do not include special or covert operations.
Biden and former President Donald Trump sought—albeit in stark contrast—to reduce the scope of American efforts and resources in the Middle East, focusing instead on the challenges that China presents today on both the economic and military fronts.
Iraq is different
But Iraq is different from Afghanistan, and instead of a radical withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 troops, Washington negotiated with Baghdad to redefine its role as a provider of training and logistical support.
The administration of former President Barack Obama had already declared the end of the war in 2011, when it had hardly any troops left in Iraq, but in 2014 American soldiers returned when the Iraqi government requested help in dealing with the terrorism practiced by ISIS.
Iraq is the biggest American mistake
Quincy Institute defense analyst Mark Perry believes that the Iraq war was the biggest mistake in US foreign policy in 40 years.
The hawks of the administration of George W. Bush paid for it on the basis of the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction that were never found.
He says, "We should not have gone there. After we went, our goal should have been to overthrow former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and then return. Now we are going back to our country, but after 20 years."
According to this expert, "The war on terror has been fought and ended, and the lesson learned from the past few years is that the United States should not have been involved in civil conflicts abroad, and we have seen the absence of recent American interventions of this kind."
It seems that the events of the past few weeks prove that he is right. After the assassination of Haiti's president, Jovenel Moss, the interim government asked the US forces to help them stabilize the country.
A few days later, Biden replied that such a move was not on the American agenda.
The American people did not want another Vietnam in Afghanistan, nor in Iraq, nor one of any of the wars the United States fought in the early twenty-first century, which quickly turned into stalemate. They are struggles in which they did not lose but also did not win, and it became difficult for Washington to abandon them.
The United States has about 200,000 troops deployed around the world, although this number varies constantly due to withdrawal and reinforcement decisions that are made almost daily, which do not include special or covert operations.
• The nature of wars has changed, as most of them have become civil conflicts in which the enemy takes the form of terrorist groups that are divided into countless small factions in every direction; What a pure quagmire.
• Iraq and Afghanistan are the kind of conflicts that end without surrender and without victory ceremonies as well, where the enemy is hardly seen and does not wear an official uniform.
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