MIRRORING VIETNAM’S FAILURES IN AFGHANISTAN: DOD’S DESCENT INTO WAR FATIGUE
By Chandler Myers July 24, 2020
Wars are expensive in terms of blood lost and treasure spent, but there are other, more subtle costs.
The long road to the trilateral U.S.-Afghanistan-Taliban memorandum of agreement was wearisome on all fronts. Wars are expensive in terms of blood lost and treasure spent, but there are other, more subtle costs. They take an emotional toll on affected populations, they degrade governance, norms, and even sovereignty, and they damage the environment and resiliency. It is impossible to place a sticker price on the cost of any war. But one truism seems clear enough: the longer wars last, the more expensive they are. Sustaining war requires prolonged funding for equipment (to include acquisition and maintenance), forces, and logistics. More importantly, sustaining a war effort over time demands a strategy that identifies a path to achieve a desired outcome and the political leaders who ensure unwavering commitment from all levels of government. Without a strategy and political commitment, additional resources only have a marginal effect on a war’s outcome.
In the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban had a painfully realistic goal: protract the war to diminish the likelihood of U.S. strategic success—that is increase the price and duration of the war with the hope of a war-weary U.S. giving up on its objectives. This strategy is, of course, not new. It has long been the strategy of the weak against a materially stronger opponent. Although the U.S. defeated the Imperial Japanese version of this strategy, the experience in Vietnam is more instructive for Afghanistan as the U.S. miscalculated both internally and externally, leading to poor strategy and conduct of the war.
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/war-fatigue/
