Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners
Quotes of the Day:
“This will be the final message from Saigon station. It has been a long and hard fight and we have lost. This experience, unique in the history of the United States, does not signal necessarily the demise of the United States as a world power. The severity of the defeat and the circumstances of it, however, would seem to call for a reassessment of the policies of ... half-measures which have characterized much of our participation here despite the commitment of manpower and resources, which were certainly generous. Those who fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it. Let us hope that we will not have another Vietnam experience and that we have learned our lesson. Saigon signing off."
- Thomas Polgar, Chief of Station, Saigon, April 30, 1975
“The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”
- Georg Hegel
“As authority increases, however, so does self-consciousness. With more people watching, practice becomes performance. Reputations now matter, narrowing the freedom to be flexible. Leaders who’ve reached the top…can become prisoners of their own preeminence: they lock themselves into roles from which they can’t escape.”
- John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy
1. Intelligence Warned of Afghan Military Collapse, Despite Biden’s Assurances
2. In the End, the Afghan Army Was Always Doomed
3. ‘Team America’ has success evacuating Afghans, seeks help as requests grow
4. Opinion | Biden is blaming everyone but himself. But he’s the one who gave the Taliban a green light.
5. Biden Wanted to Leave Afghanistan. He Knew the Risks.
6. Flights to leave hourly from Kabul airport, if evacuees can get there
7. The Biggest American bleep Ups That Screwed Afghanistan
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/8-18-2021-National-Security-News-and-Commentary.html?soid=1114009586911&aid=AxNo6VfZLs8
