My understanding is the modern military industrial complex has decided it matters to keep US military deaths low. Deaths turn people against war. But they still are not sold on the idea that the US cares about foreign deaths, or generally wasteful military ventures.
So they are hoping calling it quits in Afghanistan will be enough. It was the one where we didn't really have any fighters out there that wanted to side with us. They did it for money and would try find a way out the entire time. You had one case of a guy signing up thousands of soldiers on paper, collecting their pay, and then hops the border to Pakistan -- there were no solders.
Iraq and Syria unfortunately -- we can get groups that actually represent a part of the population to fight our side of the cause. So the our defense industry and foreign policy establishment is no where near throwing in the towel.
But then there is a more macro historical view that demonstrates that failing empires tend to overextend leading up to their collapse. It is a way to try to deal with the illegitimacy back home brought on by an increasingly parasitic elite. We won't just disappear, but we may very well find that in a couple hundred years that America is no longer considered the world's only super power. If that is the case, Afghanistan might be marked as the Stalingrad of American Imperialism.
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09-06-2021, 04:28 PM
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