Losing a War Means Not Being Able To Control What Happens Next
Upset about the humanitarian consequences of a pullout from Afghanistan? Blame the politicians who got us in there and kept us there
In the speech that opens “Patton”, George C. Scott tells his unseen audience that America has never lost a war. This line, of course, was included by the screenwriters in a bit of knowing irony- the picture was released in 1970, and it had become pretty clear by then that we were going to lose the Vietnam War. But “Patton”, like many great movies, speaks to larger truths- that speech that opens the film expresses how many Americans feel about war. That we’re the best, most powerful country on earth, that what we say goes, and that we are satisfied with nothing short of total victory.
Unfortunately, that is hubris. In fact, like every other great military power in history, we are not unbeatable. We found that out, big time, in Vietnam, where we threw over 500,000 combat troops and more bomb tonnage than we dropped in World War II at a small country, and still lost to a determined, nationalistic foe that had public support as well as geographical and geopolitical advantages. But, in fact, we actually found this out before then in Korea, where another small country and its allies fought us to a stalemate and killed over 35,000 Americans.
And in fact you might say we found that out in Cuba as well, where over 60 years of hostility, covert operations, an invasion, a naval blockade, propaganda operations, and economic sanctions have failed to displace the Communist regime.
And now here we are in Afghanistan. We have lost. Presidents Obama and Trump knew this too, and tried to initiate pull-outs, only to face push-back from the parts of the government that are deeply invested in forever wars and US military domination of the entire planet. President Biden has now announced we will have all troops out by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which gave rise to the original invasion.
The selection of the date is Biden’s only serious mistake here. At best, it looks like a political stunt. Let’s say he can actually get troops out by August 11. Why would we wait until September 11? Is it really worth it to risk the lives of American troops for another month so that the President can posture on 9/11? And that’s the best-case scenario- the worst case scenario is that pulling out on 9/11 becomes a recruiting and PR victory for terrorist groups. This is the sort of bad decision that comes when you spend too much time listening to the communications people in the White House.
But on the merits, we absolutely need to get out of Afghanistan. In response, people are raising the issue of all the Afghans who cast their lot with us and who will now be abandoned to the whims of the Taliban. Of course, we should do what we can to help them, with liberal refugee policies and some attempt to get them out of the country.
But hawks extrapolate from the unfortunate situation these Afghans find themselves in, the proposition that we owe it to them to stay. This was the exact same argument that hawks made in Vietnam. And in fact, when we did leave Vietnam, many of the allies of us and the South Vietnamese government ended up in “re-education camps” (i.e., prisons) or worse. It’s true.
But you can’t stay in losing wars, forever, just because the aftermath may be harmful to your allies. We could literally still be fighting the Vietnam War if we stayed in for that reason. That argument never goes away. (And if you doubt we could fight the Vietnam War for another 4 1/2 decades, consider that the Afghanistan War has gone on for two decades and our campaign against the Castros in Cuba for six.)
The basic problem here is what “Patton” was adverting to- Americans don’t like to think of ourselves as losers. We have a gigantic national ego. This is a big driver of our foreign policy. For instance, we spent a couple of decades refusing to recognize Mao’s government in Beijing. It was obviously not going away, and we were obviously eventually going to have to recognize it (as Nixon did). But there was an ego thing, we “lost” China, and of course we couldn’t abandon our ally Chiang Kai-shek, who was fighting the “good” fight in Taiwan. There’s a big heap of ego in our Cuba policy as well- Castro was terrible on human rights, but so were a lot of countries we had friendly relations with. What we punished Castro for was sticking it in America’s eye. We punished him because we couldn’t stand the fact that he won and we lost.
Coming to terms with losing means coming to terms with some related points. First of all, losers don’t get to dictate terms. When we leave Afghanistan, the forces that vanquished us, including the Taliban, get to decide what happens next and how to treat the people in the country. As I note above, we should do what we can to resettle refugees. But at bottom, when you lose a war, you leave, and the victors get to decide things, including deciding things that are immoral or violative of human rights.
Additionally, losing isn’t the fault of the people who order the pullout. It’s the fault of the people who supported going to war. Biden, of course, can fairly both be credited and blamed here, as he supported initially invading and then eventually supported pulling out. (This is also true of Nixon in Vietnam.) But the main villains of the Iraq War story are the members of the Bush Administration who got us into this mess, not the Biden people who are getting us out of it. (Similarly, the main villain of the Vietnam story is the Johnson Administration, not the Nixon Administration.)
And this is key. Veterans of the Bush Administration who were responsible for the mess in Afghanistan and who are looking for a cheap political hit on Biden are already criticizing how the pullout will supposedly harm people. But the situation Biden faces is a result of the initial decision to try to initiate a regime change via military force in Afghanistan. We tried it, we lost, and now here we are. If you start or escalate a war that the US can’t win, you are responsible for whatever happens when we pull out.
This country does lose wars. And the possibility that bad things happen when you lose wars is a really good argument not to get involved in wars in the first place.