Saigon and Kabul: A connection that will shape the US global role
The stark images of America’s final dash for the exit in Afghanistan, with Taliban forces streaming into the capital, have made the comparisons inevitable: Kabul 2021, Saigon 1975. But there’s a deeper connection between these two long, finally abandoned, wars, with potentially major implications for the future role of the United States in the world.
The defeat in Vietnam marked the beginning of the end of America’s post-World War II national consensus about its political identity and place in the world: as an indispensable supporter and defender of
The nature of the U.S. retreat
