America’s Humiliating Defeat in Afghanistan Centered Around Misunderstanding the True-Enemy, Pakistan, and by Extension, China
Guest post by Lawrence Sellin
The best outcome we can expect from the catastrophe now unfolding in Afghanistan is a new U.S. regional strategy that prevents our adversaries from benefitting from the power vacuum created by our conscious and chronic refusal to address the true nature of the conflict.
After the initial victory over the Taliban in the final weeks of 2001, U.S. political and military leaders made two major strategic errors, which pre-ordained a disastrous outcome.
They attempted to impose a top-down, Western style democracy on a bottom-up tribal and religious society and they, quite simply, decided to fight the wrong war ignoring the true enemy, Pakistan and, by extension, China.
In the face of clearly contradictory facts,
