Today seems to be a good day to post some thoughts from a 2014 paper/book written in 2015 by Chris Mason.
"The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan"
It can be found at U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute and purchased there. When it was first published free copies were available - but not now, there must have been a run on the free copies...
And, a PDF can be found at the Defense Technical Information Center here
"The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan"
We did not learn a lesson from Vietnam or Iraq and committed the same mistakes in Afghanistan.
Our politicians and strategic planners, interpreted all three conflicts as insurgencies, when in fact all three were civil wars in which the United States chose a side - the losing side - in spite of our military might...
Success was never possible from the outset, because none of the three countries were nations for which the majority of their citizens were willing to fight and die for a concept, Democracy, that they were unfamiliar with. Or, for most, if they were familiar with the concept of Democracy, and the separation of religion and government, went against their core beliefs.
Nation-building is a slow, evolutionary, internal process through which the political identity of the peoples within a country's borders matures over centuries to transcend tribalism, secularism, and ethnic divides, and until the country reaches a pervasive sense of nationhood. "Nation building," and democracy importation on the end of a foreign gun, is impossible.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana
Anyone wanting to commit American ground forces to the mainland of Asia should have his head examined. Douglas MacArthur, 1961
Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, 2011
The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were all fought after General Douglas MacArthur's admonition in 1961 to President John Kennedy not to commit land forces to a war in Asia. Three times in 40 years, the United States committed large numbers of U.S. ground forces to land wars in Asia anyway and lost all three of them, not on the battlefield, but at the strategic level.
Foreigners can build architecture, but they cannot build a nation. Extensive empirical data shows conclusively that there was no increase in local community support for the Afghan government we put in place, for example, after the delivery of schools, roads, clinics, and so on, by the counterinsurgents.
We built it, and they did not come. Furthermore, this data was available before the tactic of "clear, hold, and build" was widely implemented at enormous cost in blood and treasure. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Biden can't be faulted for starting this failed war, Bush owns that. But, Biden owns the chaotic retreat. No, that's not true, he doesn't own it - his keepers and political handlers own it.. Biden is too far gone to understand what is/has/will happen. However, his political handlers seem to have been right - in the long run just getting out will be more important to the population than how we did it - we have short memory's and are in a fight to the death over vaccines and vaccinations. Our Allies are more upset with Biden over our chaotic retreat than we are - not that it matters much.