Donald Nuechterlein: Foreign policy fails: Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam | Don Nuechterlein

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Donald Nuechterlein

DONALD NUECHTERLEIN

Three expensive wars in Central and East Asia since 1950 have raised two questions about U.S. foreign policy: Why did we go to war with Korea (1950), Vietnam (1965), and Afghanistan (2001)? What has been learned about America’s emerging role in maintaining world peace?

Afghanistan: The main mistake President George W. Bush made was not the invasion in 2001 to eliminate al-Qaeda, a successful operation, but the decision of his administrations to use the occupation of Afghanistan to form a democratic government in a country with no experience of free elections or interest in human rights. That effort was largely unsuccessful. The financial cost was more than a trillion dollars and the casualties in the battle were nearly 2,000 killed and 20,000 wounded. Although the casualties were smaller than in Korea and Vietnam, the frustration of the public at the war was clear.

We had two successful but smaller wars in Kuwait and Bosnia in the 1990s. But the legacy of failures in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan has caused Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden to carefully tread before committing military forces abroad.

Korea: In mid -June 1950, North Korean troops, supported by weapons from the Soviet Union, invaded South Korea with the intention of uniting the country under Communist rule. After WWII, America occupied South Korea as well as Japan and the Soviet Union had responsibility for North Korea. President Harry Truman decided that America would use force to stop North Korea’s open threat to peace and gave General Douglas MacArthur, commander in Japan, instructions to return the aggression., The problem was the serious lack of forces. of the US in Asia to do that.

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