Asia & the Pacific

Nathaniel L. Moir writes of historical cases in which a U.S. tendency to over-rely on military capabilities and American economic strength proved unwise and how such power eventually proved to be irrelevant. In addition to the Vietnam War as an example, the rapid collapse of the Republic of China and its large military forces in late 1948 and 1949 offers some parallels with the collapse of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Government, despite the United States investment of trillions of U.S. dollars.

Dan Snow is joined by Calder Walton to talk about whether there was a huge intelligence failure around the outbreak of the pandemic, but also whether our intelligence communities are properly organized to realistically evaluate the real nature of the threats to our societies. He also has a bold idea to help avoid a future recurrence.

Nathaniel Moir reviews Maxwell Taylor's Cold War: From Berlin to Vietnam by Ingo Trauschweizer.

The authors comment on the Washington Post's recently released 6-part investigative report on the U.S. war in Afghanistan. They conclude that although important, this report is only alarming to the extent that it demonstrates how often U.S. leaders deceive themselves.