The pundits were not kind to Trump’s “new” strategy.



Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, piled on:





A warrior public willing to fight  






Making it ever harder to find a decent partner













Coverting the war to a civil one



6 thoughts on “Why America Finds It Impossible To Abandon, Or To Win, In Afghanistan

  1. One of the few pragmatic remarks I’ve heard coming from Trump’s mouth (most likely because he stayed on script) was his statement that the U.S. was not in Afghanistan to nation-build but to kill terrorists.

    It seems that American purism insists on short term transition to democracy rather than the more practical approach of eliminating foreign threats and encouraging generational change.

    Perhaps we’ll learn someday.


  2. I’m generally rather annoyed by the Fabius Maximus blog, what with their almost masturbatory insistence on being as centrist as possible and calling it “being above the left-right divide” and being obnoxiously and arrogantly superior to the smallest nuance of partisanship, treating any semblance of ideology almost like a smear word. That and the stupid insistence on denying anthropogenic climate change, which especially now after Houston, is, for lack of a better word, pretty frickin’ stupid.

    Apart however from the great article linked, I’m really doubtful there’s much more worth reading there… unless? Do you have any more recommendations from there? I’d still be glad to pick some nuggets of gold from what is otherwise self-congratulary gruel masked as some magical “superior” third way.


    1. To be fair Fabius is best when he sticks to military policy and thoughts. Especially since Trump, he’s been making a rightward turn that I’m not sure he’s aware of. That article shows his strengths – as a military thinker. The political and media insights on the other hand are of limited value.


      1. Most of the writers on that blog are former military officers, mostly USMC. People who have deep understanding of foreign policy from a military perspective both on the strategic and tactical level insofar as exemplifying what nowadays is the general perspective shared by the DoD, at least as far as I’ve experienced on my own end.
        Notable how none of them were intelligence officers of any kind, and it probably means something when some of the contributors listed with the best in literature are labeled as no longer being involved. Hmm.

        Thus I’m just curious as to what other tidbits you’d recommend, Mr. Bohl. Every time you touch on stuff, such as the Strauss-Howe theory, or the assabiyyah, or the Hofstede cultural dimensions concept, has greatly expanded both my library and my competence as these subjects at work; To know what more can be added to that bounty is what I’m curious to know, and thus, after going on this whole tangent:
        Could you link us with more goodies?

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I’d be happy to. Right now a lot of my energy has been put into understanding the granular nature of geopolitics so I haven’t been as involved in the broad strokes as I used to. Rest assured as new insights come up I’ll share them! Democratic peace theory is one I like to look at as part of a resolution for the security dilemma but one which also has a fair set of holes to poke in it.


    2. After Houston… vultures r always feeding on fresh corpses. Some day we’ll read asteroids are human made because we already read earthquakes r…. jeez


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