Military Review English Edition September-October 2014 | Page 58

just five years. To some extent, the United States
appears to have learned from its mistakes; its policy
in Afghanistan has been more effective and better
implemented than policy in Cambodia between 1970
and 1975.
Moreover, in contrast to the FANK in 1975, the
ANSF has been able to stand up to the insurgency
throughout most of Afghanistan’s sovereign territory.
However, as Cambodia did in 1975, the ANSF will
need continued advising as well as financial support for

several more years if it is to create sustainable and sufficient leadership, logistics, and air force capabilities.
Without the right kind of support from the United
States, for the right length of time, Afghanistan after 2014
could meet the same fate as Cambodia in 1975. After the
United States ceased supporting Cambodia, the central
government first lost the countryside, then the supply
routes, and finally the strategic urban centers. The
ultimate outcome was regime collapse and national
tragedy. This does not have to happen in Afghanistan.

Notes
Epigraph. Basil Henry Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn From
History? (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1971), 4.
1. Max Boot, “The Incurable Vietnam Syndrome: Distorting
our Foreign Policy for Three Decades and Counting,” The Weekly
Standard, 15(05)(19 October 2009), http://www.cbsnews.com/
news/the-incurable-vietnam-syndrome/.
2. David A. Ablin, ed., and Marlowe Hood, ed., The Cambodian Agony (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1987), xxxi.
3. Robert Cassidy, “Afghanistan or Talibanstan?” Armed
Forces Journal, 2 April 2014, http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/
afghanistan-or-talibanistan/.
4. Ira A. Hunt Jr., Losing Vietnam: How America Abandoned
Southeast Asia (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2013),
170-173.
5. Ablin and Hood, xv.
6. Hunt, 170-173.
7. Ablin and Hood, xv, xxv.
8. Bruce Palmer Jr., The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in
Vietnam (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 101-105.
9. Ibid., 172-173.
10. Ablin and Hood, xxxi.
11. Arnold R. Isaacs, Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and
Cambodia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 208,
218-219.
12. Hunt, 180.
13. Hunt, 173-175, 178.
14. Isaacs, 208.
15. Ibid., 247.
16. Ibid., 208.
17. Ibid., 247, 255.
18. Ibid.

56

19. Kenneth Conboy and Kenneth Bowra, The War in Cambodia 1970-75 (London, Osprey Publishing, 1989), 20-23.
20. Hunt, 180-181.
21. Conboy and Bowra, 20-23.
22. Hunt, 180-181.
23. For a discussion of the need for continued funding for
Afghanistan, see Borhan Osman, “Can the Taleban Outwrestle the
Government? An Assessment of the Insurgency’s Military Capability,” Afghanistan Analysts Network, 25 March 2014, http://www.
afghanistan-analysts.org/can-the-taleban-outwrestle-the-government-an-assessment-of-the-insurgencys-military-capability.
24. Cassidy.
25. Tyrone C. Marshall Jr., “Work Remains to Ensure
Afghan Progress Endures, Dunford Says,” American Forces
Press, 13 March 2014, http://defencebriefing.net/modules.
php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=261525.
26. Michelle Tan, “U.S. General: Coalition Braces for Taliban Offensive Ahead of Afghan Elections,” Army Times, 26
Mar 2014, at http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140326/
NEWS/303260049/U-S-general-Coalition-braces-Taliban-offensive-ahead-Afghan-elections.
27. U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 12 March
2014, Hearing to Receive Testimony on the Situation in Afghanistan,
Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, http://www.
armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/14-19%20-%203-1214.pdf.
28. U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 6 March 2014,
Department of Defense Authorization of Appropriations for Fiscal
Year 2015 and the Future Years Defense Program, Washington,
DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, http://www.armed-services.
senate.gov/imo/media/doc/14-15%20-%203-6-14.pdf.

September-October 2014  MILITARY REVIEW