Before Afghanistan in 2021, America was last defeated by a national liberation movement in Vietnam in 1975. After the fall of Saigon, the “domino theory” assured Americans that Asia would quickly fall to Communism. That didn’t happen, and the ensuing violence (Vietnam’s 1979 invasion of Cambodia and China’s attack on Vietnam) didn’t affect American security. But Eurasia in 2026 is another situation entirely. While Washington waited 19 years to establish diplomatic relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, it shouldn’t delay diplomatic recognition of the new regime in Afghanistan. 

There is a lot going on: Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought a short war in May 2025; relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are tense over the activities of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban) and the Baluchistan Liberation Army; Iran has been accused of developing nuclear weapons and was recently attacked by Israel and America; the region is host to several nascent connectivity networks, and may possess abundant rare earth elements; the Central Asian republics’ economies are rapidly growing; and, everyone depends on Afghanistan for water.

Recent US-Afghanistan history is a history of misunderstandings that caused both sides to commit strategic blunders. 

After the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban erred by not rendering Osama bin Laden to the United States and then proposing that he be tried by a court in an Islamic country. The United States subsequently attacked and occupied the country for 20 years.

After the US attack and rout of the Taliban forces, Taliban leaders attempted to surrender several times, but Washington, intoxicated by a brew of post-Cold War triumphalism and post-9/11 grievance, wanted to make an example of them. America was still the “indispensable nation,” and its neoconservative curators were anxious to operationalize their sacred text, the Fiscal Year 1992 Defense Planning Guidance. 

The Americans failed to understand that the Taliban were Afghan nationalists inspired by........

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