Originally Posted by
Easy Street
This is a thread about the reliability of the USA as an ally... any chance we could keep airlift discussion to the Afghanistan thread?
The question posed by the OP didn't just relate to the UK and nor did Mr Nimrod's point to which I responded. Taiwan is mentioned up thread, but the discussion here is clearly a more general question "can any of the US's allies trust it?". So your questions are completely irrelevant because Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Baltic states rely on the US to deter old-fashioned territorial aggression. Moreover, if I might adopt your style for a moment: how many times has NATO Article V been invoked? What was the nature of the aggression? Are there other forms of aggression besides invasion? Does our being allied to the US complicate the calculations of potential opponents?
You wrote "I feel this has become a game changer the world will not forget if called upon again". How is that anything but a long-term assessment?! Don't move the goal posts.
No, the struggle to evacuate came about because of our decision not to take earlier action. Whether the February 2020 deal was idiotic is beside the point. It was 18 months ago! Let's be charitable and say the UK government was distracted by the aftermath of the 2019 election, then Brexit and then Covid for a few months: that still left a year. And our government still failed to take any action after Biden confirmed the decision in April 2021. Four months ago! All of that time was wasted, on the optimistic basis that whoever won the US election could be persuaded to change their mind, and on the delusional assessment that the former Afghan government could have survived with minimal non-US western support. The UK government should accept the blame for those failures.
can’t disagree with any of that. I think Big Pistons Forever properly nailed it though in #15.