Directions to Kyiv Via Saigon and Kabul

Fifty years ago, the war in Vietnam ended ingloriously with a chaotic retreat from Saigon. It was a war that deeply divided America. America remains divided in many ways.

It was a long war. It started when I was still in high school and ended when I was an Assistant State’s Attorney here in Minot. Our deep divisions as a country continue.

History has taught us that the South Vietnamese army collapsed without American support because they had no faith in their own government. History seems to have repeated itself recently, when the war in Afghanistan also ended ingloriously with a chaotic retreat from Kabul. The Afghan army also had no faith in its own government. President Biden, like President Ford before him, made his decision to withdraw based on a public that was war-weary. History has few examples of dignified retreats. America’s overestimation of the Afghan military bore similarity to its overestimation of the South Vietnamese military in 1975.

Now, we confront a different scenario in Ukraine. America’s boots are not on the ground, but its ammunition and rockets are in the air. Unlike the South Vietnamese and the Afghans, the Ukrainians to date have proven that they believe they have a country worth defending. There are claims of corruption in Kyiv. How many of those claims come from that bastion of chastity, Washington, D.C.? How many come from Russia?

How our relationship with Ukraine plays out is history yet to be written. However it unfolds, it will impact our international image indefinitely. If Americans apply the Golden Rule, would we ourselves rather live in a flawed republic or in Russia? Which Ian Fleming character will America emulate—James Bond, Dr. No, or Pussy Galore?