A View from Afar – In this week’s podcast, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss: With the United States being viewed as responsible for a monumental botch-up in Afghanistan, how should its traditional security partners, including NATO and Australia, regard US-leadership in conflict? And, how should US allies position their own national interest in the future?

• For example; why should the United States of America’s global security partners, in both northern and southern hemispheres, view the USA as a reliable security leader?

When we consider the United States-led conflicts in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, there is a pattern that stands out: these are all wars of opportunity or choice, rather than necessity.

In analysing this, it follows that lessons learnt by NATO and other global security partners may very well be to not follow the USA into such conflicts if existential threats do not exist.

Also of consideration is this:

• Are the United States’ failures tied solely to incompetent leadership?
• Or is this clearly apparent incompetence caused by those within the star-general-ranks of occupational forces command?
• Or is this problem institutionalised within a morphed alliance-of-incompetence from a broad-base of institutions located within the United States security-defence apparatus?

Now, the United States is shifting its global defence strategy to counter the rise of China in the Western Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions.

• Should the states and economies of the Asia Pacific fall in behind the USA once again and risk being drawn into another unnecessary and protracted war?
• And considering the United States’ domestic situation being insecure and democratically chaotic, should the USA lead from the rear but only after it gets its own house in order?

YOU CAN CONTINUE THE DEBATE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.