Opinion | With China, the US must avoid a repeat of its disastrous war in Afghanistan
- The US is mired in an 18-year war with Afghanistan, possibly because it has failed to recognise it can’t construct peace and democracy without considering a region’s culture and history. US leaders must not make the same mistake with China
In 1953, while studying agriculture at the University of Maryland, I received a draft notice. Like thousands of young Americans, I was being drafted by the United States for service in the Korean war. Although I was not an American citizen at the time, the military planned to use my Chinese-language skills by having me interrogate captured Chinese soldiers detained in South Korea.
That war ended in June 1953, before I could fulfil such a function. It would be the last time American and Chinese soldiers met directly in combat, but it was far from the end of American military action in the post-WWII era.
Critics have frequently derided the US for being in a “constant state of war” since World War II. From a purely legal standpoint, this is not true. The US has not declared war on any country since 1942, when war was declared on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
Yet this is perhaps a distinction without a difference; in the 30 years after World War II, the US would fight major wars in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1955-75). Even when the US was not engaged in direct military conflict, the cold war cast a shadow over the post-war decades, as the prospect of nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union loomed.
