My colleague Niels Annen has given us the benefit of his own extensive experience in Afghanistan to offer a very useful perspective on the Dutch withdrawal. Niels’ concerns about whether the withdrawal signals the unraveling of the coalition in Afghanistan are fully justified. But his use of the phrase "domino theory" is telling in the differences it suggests about Afghanistan and Vietnam, where the original domino theory was applied.
The domino theory with respect to Vietnam justified the American war effort on the grounds that, if the United States failed in Vietnam, other countries in the region would fall to communist regimes, with critical consequences for American and western interests. Although that theory is often thought to have been demonstrably wrong, in fact, there turned out to be an element of truth in it. Both Laos and Cambodia, in addition to Vietnam, became communist, with catastrophic results for their peoples. But the tragedy was largely limited to those populations ; the contagion did not spread to Thailand, and it did not ultimately push the United States out of the region where key allies remained strong and, in some cases such as South Korea, slowly transitioned towards more liberal governments.
In the case of Afghanistan, there are two possible kinds of dominoes. The first kind, unlike in Vietnam, involves our allies. A domino effect among allies in the wake of the Dutch withdrawal would undermine, possibly permanently, the ability of NATO and the west to cooperate on major operations against the threats of the 21st century, especially Islamist terrorists (and it is fair to ask whether this has already occurred). This weakening of will would be exploited by the second kind of "inverse domino," the terrorist groups who would rally from a defeat of the United States and its allies after a long war. These dominoes, while enemies, are not the kinds of nation states that concerned Americans in the 1970s, but groups with the ability to inflict substantial damage around the world and capable of using their new confidence to gain support among sympathizers. This combination domino effect would be a real and lasting threat to the United States and its allies.
