(09-11-2021 09:45 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  From the perspective of a retired military officer, I will say that one thing I don't think people realize is just how hard it is to withdraw from a country where you have been an occupying force for so long. I had a boss in the Navy who had, in a prior job, been on the staff of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) coordinating our withdrawal of personnel from there. The challenges that aren't obvious to the casual observer are amazing, and incredibly difficult.

What happens as a force of occupation is that you tend to create fortified citadels where your troops are relatively safe, but transport between them becomes difficult. When you abandon one of them, you expose yourselves to all sorts of things that you pretty much hadn't had to worry about for years. It takes an incredible amount of planning and coordination to withdraw, and the one thing that can't be done is to have a hard and fast drop dead date.