Superpowers defeated

"Douglas Borer's book is an attempt to provide a greater degree of substance to the apparent truth that Vietnam and Afghanistan are analogous events, but also to explore the important differences between these two watershed events. War loss in Vietnam clearly marked the downward trajectory in the global hegemonic power of the United States, a hegemony established by its rise to superpower status after the Second World War. Likewise, Soviet war loss in Afghanistan was a factor contributing to the ending of the Cold War with the United States. While the US survived Vietnam battered but intact, the Afghan war was a significant factor in both the wholesale collapse of Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe and the destruction of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. This book explores the politics of war by focusing on the concept of political legitimacy within the domestic politics of Vietnam, Afghanistan, the USA and the USSR."--Jacket.