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Published · transcript-backed

Lex Fridman: belief

30 Jun 2026 Lex Fridman Podcast #498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Rise & Fall of Empires

“I think there’s a lot, a lot of wake-up calls about the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, where people realized that there is that gap between the rhetoric and the action.”

— Lex Fridman

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Speaker
Lex Fridman
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
belief
Recorded
30 Jun 2026
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

Transcript context

…Oh, yes. They were to liberate the women from the burqas or whatever, and, like, the news was just flooded with, like, how terrible women have it in Afghanistan. It’s like, you’re really trying to persuade me that that’s why you’re sending armed for- like… Anyway. I think there’s a lot, a lot of wake-up calls about the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, where people realized that there is that gap between the rhetoric and the action. And I mean, that’s how, because of a lot of people waking up to that, they create pressure on the government to close that gap. And that’s- … how we kind of navigate this- … complicated world, but it’s a costly one. I mean, these, these were extremely costly wars- … on every front, on every measure. Yep, but the same lesson was learned in, like, the Vietnam War, and that was such a disaster that essentially they had to switch to– to abandon the conscript army, switch to a professional army. And, like, it took them so long to be able to, like, wage, you know, these empire wars again because of the sheer damage that the Vietnam War did to the credibility of the military leadership in the country, right? This never happens in, like, this doesn’t happen in, in Constantinople. I can lose a– You can be criticized for losing a war. That’s, that’s one thing, right? But that you’re using the army to do some, like… You know. No.…

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