Many advocates of continuing or racheting up our presence in Afghanistan are cut from the same domino-theory cloth as those of the Vietnam era. They posit that losing in Afghanistan would almost certainly lead to the further "loss" of the entire South and central Asian region. Although avoiding explicit reference to "falling dominos," recent examples include S. Frederick Starr (School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University); Sir David Richards (the UK's relatively new Chief of the General Staff); and, in The National Interest,