I mean the first two parts are definitely true.But then we stayed for 10+ years attempting to rebuild some form of stability, decided to finally pull out after more than a decade, and what was built broke down disappointingly in the face of the first threat.
Tmu, the reasons for that are varied, although some of its definitely on us. We approached the entire region’s politics wrong apparently and with a very modern western mindset of a country held together with an idea of some unified identity that doesn’t seem to really hold true for the region (or any region at first probably). I believe station/position abandonment in the fracturing nation was problematically common as people rushed back to their homes/families, or just to generally flee, instead of actually being a larger regional barricade against the threat, as an example.
IIRC, there was a similar problem with even the First Continental Army and Congress early on actually. With regional interests often superseding national goals in the minds of individuals and representatives.
So far as power vacuums go, as I alluded to, they had an elected government (there’s probably some debate on the accuracy of those elections while being occupied by a foreign government of course) and a standing military that was actively deployed. A not insignificant number of them tried to hold out, to not undercut their efforts, but its also true it wasn’t a truly unified defense in the end. Whether or not they would have been a more effective void-filler if we’d stayed longer or left sooner are just huge what-ifs.
On top of some of the commentary here, I’d like to add that I think there’s a real chance that WoTC’s put some money behind getting it heavily reviewed/boosted, and so more articles about it and wider attention. That is not to undercut its quality, just that I think its layers of support. (I’ll admit there’s more than a little bit of my distrust of WoTC in that. Like after all their other scandals they need a win to try and suck newbies into the game after so much messing up. And I don’t even mean in the last year or something, their release quality for 5e has been abysmal for a long time.)
Additionally Larian played the early access thing very well. Not only did they listen to their ongoing players, and even netted some “tried it didn’t like it” people back, it gave time for everyone who was perhaps too into the older isometric BG1&2 titles (like me) to realize the game didn’t seem quite like it was for them and not pick it up. So you get clear, mostly good(if outdated) information out there for people to use in researching if they wanted to buy it, helping to avoid a lot of the knee-jerk hate that stuff like Fallout 4 and 76 got from misplaced expectations that could dull the release.