Honestly, I genuinely don't know how those who advocate for withdrawn will prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven and operational base for terrorists. I'm not even sure they espouse that as a goal.
Biden has, for one. In recent Afghanistan speeches, he's talked about "over the horizon" counterterrorism capabilities (which is something NatSec types advocating withdrawal have promoted as an alternative for years). But as you can see from the article, I think advocates are underrating the difficulty, and therefore overselling how effective it can be.
Yes, just as advocates for continued Afghanistan-based deployment oversold its effectiveness, and underestimated its cost.
We know that the US initially routed the Taliban, but was ineffective at preventing its return.
We know the US difficulty in locating and taking out al Qaeda in the region.
We know that, aside from clandestine raids, for example to kill Osama, the US did not effectively challenge Pakistan on the ground, or diplomatically, for harboring Taliban fighters or Qaeda leadership.
We know that the US-installed government and military was riddled with corruption, and the US officially looked the other way.
We know the US effort failed to build an Afghan military that could fight on its own for even a week.
We know the US lied to and distracted the American people to maintain support for the occupation.
I could go on, but I disagree that we can dismiss these failures as "least bad" with a shrug. They inherently undermined the prevention of future terrorist acts.
We know we lost a lot of good young people.
The ground game makes "over the horizon" look relatively more effective. Tech advances make the air game better than it was twenty years ago, even if the "NatSec types" exaggerate. A military ground presence and installed government is profoundly more useful to the Taliban, which has always styled itself as a liberation force. The latte shops and canine rescue centers in the US zone perhaps changed the underlying culture less than NPR and the New York Times would have us believe.
We tried to turn Afghanistan into a boutique liberal American enclave on the ground. But Afghanistan isn't Portlandia. This ground effort was counter-productive, corrupt, and unsupportable. At the same time, it was a self-perperpetuating machine and impervious to critique and change. Let's refocus on terrorist acts, even if we must return with boots in the future. Meanwhile, watch for truly popular Afghan resistance to the Taliban. The Taliban was ever only more representative of all Afghans when compared to the US deployment. Watch Pakistan as it faces a fundamental reckoning on its Afghan border, and likely seeks a distraction in Kashmir. Read the regional media, including social media, and read US media with greater skepticism.
Perhaps our greatest failing, whether advocating for or against withdrawal, has been to insist on an American narrative for Afghanistan's people.
Afghanistan is now Pakistan's problem, and, at least for now, Pakistan can no longer play both sides in its frenemy game with the US and the Taliban. Western commentators have been oblivious to the significant challenge the US withdrawl poses to Islamabad's domestic politics and foreign policy, and to the balance of power between Pak, India, China, Russia, Iran, and other regional players. The US may yet realize advantages by stirring the pot and then standing at a remove from the resulting struggles.
Great, fair review of the situation, but a couple of points bear examination:
1. Yes, Western nations are morally obligated to accept asylum seekers from Afghanistan, but what a security nightmare!!! This is just the kind of opening that terrorists love to exploit to get access to Western countries and do their evil deeds. I foresee them stealing the IDs of individuals formerly known to be loyal to the Afghan government or who worked with the Americans and posing as them, or even blackmailing such individuals by threatening their families in Afghanistan, brainwashing them, and sending them forth to pose as refugees and act as terrorists in Western Nations. All kinds of opportunities exist for terrorist exploitation of Western guilt and vociferous, bleeding heart calls to accept Afghan refugees. We've had a bit of a respite from terrorist attacks lately, and it's making my stomach turn just to think about the possibility of a new wave proceeding from this mess.
2. The idea of a quasi-permanent stay of American troops does make some sense, but there is deep historical sentiment against such a Western presence in Afghanistan, which differentiates it from places like South Korea and Germany. The essay would have benefited from discussion of this difficult factor, and indeed, its role in helping to convince the past few American presidents that we should or must evacuate the country, and in the success of the Taliban, which strongly identifies itself as anti-Western imperialism.
Your second point is the crux. Any US military presence would ensure continued (and relatively popular) Taliban resistance, and leave US vulnerable to the machinations of Afghan and Pakistani political and military actors. The original sin was George Bush's insistence that the US not only root out al Quaeda, but also punish those that harbored them (which always meant the Taliban and not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan). Pakistan saw an oppurtunity in prolonging the Afghan conflict indefinitely (most notoriously, by harboring Osama) while the US engaged in mission creep to justify the continued military deployment to the American public. USG and a compliant media told Americans, ok, now we're fighting for women and girls, to free them from the burka and give them equal educational opportunities (at least in zones of US control). Note that this new "military" mission only ever applied to Afghanistan, not Saudi or other deployment zones. The US justifications for occupation became increasingly manipulative and cynical.
Biden at least cut through the fog of disinformation and distraction. He's right: Our military goal is to counter terrorist attacks. Terrorists are defused. Afghanistan may again be a base for future 9/11-style attacks, but our strategic access is actually much better than other possible bases. We haven't truly abandoned that access completely. At the same time, US ground presence in Afghanistan was quite arguably a drain on our global terror capabilities. We spent lives and lucre to fight a literal culture war, and take sides in a foreign civil war, rather than focus on international terrorists plotting to strike within the US. The main beneficiaries were not the deceived Girls Robotic Team, or US citizens, but the corrupt men who control Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Few(er) Afghans were willing to fight for a corrupt US-installed government, "democratic" or not.
I think we mostly agree on Pakistani interference. Palistan, at least, was never open to US "persuasion."
I do not believe the generals wanted this outcome, however. Gen Bajwa's rambling speech to the cadets was both lament for an "international" presence and a rather pathetic public scolding of the Taliban.
Pakistan's ruling elites stoked a fire that they now fear themselves.
What strikes me is how the Taliban were able to, and were allowed to, grow to the size they are.
After 9-11, America spent years dismantling the Taliban: They were pushed out of every power center, their numbers dwindled, their infrastructure was captured or destroyed, their leadership was decapitated (sometimes literally) multiple times.
This means that 20 years later, the bulk of Taliban forces were under the age of 10 when the war started, a good chunk weren't even born. These boys grew up in a Democratic, coalition-led, American-backed Afghanistan and still chose to take up arms in a meatgrinder of a civil war.
I don't understand this, and I wonder if you could touch on it? Were these kids abducted while young and extremized? Was it just too soon and they didn't know better? Was it a rejection of Western Values? Did the enemy have better memes? How did Afghanistan lose that generation?
Your point about the U.S. (under Trump) cutting the Afghan government out of negotiations with the Taliban is a good one. One of multiple signals that the U.S. didn't have their back anymore, which led Afghans to revise their calculus.
I noted that "Much as 20 years seems like a long time to be fighting in a foreign country, it was a long time for Afghans to be free of Taliban rule," but we'll have to see how everyone who remains in the country reacts. The Taliban will work to consolidate power, and likely try to kill or at least imprison people who fought against them and could fight now. I wouldn't expect a full blown civil war, but I wouldn't expect a fully stable country either.
Great piece! Thank you.
Honestly, I genuinely don't know how those who advocate for withdrawn will prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven and operational base for terrorists. I'm not even sure they espouse that as a goal.
Biden has, for one. In recent Afghanistan speeches, he's talked about "over the horizon" counterterrorism capabilities (which is something NatSec types advocating withdrawal have promoted as an alternative for years). But as you can see from the article, I think advocates are underrating the difficulty, and therefore overselling how effective it can be.
Yes, just as advocates for continued Afghanistan-based deployment oversold its effectiveness, and underestimated its cost.
We know that the US initially routed the Taliban, but was ineffective at preventing its return.
We know the US difficulty in locating and taking out al Qaeda in the region.
We know that, aside from clandestine raids, for example to kill Osama, the US did not effectively challenge Pakistan on the ground, or diplomatically, for harboring Taliban fighters or Qaeda leadership.
We know that the US-installed government and military was riddled with corruption, and the US officially looked the other way.
We know the US effort failed to build an Afghan military that could fight on its own for even a week.
We know the US lied to and distracted the American people to maintain support for the occupation.
I could go on, but I disagree that we can dismiss these failures as "least bad" with a shrug. They inherently undermined the prevention of future terrorist acts.
We know we lost a lot of good young people.
The ground game makes "over the horizon" look relatively more effective. Tech advances make the air game better than it was twenty years ago, even if the "NatSec types" exaggerate. A military ground presence and installed government is profoundly more useful to the Taliban, which has always styled itself as a liberation force. The latte shops and canine rescue centers in the US zone perhaps changed the underlying culture less than NPR and the New York Times would have us believe.
We tried to turn Afghanistan into a boutique liberal American enclave on the ground. But Afghanistan isn't Portlandia. This ground effort was counter-productive, corrupt, and unsupportable. At the same time, it was a self-perperpetuating machine and impervious to critique and change. Let's refocus on terrorist acts, even if we must return with boots in the future. Meanwhile, watch for truly popular Afghan resistance to the Taliban. The Taliban was ever only more representative of all Afghans when compared to the US deployment. Watch Pakistan as it faces a fundamental reckoning on its Afghan border, and likely seeks a distraction in Kashmir. Read the regional media, including social media, and read US media with greater skepticism.
Perhaps our greatest failing, whether advocating for or against withdrawal, has been to insist on an American narrative for Afghanistan's people.
Thank you, Nicholas, for this well-balanced report.
Afghanistan is now Pakistan's problem, and, at least for now, Pakistan can no longer play both sides in its frenemy game with the US and the Taliban. Western commentators have been oblivious to the significant challenge the US withdrawl poses to Islamabad's domestic politics and foreign policy, and to the balance of power between Pak, India, China, Russia, Iran, and other regional players. The US may yet realize advantages by stirring the pot and then standing at a remove from the resulting struggles.
Great, fair review of the situation, but a couple of points bear examination:
1. Yes, Western nations are morally obligated to accept asylum seekers from Afghanistan, but what a security nightmare!!! This is just the kind of opening that terrorists love to exploit to get access to Western countries and do their evil deeds. I foresee them stealing the IDs of individuals formerly known to be loyal to the Afghan government or who worked with the Americans and posing as them, or even blackmailing such individuals by threatening their families in Afghanistan, brainwashing them, and sending them forth to pose as refugees and act as terrorists in Western Nations. All kinds of opportunities exist for terrorist exploitation of Western guilt and vociferous, bleeding heart calls to accept Afghan refugees. We've had a bit of a respite from terrorist attacks lately, and it's making my stomach turn just to think about the possibility of a new wave proceeding from this mess.
2. The idea of a quasi-permanent stay of American troops does make some sense, but there is deep historical sentiment against such a Western presence in Afghanistan, which differentiates it from places like South Korea and Germany. The essay would have benefited from discussion of this difficult factor, and indeed, its role in helping to convince the past few American presidents that we should or must evacuate the country, and in the success of the Taliban, which strongly identifies itself as anti-Western imperialism.
Your second point is the crux. Any US military presence would ensure continued (and relatively popular) Taliban resistance, and leave US vulnerable to the machinations of Afghan and Pakistani political and military actors. The original sin was George Bush's insistence that the US not only root out al Quaeda, but also punish those that harbored them (which always meant the Taliban and not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan). Pakistan saw an oppurtunity in prolonging the Afghan conflict indefinitely (most notoriously, by harboring Osama) while the US engaged in mission creep to justify the continued military deployment to the American public. USG and a compliant media told Americans, ok, now we're fighting for women and girls, to free them from the burka and give them equal educational opportunities (at least in zones of US control). Note that this new "military" mission only ever applied to Afghanistan, not Saudi or other deployment zones. The US justifications for occupation became increasingly manipulative and cynical.
Biden at least cut through the fog of disinformation and distraction. He's right: Our military goal is to counter terrorist attacks. Terrorists are defused. Afghanistan may again be a base for future 9/11-style attacks, but our strategic access is actually much better than other possible bases. We haven't truly abandoned that access completely. At the same time, US ground presence in Afghanistan was quite arguably a drain on our global terror capabilities. We spent lives and lucre to fight a literal culture war, and take sides in a foreign civil war, rather than focus on international terrorists plotting to strike within the US. The main beneficiaries were not the deceived Girls Robotic Team, or US citizens, but the corrupt men who control Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Few(er) Afghans were willing to fight for a corrupt US-installed government, "democratic" or not.
I think we mostly agree on Pakistani interference. Palistan, at least, was never open to US "persuasion."
I do not believe the generals wanted this outcome, however. Gen Bajwa's rambling speech to the cadets was both lament for an "international" presence and a rather pathetic public scolding of the Taliban.
Pakistan's ruling elites stoked a fire that they now fear themselves.
What strikes me is how the Taliban were able to, and were allowed to, grow to the size they are.
After 9-11, America spent years dismantling the Taliban: They were pushed out of every power center, their numbers dwindled, their infrastructure was captured or destroyed, their leadership was decapitated (sometimes literally) multiple times.
This means that 20 years later, the bulk of Taliban forces were under the age of 10 when the war started, a good chunk weren't even born. These boys grew up in a Democratic, coalition-led, American-backed Afghanistan and still chose to take up arms in a meatgrinder of a civil war.
I don't understand this, and I wonder if you could touch on it? Were these kids abducted while young and extremized? Was it just too soon and they didn't know better? Was it a rejection of Western Values? Did the enemy have better memes? How did Afghanistan lose that generation?
Your point about the U.S. (under Trump) cutting the Afghan government out of negotiations with the Taliban is a good one. One of multiple signals that the U.S. didn't have their back anymore, which led Afghans to revise their calculus.
I noted that "Much as 20 years seems like a long time to be fighting in a foreign country, it was a long time for Afghans to be free of Taliban rule," but we'll have to see how everyone who remains in the country reacts. The Taliban will work to consolidate power, and likely try to kill or at least imprison people who fought against them and could fight now. I wouldn't expect a full blown civil war, but I wouldn't expect a fully stable country either.