Week 10 Lecture- Afghanistan – From Victory to Defeat

Flashcards covering the key vocabulary and concepts related to the US involvement and withdrawal from Afghanistan, as discussed in the lecture.

Afghanistan- From Victory to Defeat

• Operation “Enduring Freedom” (2001–14) and “Operation Freedom’s Sentinel” from 2015-21. 2,401 soldiers, 1822 “contractors”, 100,000 civilians and over Afghan 60,000 Army killed.

• Why was the American withdrawal from Afghanistan important? 

• Spans twenty years and influences policy towards Iraq, Libya, Syria and everything else! 

• Why did America spend $2-3.7 trillion and still lose its longest war? 

• What does it tell us about US Strategy and ability to implement that strategy? 

• What does it say about US foreign and security policy in general?

• Gen Mark Miley, described  US withdrawal as a “strategic failure”.  Was there an alternative?

• Miley, “ We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation,” Why?

Afghanistan- the Context

• 31 million Afghan, 42% are Pashtun, 27% Tajik, 9% Hazara, 9% Uzbek, 4% Aimak, 3% Turkmen, 2% Baloch and 4% unspecified "other" group.

• Pashtuns living in Afghanistan and Pakistan comprise over 49 million people and are made up of between 350 and 400 tribes and clans. 

• Main allegiance is to clan, tribe, ethnicity, not the traditionally weak central Afghan state. 

• Monarchy was a unifying actor until 1973. 

  • Monarchies work very well when you have one state but many nations

    • US refused to reinstate for ideological reasons

• “Grave of empires” long history of fighting “outsiders”.

  • 1842 Brits died trying to retreat it and have fierce ability to push out outsides, largely because it is a highly inhospitable place

• History of Afghanistan is Inextricably linked to fortunes and influence of Pakistan. Pakistan is an acronym representing the people who live in PAKSTAN— Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan.

• The North of Afghanistan has quite different makeup from the South

Afghanistan- Background (1980s)

• Afghanistan troubled for decades/centuries. Soviet occupation 1979-89 .

  • Iranian revolution with Afghanistan had sympathetic thinking and soviet union justify its invasion in the idea of stopping read of radical thinking to its muslim members of the Soviet union

  • To the west they were thinking it was more for oil and for putting pressure on Saudi Arabia as well

• In 1980s Afghan Mujahedeen armed and feted by the US. 

  • US involvement starts in earnest in 1980s after Soviet union and supplied arms for those against Soviet Occupation

  • Gave them Stinger Missiles, the most effective weapon to takedown Soviet helicopters, leading to loss of men and undermined Soviet occupation and had to retreat and caused great loss of faith in Soviet Union and contributed to Soviet Union downfall 

Afghanistan- Background (1990s)

• Osama bin Laden (OBL) helped fund the Mujahedeen from Pakistan from 1979.

• He founded Al-Qaeda in 1988 after getting fed up with US in the region due to his strong religious regions, moved to Afghanistan in 1996,  given safe haven by Taliban.

  • He objected to in 1990 US moved forces to Saudi Arabia to protect them from Sadam Hussien and this incensed Bin Laden who viewed it as Mecca to have incels on the land of Saudi Arabia

• Used Afghan bases to organise attacks against US interests,  Embassies, USS Cole (2000).  Designed to provoke US.

• 1998 Clinton administration fired cruise missiles at Afghan training base, to no affect

  • Symbolic use of force rather than effective use of force against challenge

  • History of Afghanistan being American client and getting SU out of Afghanistan

  • US dropped aid like a hot potato after it had job done

  • No long-term investment to long-term peace or stability, pening Afghanistan to become base to Bin laden and Al Qaeda

George W Bush, 9/11 and Afghanistan

• 9/11 attacks. No Afghans, but Afghan state sheltered Al Qaeda and an easy target 

• Taliban refused to surrender OBL despite US giving an ultimatum 

• UN Security Council Resolution passed resolution to use force to eliminate Al Quidea and there was Public and Congressional Support to do this in US as well

• Authorisation for the Use of Military Force Act (18 September 2001) legitimised the President to use ‘all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001’. Blank cheque.

  • Congress giving Pentagon and President a blank check 

  • This authority allowed Bush and his admin to creat ‘war on terror’ and be as wide as it was and gave Bush authority to go into Iraq in 2003 and widen the remit of who to after of the 9/11 attack

George W Bush, 9/11 and Afghanistan- US army

• US Army had no war plans for Afghanistan. Taken by surprise, US considered it had no strategic interest and therefore it had no plan for it

  • Lots of plan for Sauid Arabia and Iran where there was strategic interest and oil

• “Now the Taliban will pay a price.” “These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime,” Bush.

• Not fought on Powell Doctrine, So: 

  • No Overwhelming Force- few mixed targets to hit 

  • No Clear exit strategy, 

  • No Clear fixed strategic objective, 

  • No means to achieve those objectives etc. 

    • Vietnam lessons not applied.

    • US Hadn’t taken any strategic lessons with the conflicts from the recent years

      • Had overwhelming sense of confidence of taking down the government and simply followed CIA blueprint

• Initial operation thus simply followed a CIA blueprint for regime change.

George W Bush, 9/11 and Afghanistan- Lack of defined military objectives strategically

• Strategically, military objectives were not coherently defined. Focus on Taliban not after

  • Incoherent military defined objectives- focus on the Taliban government who are the host of Al Qaeda but it wasn't specified on the capture or elimination of Al-Qaeda

• The “light footprint” of ground forces was successful in decapitating the Taliban government in Kabul but dispersed as much as it destroyed the terrorist networks in the country. 

• Osama Bin Laden escaped Afghanistan during the battle of Tora Bora, Dec. 2001, it criticised as US military failure, over reliance on local forces, reluctance to commit US combat troops. Strategic failure

  • Over Reliance of local forces

  • Tommy Franks not best the general and he didn’t use all the forces he could have done 

    • Hadn’t used all forces in part due to the lack of clarity over Al Queda Bin 

• Initial plan - Quick and Dirty- to decapitate and leave is compromised due to Bin Laden is not captured

  • Influenced by Casualty aversion?

• Taliban regime in Afghanistan fell quickly and victory was declared in Dec 2001. But now what 

  • No Osama Bin Laden.

George W Bush, 9/11 and Afghanistan- What after

• Now what? What do you do next?

  • Stay to defeat Taliban, support new government, build a democracy, and create development? Never really went beyond main cities. Rhetoric and reality differed.

    • Think strategically is planning the next step- US didn’t have a plan if they didn’t get Osama Bin Laden but this was communicated strategically with Tommy Franks

• Bush/Rumsfeld initially resistant to Nation Building- never really went beyond initial cities and their resistance was shown in early decisions.

  • Will set up a democracy strong enough to prevent re-emergence of Taliban or a state willing to harbor them 

  • Part of this they promoted US liberal values 

    • Deeply religious and feudal society which massively resents attempts of US and allies to impose an indel and foreign and massively immoral value (e.g. sexual freedom rights and homosexual rights)

  • Idea of trying to bring modernity and US values was deeply resented

    • Minimalist initial objective of capturing and killing the bad guy and stopping the Taliban coming back and harbouring him to then go to a massive maximalist thing of bringing modernity to them

• Focus on Iraq meant you can’t ignore or deal with states that support terrorism.

• British successfully implemented a UN plan to secure Kabul, under control of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), led UK’s General John McColl. 

  • Try to internalise the issue so US wasn’t responsible for all of it

  • Tony Blair big advocate of bring modernity to Afghanistan

US and Unilateralism- US refusing help

• US refused UN requests for peace-keeping troops for all the major cities and highways

  • Goes back to unilateralism 

• US rejected the idea of a country-wide international peace-keeping force

• US also refused to accept a Taliban surrender in November 2001

• Refused to allow Afghan president Hamid Karzai to open talks with the Taliban or Iran. Why? “Terrorism”

  • Idea of not dealing with ‘terrorists’ and blanket idea you lill them and not negotiate with them

  • US powerful enough to impose our will with this country and do so without compromise

  • Mentality that Iran might be next down the line

    • View of US power as limitless and invulnerability meant that US did think strategically what their limits of power were or what happen next if things didn’t go to plan (not that there was much of one aside from take down the terrorists)

• US also refused to get involved in the eradication of poppies, which UK argued was key to a workable drugs policy in the country.

US and Unilateralism- 2002-2003

• From 2002 the US switched focus to Iraq, diverted troops from Afghanistan to Iraq.

  • Already distracted before being done by a country nothing to do with 9//11 attacks

• In May 2003, Defence Sec Donald Rumsfeld announced an end to major combat operations in the country.

  • In initial 2 years, US went in, established a regime in Kabul, talked about bringing modernity but never put in the forces to make it work and not let UN forces to do it either and then in 2003 pulled out to put forces in Iraq (which started in March 2003)

US and Unilateralism- 2001-2005

• 2001-5 US declined to fund a professional Afghan army, instead relying on warlords to catch Osama bin Laden and keep the peace in the countryside, which they utterly failed to do.

• “In retrospect, the Northern Alliance were as violent as the Taliban regime. Pursuing a counter-terrorist strategy with a network of criminals was a risky, doubtful operation”  L. Connah

• Until 2005, there were never more than 25,000 US troops in Afghanistan—hardly enough to control the major cities, let alone the country.

• In the US, they regarded the war as over.

  • But it was not over by half. 

US use of language and black and white thinking= mobilising jihadists- Crusade

• In 2001 described it as a “crusade” and the “war on terrorism” characterisation fuelled insurgency. There was no prospect of a deal for the Taliban, so they fought on.

  • Large religious wars to try take Jerusalem back to Christianity and large part of the world ry to covert one part of the world to a different religion

  • Galvanized them to act against infidels 

  • That language inspired Jihadists worldwide to join the Taliban to defeat US in Afghanistan

• For  jihadists worldwide, War on Terror acted as a magnet to unite against US “crusaders” 

• US waging war against a Muslim country after 9/11 validated al Qaeda’s ideology of ‘saving Islam from foreign infidels’, so it sucked in more extremists.

  • Also led to Iran supplying IEDs to Afghanisatnwhich accounted most of Western casualties in Afghanistan and was a way of keeping US bob down to not have the manpower to attack Iran which led to escalating tensions between US and Iran

US use of language and black and white thinking= mobilising jihadists- Exceptionalist framing the conflict as black and white

• American “exceptionalist” framing conflict “good against evil”, in which “you’re either with us or against us.” problematic in  terms of Afghanistan seeing themselves as defeating an ‘evil project’

• “No approach was less appropriate to the fluid  political allegiances and enduring kinship arrangements  of Afghanistan. But it warped the thinking: when I  and others in Washington called for talks with the  Taliban—for years, until it was too late—we were  shouted down with cries of “the Taliban are evil”  and “America doesn’t talk to terrorists.” A. Leiven

  • Black and white thinking about the problem of terrorist are evil and US is powerful enough to defeat them was not conducive to strategic thinking or analysing the problem as a sticky and complex problem

US use of language and black and white thinking= mobilising jihadists- US hands off Afghanistan

• 2005 handed the burden of Afghanistan to NATO allies, keen to repair relations and fight the “good war” as opposed to Iraq. 

  • Iraq caused major schism in NatO often described as “Near death experience for NATO” so NATO offered to fight in Afghanistan to appear as good allies to keep US invested in European defence

    • However NATO was not motivated to win but there as a symbolic presence

• Loads of National Caveats (e.g. rules over engagement, fighting at night and deploying helicopters)- made them greatly unhelpful militarily    

  •  International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) saw US GIs joked ISAF stood for I Saw Americans Fighting as the Euroepans weren’t inclined to do so

• Between 2001 and 2005 the US failed to monitor Taliban activity in the south or across the border in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province where the movement’s leadership was based. 

  • US allowed this thing to metastasized 

• ‘A German official of my acquaintance admitted this candidly. “So as far as Afghanistan is concerned, Germany’s plan is to do the absolute minimum required to keep America committed to European security?” I asked him. “Yes,” was his reply.’ A. Leiven    

  •  i.e. European strategy different (doing minimum to keep US happy rather than win anything meaningful)

  • European presence also embraced this idea to build this Afghan state to provide the means to manage Afghans and top them going back to their old support for Taliban

US State Building- Women’s rights

• “By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall,” Bush.   

  • This view ignored local conditions. Afghanistan is not Europe; this was no Marshall Plan.

  • Maximising goal

• Some early successes, new schools, hospitals and public facilities were built. Thousands of girls attended school. 

  • Women went to college, joined the work force and served in Parliament and government. 

  • Independent news media emerged. 

    • Was a flourish of what looked like liberal modernity in the cities (but didn’t extend beyond the cities) 

• US policy in Afghanistan was to defend and protect women’s rights in efforts to increase public support for the intervention at home, but was deeply unpopular outside cities. 

  • 2010 Time Cover is indicative of defeating Taliban and bring modernity as part of it and in order to get public support we need to push the idea of women’s right  

    • Women with her nose sliced off by Taliban with title to show what happens if US leaves 

      • USed as part of public information campaign 

US State Building- Negative view of US and Corruption

• Seen by Taliban as anti-Islamic, and made a deal with the US non-negotiable.

  • They viewed it as a bunch of foreigners coming in trying to tell us what to do and also have long tradition of defeating foreigners trying to do this

• Corruption was rampant, with hundreds of millions of dollars in reconstruction money stolen or misappropriated and the government proved unable to meet the most basic needs of its citizens. 

  • Of the over $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan by the US, only £24bn went on economic development, and most of that was mired in kickbacks and corruption

    • Partly due to the fragmented way of Afghanistan of giving money to their cronies and bring with money which led to Afghans viewing some getting rich with money meant for all of them

US unwillingness to compromise

• “Perhaps at the very start there was a chance of creating a tenuously viable and consensual Afghan state, if the US had been willing to negotiate and compromise with sections of the Taliban. Naturally unwilling to share their regained power and wealth with former Taliban commanders, our allies made it their business to tell the American special forces that these men were still working for the Taliban…..the US army dutifully killed or arrested most of the local leaders in question, bitterly alienating their clans and personal followings.” A Lieven 

  • Way in which the corrupt elite operated in Kabul was to implicate US for the elites own actions for their purposes

• From the start US did not concern itself with working with inherited Afghan state structures at all. 

• “The armed groups that had provided the ground forces of the US invasion came from the Northern Alliance, a grouping of ethnic militias and warlords that were hated by many for their previous brutality, oppression, looting and internecine warfare, and often made themselves more hated through their subsequent behaviour. The US had to spend several years reducing their role.” Lieven

• Americans refused to employ former “communist” officers from the 1980s, squandering their expertise until it was too late—part of a general refusal to accept that there could be any parallels with the Soviet experience, or lessons to be learned from it.

  • Was self-defeating for ideological reasons

Lack of cultural sensitivities by US leading to public alienation

• Sarah Chayes. NPR,  “Afghans did not reject us,” “They looked to us as exemplars of democracy and the rule of law. They thought that’s what we stood for. And what did we stand for? What flourished on our watch? Cronyism, rampant corruption, a Ponzi scheme disguised as a banking system.”

• “Kill or capture” technique alienated lots of population.  

  • This corruption was exacerbated by who US military went after as enemies 

  • In practice it was disastrous as Afghans lived in compounds of family and women were ina state of undress and culturally that was seen as a massive violation of their privilege and safety- was culturally insensitive

  • Also done at tips/requests of political enemies that an actual threats

    • Seen as acting illegitimately by the general population

• Lacked cultural sensitives, violated spaces. 

  • Put Forced protection over cultural sensitives. 

• Carter vs McChrystal “courageous restraint”

Lack of cultural sensitivities by US leading to public alienation- Drone strikes

• “Strategies such as excessive use of force, widespread detention, torture and abuse as a means of extracting information, night raids and the destruction of terrorist safe havens all undermine the dignity of the belligerents, which in turn, provides further motivation for the Taliban to retaliate.” L Connah

• Drone strikes – constant presence and sense of threat and sense of invasion with even noise of the drone seen as invasive. 

  • Seen as accurate and intelligence building- BUT only as accurate as intelligence or targeting criteria. 

    • Pattern of life (their habits and whether its seen as suspicious or as a life of pattern of a terrorists) 

• Deeply Controversial. Institutionalised killing capacity.

• “Signature strikes” 

• “pattern of life activity”

Lack of cultural sensitivities by US leading to public alienation- US failed to protect local populations

• “The USA may have thought they could win the hearts and minds of Afghan civilians and build a relationship of trust between the various Afghan factions. To support this, they began erecting schools and clinics in efforts to build state capacity during the conflict. However, the growing number of civilian casualties, named as ‘collateral damage’, reduced any chance of winning civilian hearts and minds” Leoni Connah 

• US failed to protect local populations from terrorism. On average, around 3,000 civilians were killed annually by terrorism. From 2001-18, 32,074 people lost their lives in terrorist-related activities.

• In the end people just wanted the killing to stop.

Lack of cultural sensitivities by US leading to public alienation- Problem of President Karzai

• President Karzai (2001-14) part of the problem. He insisted on maintaining his cronies and friends as governors and police chiefs, even though they were smuggling drugs or in league with the Taliban. 

• “the west’s funneling of huge amounts of money to military cut-outs, local notables, dodgy businessmen and NGO entrepreneurs is exactly what fuelled a backlash against its presence, and what drove people back into the hands of the Taliban. It’s not that we didn’t stay long enough. We, and our corrupt new war economy, became part of the problem.” James Harkin.

• War economy- interest in keeping the war going  

  • Huge amount spent on military contractors. 

    • Lots of contractors to maintain them and then contractors to protect them, creating  huge network of contractors creating an industrialized militarised complex focused on keeping the war ging 

  • Huge vested interests in staying the course. (See film “War Dogs”)

• “The structure of the Kabul government has been rotting from within for all 20 years of the United States’ war. And every U.S. commander knew its weakness. They worried about the corruption and incompetence of the government, devised elaborate strategies to fix it, kept convincing themselves they were making progress. Hope is not a strategy, as every commander knows. In this case, it was” David Ignatius, Washington Post. 

Pakistan

• Pakistan doesn’t want a stable & powerful Afghanistan to lay claim to the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan.

• Some argue Pakistan wanted Afghanistan to be an anti-Indian vassal state of Islamabad.

• A modern, western prosperous Afghanistan was seen as a rival and threat to Pakistan society.

• US delicate relationship with Pakistan. 

  • Pakistan double dealing

• According to General Pervez Musharraf, Richard Armitage, US Intelligence Director, said  'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stoneage',

• Officially cooperating, claimed no control over Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

  • Pakistan said they would cooperate but made no effort ot control the movements of Taliban

• US conducted air and drone strikes inside Pakistan to attack Taliban camps.

• Yet army army’s supply lines for Afghanistan came through Pakistani ports.

  • Pakistan demanded huge amounts of money to use them and US utilised Pakistan drivers to drive them to the borders which then may be attacked and blown

• CIA/MI6’s worked closely with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on preventing terrorist at home, especially UK. But ISI supporting Taliban.

Obama

• 2009, Obama ordered troops to Afghan in “surge”, surged from 30,000 to reaching nearly 100,000 by mid-2010. 

• Heavy casualties on Afghan security forces followed. Plan was “Afghanisation” of conflict.

• OBL Dead. May 2011, killed Abbottabad, Pakistan. SEALs and supportive airpower.

  • SHowing Pakistani link

  • Obama stated that the objective had been achieved and 

• June, Obama announced that he would start bringing American forces home and hand over security duties to the Afghans by 2014.

  • The resolve of providing 100k soldiers undermined by announcing withdrawal in 4 years

• Announcing the limits of US commitment was crucial to the outcome. 

• Taliban knew they could wait the Americans out, local population knew that siding with the outsiders was risky in the long term.

• From 2007 General Petraeus, Field Manual 3-24, smarter Counterinsurgency doctrine. 

• Can’t win a Counterinsurgency if you have weak, illegitimate gov, a sanctuary for insurgents, and a weak ineffective national army.

  • Should have learnt this from Vietnam but hadn’t

Situation Room, 9 Meetings, Round and Round- (1)

• Richard Holbrooke’s diary as presented by George Packer, Foreign Affairs

• “Why are we in Afghanistan?

• Because al Qaeda attacked us from Afghanistan. Our objective is to prevent another attack, and ultimately to destroy al Qaeda.

• But al Qaeda is in Pakistan.

• If the Taliban take power again in Afghanistan, al Qaeda could regain its safe haven there.

• But al Qaeda already has a safe haven in western Pakistan--not to mention in Somalia and Yemen and the African Sahel. Why do we need 100,000 troops and a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan to go after 100 al Qaeda members in the tribal areas of Pakistan?

• Pakistan, our supposed ally, is actually supporting our enemies. The Pakistanis won't stand for American troops on their soil. All we can do is covert ops, intelligence collection, drone strikes in the tribal areas against militants, some of whom are attacking Pakistani targets--even that is very unpopular.

• What do we really know about the Taliban? Are we sure they will allow al Qaeda back into Afghanistan?

Situation Room, 9 Meetings, Round and Round- (2)

• No, but they refuse to renounce al Qaeda.

• Why not do a counterterrorism campaign: drones and a few thousand Special Forces and spies going after the hard-core bad guys?

• That's what we've been trying since 2001, and it hasn't worked. Only counterinsurgency will give the Afghan government the breathing space to win the support of the people and gain strength until it can defend itself.

• But classic counterinsurgency requires hundreds of thousands of troops.

• So we'll limit ourselves to protecting population centers and key lines of communication until the Afghan army gets bigger and better…..

• We'll begin to transfer responsibility to the Afghan government in two to three years.

• What if the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, wants us to stick around for the fat contracts and the combat brigades while his government continues to prey on the people? Counterinsurgency can only succeed with a reliable partner, and the election did Karzai's legitimacy great harm. What if the Afghan government lacks the ability or will to win the support of the people?

• There's no good answer.”

Situation Room, 9 Meetings, Round and Round- (3)

• Limiting itself to the towns, the Taliban took control of the rural areas and most of the country.

• 2014  Obama declared “Our combat mission is Afghanistan is ending and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion”.

• Reality very different, despite spending $88 billion on Afghan Army of “300,000” men, still reliant on US Airpower and Special Forces, private contractors for equipment, not just training.

• Issues of trust with Afghan army, competence, corruption, drugs, loyalty ’blue on blue’

• Obama left office in 2017 leaving 9000 troops in Afghanistan. Holding the line.

• Meanwhile Taliban set up rival government in the provinces, provided order, raised taxes, and provided services.

Trump 2020 Doha Deal- (1)

• Trump even before office was a long critic of war.

  • Asked in 2015 “Are they going to there for the next 200 years?”

• Situation worsened under Trump. Increased air strikes, ultimately reduced troops to 2500.

• Opened direct negotiation with Taliban in Doha, excluding Afghan government.

  • Similar way to Trump conversing with Russia directly excluding Ukraine and European allies

• February 2020, Trump administration signed an agreement with the Taliban that called for all American forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, i.e. during the next administration.  

  • Biden later extended deadline 

  • The agreement signed assumed the Taliban would be in control!

• In return, Taliban pledged to cut ties with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, reduce violence and negotiate with the American-backed Afghan government.

  • Strategising of US coming back full circle with focus on terrorists 

  • Very imperfect agreement as there was no mechanism with this agreement

• In order to get Taliban to agree the US released 5000 Taliban prisoner release – straight back on the front line.

• Taliban saw it as withdrawal and defeat and a great victory for them

Trump 2020 Doha Deal- (2)

• The agreement had no mechanisms to enforce the Taliban commitments. 

• Exclusion of the Afghan government from the deal undermined it credibility, showed no confidence in its future and strained its relations between Kabul and Washington..

• After the deal was signed, the Taliban stopped attacking American troops and refrained from major bombings in Afghan cities but still attacked Afghan army positions and continued advances. 

  • The United States reduced air support for Afghan forces who were consequently massively exposed.

• Strategy of the deal was to force Afghan leaders and Taliban to negotiate a political road map for a new government and constitution and reduce violence and ultimately forge a lasting cease-fire.

  • Aim was to force Afghan government to talk with the Taliban but in practise this didn’t happen

• But Taliban saw no point in negotiating with the Kabul regime, kept attacking Afghan gov officials and security force members, civil society leaders, journalists and human rights workers — including several women shot in broad daylight. 

• Trump didn’t want to end the mission on his watch. 

  • Passed the problem to Biden.

  • Even if he had won Trump would have been in his second term anyways

Biden- (1)

• Given what he inherited Biden’s choice was to either follow through on the Doha deal, or send thousands more American troops to fight a much stronger Taliban in an Afghan civil war.

  • Biden was a long term skeptic of long0term missions and had been a source of tension between Obama and Biden earlier

• “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people to decide their future and how they want to run their country”  Biden

• Biden focus is elsewhere -China, Climate, Covid. 

  • Terrorism/AQ/ISIS now in Africa and widely dispersed

  • Afghanistan not seen as vital interest, not seen as winnable or worth the cost. 

• Expected Afghan security forces to hold the cities while a deal was done with the Government.

• July 2nd, the US Leaves Bagram Air Force base,- main force, USAF, contractors leave in middle of night.

• Security left to 300,000 afghan Army.

  • However the Afghan army was corrupt, drug addicted, badly led and motivated and sold off the fuel, supplies. 

  • Non-existent “Ghosts” on payroll (fake people to get money). How many were there?

    • People using their position to kill Western armies

• 20k strong SF Commandos did 80% of the fighting (were an elite squad). May 2021 onward no air support and the forces were exhausted.

Biden- (2)

• Ghani, contested 2020 election, centralised power, weakened regional war lords, 

• Taliban controlled border crossings, roads, collected revenue, well supplied and were confident.

• They were also very successful social media channels, very successful information management campaign, 

  • Battle of the narratives which was used to dictate terms of their advance.

• Filmed capture of bases, those who surrender let go, those who fight are killed.

  • Used this as a way of saying if you surrender you can live and join us so you can see your families

• August 15th, Ghani Flees. 

  • Security forces melt away like ice.

•  Kabul falls shortly after without fight

Was there an Alternative (McMaster)

• “We left because of a mantra of ending endless wars, and I believe we talked ourselves into it. Our level of effort in Afghanistan had become quite small, especially relative to the peak of that war. By 2018, we had about 10,000 troops there, and the Afghans were bearing the brunt of the fight. It was sustainable as an insurance policy to prevent what’s happening now. That was the path that President Trump initially chose in 2017, but in 2019 he departed from that and initiated what I would describe as capitulation negotiations with the Taliban. In 2021, President Biden doubled down on that.”  Gen. H.R. McMaster

• McMaster: “What you see in Afghanistan are the consequences of a lost war. The cost of the evacuation in terms of Afghan and American lives has already far exceeded the cost of the war in recent years. And it’s striking that we prioritized withdrawal over our own interest. Across both the Trump and Biden administrations, we made concession after concession to the Taliban. We strengthened the Taliban and weakened the Afghan government and security forces on our way out.”

Conclusions: For Afghanistan

• America handed Afghanistan to Taliban with no commitment from them over AQ/ISIS.

• Regime is all men, all Pashtun, practices gender apartheid, very hard line

• Humanitarian catastrophe looming, 10 million people dependent on food aid and are massively impoverished.

• US (IMF/World bank) controls $10 billion frozen assets. Cash economy with no cash.

• Iran increasing its influence in Afghanistan as an alternative source of aid as they are ideologically quite similar

• How should America engage?

  • Should US now engage in Taliban despite its practice is not talking to them

• What is the US strategy now?  What would you recommend?

  • Is there a strategy?

• What is US/International obligation? What about to Saudi Arabia/Yemen/Sudan?

  • Do we have an obligation to support women’s rights in Afghanistan given we’ve been there in 20 years?

  • Obligation in other parts of the world?

  • Is it achievable or is the US just crap at it?

Conclusion: For the US

• The US spent $3.7 Trillion. Was it worth it?

  • China in the same amount of time used that amount to build the Belt and Road initiative

• Lots of reasons what it went wrong. Why were these not evident earlier? Who was in denial? Were vested interests responsible, the military, the electoral cycle, electoral politics – no long-term commitment.

  • Electoral cycle- no long-term commitment

  • Electoral politics- no wanting to be the one to call it

• What does this mean for America’s role in the world? What lessons do Russia, Iran and China draw from US abandonment and withdrawal/retreat?

• What does it tell us about the America way of warfare – aerial bombing, targeted killing, “Mowing the lawn”? – Decapitation alone leads to alienation, radicalisation, and insurgency.

  • Was a failed strategy in the way it was executed

• What does it say about its commitment to stay the course? To allies? To nation building? To its ability to use force to good affect? 

  • Was it does it inform the current US government on its allies and nation-building

  • Seems to have given up aside from occasional strike on ships(?)

• Will the US public ever support intervention again? Will its allies? What consequences does this have?

• What strategic response will the US adopt to deal with growing terrorism and extremism in Africa?

• Conversely how was it able to fight for 20 years without success, and no Vietnam like protest?

Operation “Enduring Freedom” and “Operation Freedom’s Sentinel”

U.S. military operations in Afghanistan from 2001-2014 and 2015-2021, respectively.

Gen Mark Miley

A general who described the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as a “strategic failure”.

Pashtun

The dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprising 42% of the population.

Over 49 million

The number of Pashtuns living in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Durand Line, 1893

A line that cuts Afghanistan and Pakistan in half through a homogenous ethnic area.

Soviet Union

The country that occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989.

Stinger Missiles

A weapon the U.S. supplied to the Afghan Mujahedeen to combat Soviet helicopters.

1988

The year Osama bin Laden founded Al-Qaeda.

9/11 attacks

The attacks that led to the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Authorisation for the Use of Military Force Act (18 September 2001)

The Act that legitimized the President to use force after the 9/11 attacks.

Powell Doctrine

The doctrine the war in Afghanistan was not fought on.

Tora Bora

The location where Osama Bin Laden escaped Afghanistan during a battle in December 2001.

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)

Organization that secured Kabul under the leadership of UK’s General John McColl.

Iraq

The US switched its focus from Afghanistan to this country in 2002.

Donald Rumsfeld

Defense Secretary who announced an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan in May 2003.

American “exceptionalist”

The framing of the conflict as “good against evil” by the US was considered.

Balochistan

The province and capital of Pakistan where the Taliban leadership was based.

Richard Armitage

US Intelligence Director that threatened Pakistan in an effort to get them to cooperate.

Obama

Ordered a troop surge in Afghan in 2009.

Osama Bin Laden (OBL)

Killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011.

Counterinsurgency doctrine

Doctrine that couldn’t win in Afghanistan because of a weak government, sanctuary for insurgents and a weak army.

Trump administration

Signed an agreement with the Taliban that called for all American forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

Doha

City in which direct negotiation started with Taliban in Doha , excluding Afghan government.

Ghani

Fled Afghanistan on August 15th.

$10 billion

the amount of money and other assets of Afghanistan’s that the US (IMF/World bank) controls