Pete Trumbore I certainly didn’t think that this would be the topic that got me back to the blog, but here we are.


Let me caveat this by acknowledging that I’m no expert on Afghanistan, and looking back over the archives here, I see I’ve not written much about it, beyond noting some of the more recent absurdities, like dropping a $16 million “mother of all bombs” on a cave to target a few dozen ISIS-affiliated fighters, or mercenary Erik Prince’s proposal to privatize the war and pay for it by stealing Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

Taliban in the presidential palace, Kabul (AP photo)

Almost exactly three years ago, in August 2017, I noted that President Trump, with his first policy speech on Afghanistan, was taking ownership of a foreign policy failure that was at that point three presidencies in the making. A year later, his administration entered into peace negotiations with the Taliban (tellingly, the actual Afghan government was not included in the talks), which culminated in a Feb. 2020 agreement in which Trump pledged to remove all US troops by the end of May 2021. In return the Taliban agreed to play nice.

This April President Biden announced that the withdrawal would be carried out in full, but pushed the timeline to the end of this month. We know the rest of the story.

Unlike me, actual experts have had some smart things to say. For example, my friend and fellow academic Steve Saideman, who has written books about the NATO mission in Afghanistan and Canada’s experience there, has two new posts over at his blog where he looks at some of the big questions emerging from the Taliban’s victory.

Another academic blogger, Dan Drezner, is well worth reading on the international relations and US foreign policy implications of the fall of Afghanistan. His big takeaways, that the damage to the US here is not in terms of raising doubts about American resolve but rather policy competence, are ones that fully agree with.

I was on the radio less than a week ago repeating what was then the conventional wisdom, that the Afghan government would likely only be able to hold off the Taliban for 90 days or so once the US withdrawal was complete. Turns out it only took six days, with our withdrawal still in process.

What has perhaps been the most shocking to observers, pundits, and policymakers alike is the stunning collapse of the Afghan National Army, one we spent 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars training and equipping.

The explanation for the largely bloodless conquest of the country over the last several days may lie less in American or Western failures of training or equipping than in a collective failure to understand Afghan society. As Anatol Lieven writes in Politico, the pattern witnessed over the last several weeks, in which Afghan government security forces surrender to Taliban units, often without firing a shot, is one that has persisted since the Soviet occupation and the decades of civil war that followed:

I remembered this episode three years later, when the Communist state eventually fell to the mujahedeen; six years later, as the Taliban swept across much of Afghanistan; and again this week, as the country collapses in the face of another Taliban assault. Such “arrangements” — in which opposing factions agree not to fight, or even to trade soldiers in exchange for safe passage — are critical to understanding why the Afghan army today has collapsed so quickly (and, for the most part, without violence). The same was true when the Communist state collapsed in 1992, and the practice persisted in many places as the Taliban advanced later in the 1990s.

This dense web of relationships and negotiated arrangements between forces on opposite sides is often opaque to outsiders. Over the past 20 years, U.S. military and intelligence services have generally either not understood or chosen to ignore this dynamic as they sought to paint an optimistic picture of American efforts to build a strong, loyal Afghan army. Hence the Biden administration’s expectation that there would be what during the Vietnam War was called a “decent interval” between U.S. departure and the state’s collapse.

While the coming months and years will reveal what the U.S. government did and didn’t know about the state of Afghan security forces prior to U.S. withdrawal, the speed of the collapse was predictable. That the U.S. government could not foresee — or, perhaps, refused to admit — that beleaguered Afghan forces would continue a long-standing practice of cutting deals with the Taliban illustrates precisely the same naivete with which America has prosecuted the Afghanistan war for years.

A lot of smart (and not so smart) people are now going to pivot to the “lessons learned” portion of the American adventure in Afghanistan. Lieven, I think, has the most important part figured out:

The point is that America’s commanders and officials either completely failed to understand these aspects of Afghan reality or failed to report them honestly to U.S. administrations, Congress and the general public.

We can draw a clear line between this lack of understanding and the horrible degree of surprise at the events of the past several days. America didn’t predict this sudden collapse, but it could have and should have — an unfortunately fitting coda to a war effort that has been undermined from the start by a failure to study Afghan realities. 


Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions.

The Afghan Debacle

Pete Trumbore I certainly didn’t think that this would be the topic that got me back to the blog, but here we are.


Let me caveat this by acknowledging that I’m no expert on Afghanistan, and looking back over the archives here, I see I’ve not written much about it, beyond noting some of the more recent absurdities, like dropping a $16 million “mother of all bombs” on a cave to target a few dozen ISIS-affiliated fighters, or mercenary Erik Prince’s proposal to privatize the war and pay for it by stealing Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

Taliban in the presidential palace, Kabul (AP photo)

Almost exactly three years ago, in August 2017, I noted that President Trump, with his first policy speech on Afghanistan, was taking ownership of a foreign policy failure that was at that point three presidencies in the making. A year later, his administration entered into peace negotiations with the Taliban (tellingly, the actual Afghan government was not included in the talks), which culminated in a Feb. 2020 agreement in which Trump pledged to remove all US troops by the end of May 2021. In return the Taliban agreed to play nice.

This April President Biden announced that the withdrawal would be carried out in full, but pushed the timeline to the end of this month. We know the rest of the story.

Unlike me, actual experts have had some smart things to say. For example, my friend and fellow academic Steve Saideman, who has written books about the NATO mission in Afghanistan and Canada’s experience there, has two new posts over at his blog where he looks at some of the big questions emerging from the Taliban’s victory.

Another academic blogger, Dan Drezner, is well worth reading on the international relations and US foreign policy implications of the fall of Afghanistan. His big takeaways, that the damage to the US here is not in terms of raising doubts about American resolve but rather policy competence, are ones that fully agree with.

I was on the radio less than a week ago repeating what was then the conventional wisdom, that the Afghan government would likely only be able to hold off the Taliban for 90 days or so once the US withdrawal was complete. Turns out it only took six days, with our withdrawal still in process.

What has perhaps been the most shocking to observers, pundits, and policymakers alike is the stunning collapse of the Afghan National Army, one we spent 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars training and equipping.

The explanation for the largely bloodless conquest of the country over the last several days may lie less in American or Western failures of training or equipping than in a collective failure to understand Afghan society. As Anatol Lieven writes in Politico, the pattern witnessed over the last several weeks, in which Afghan government security forces surrender to Taliban units, often without firing a shot, is one that has persisted since the Soviet occupation and the decades of civil war that followed:

I remembered this episode three years later, when the Communist state eventually fell to the mujahedeen; six years later, as the Taliban swept across much of Afghanistan; and again this week, as the country collapses in the face of another Taliban assault. Such “arrangements” — in which opposing factions agree not to fight, or even to trade soldiers in exchange for safe passage — are critical to understanding why the Afghan army today has collapsed so quickly (and, for the most part, without violence). The same was true when the Communist state collapsed in 1992, and the practice persisted in many places as the Taliban advanced later in the 1990s.

This dense web of relationships and negotiated arrangements between forces on opposite sides is often opaque to outsiders. Over the past 20 years, U.S. military and intelligence services have generally either not understood or chosen to ignore this dynamic as they sought to paint an optimistic picture of American efforts to build a strong, loyal Afghan army. Hence the Biden administration’s expectation that there would be what during the Vietnam War was called a “decent interval” between U.S. departure and the state’s collapse.

While the coming months and years will reveal what the U.S. government did and didn’t know about the state of Afghan security forces prior to U.S. withdrawal, the speed of the collapse was predictable. That the U.S. government could not foresee — or, perhaps, refused to admit — that beleaguered Afghan forces would continue a long-standing practice of cutting deals with the Taliban illustrates precisely the same naivete with which America has prosecuted the Afghanistan war for years.

A lot of smart (and not so smart) people are now going to pivot to the “lessons learned” portion of the American adventure in Afghanistan. Lieven, I think, has the most important part figured out:

The point is that America’s commanders and officials either completely failed to understand these aspects of Afghan reality or failed to report them honestly to U.S. administrations, Congress and the general public.

We can draw a clear line between this lack of understanding and the horrible degree of surprise at the events of the past several days. America didn’t predict this sudden collapse, but it could have and should have — an unfortunately fitting coda to a war effort that has been undermined from the start by a failure to study Afghan realities. 


Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions.

10 comments:

  1. Good piece but even Stevie Wonder could have told the US that the ANA would have instantly downed tools once the US had left. What's surprising is that they were surprised. Afghanistan is place were imperialism invariably falls, due not in any small way to the tribal make up of the locals as the Professor rightly points out. Losing face makes the US Hawks very angry. Another nation will feel their wrath soon I fear.

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  2. To me historically three people are to blame for this mess. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Micheal Gorbachev. When the then Afghan Government INVITED the Soviet Union in to assist against a gang of religious nutters known as the Mujahadeen Reagan and Thatcher could not arm these headbangers quick enough."We will arm and equip the freedom fighters" in Afghanistan ranted Reagan, echoed by his bit on the side Thatcher. By freedom fighters he meant the Mujahadeen, which was broad based. Now many of those state of the arts weapons have been turned on US and British troops. When the Soviets were there women were delighted, they could go to work, take up professions like teaching and, although far from perfect, an air of normality prevailed certainly compared with now! When the Soviets left women were in tears, Reagan and Thatcher ranted on about freeing the Afghan people from Soviet tyrany, a tyrany which did not exist. The USSR were invited in by the then socialist - of sorts - Afghan Governments. Most of the people were relatively happy except that was the religious nutters who are now in charge. Without US and British weapons - the arms dealers made a mint - the Mujahadeen would have either stayed unarmed in the mountains, come down and practice their religion as it is suppossed to be or they'd have been erradicated by the Red Army. Then the anti-Soviet Gorbachev became General Secretary of the USSR (his grandfather was arrested by Stalin and died in a camp) and did Reagan and Thatchers bidding. Look at the mess they created through their ideological dogmatism. "Freedom fighters" my arse, the situation was exploited by Reagan and Thatcher for their own ends. The pair of them lied, telling us the USSR invaded when they were invited in, backing the Mujahadeen who, until then had very few weapons, against the Red Army. Just because the North Vietnamese kicked the yanks arses Reagan saw an opportunity to make up lost ground on the USSR. Look what making up that lost ground has left in its wake!!

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  3. The USSR entered Afghanistan as a result of a civil war within the ruling PFDA; the Parcham and Khalq factions. The PFDA had come to power in a coup in April 1978 led by Noor Tarakki. He was ousted and killed in an another coup led by hardliner Hafizullah Amin in September 1979. He in turn met the same fate after the Soviets intervened to support Babrak Karmal who took power at Christmas 1979.

    It will not do to gloss over the crimes of the PDFA which included the execution of 5,000 opponents in the notorious Pul-al-Charki prison in Kabul and the Soviet intervention was opposed within the Kremlin by Yuri Andropov successor to Brezhnev who presciently feared that this war would become the USSR's Vietnam.

    The USSR committed numerous war crimes including the bombardment of the city of Herat which caused the deaths of 25,000 people. It was Gorbachev who recognising the futility of the war and the lies told the Soviet people about it managed to secure a dignified exit from the Afghan theatre in 1989 (Biden and Johnson take note).

    The rise of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were unintended consequences of the Afghan imbroglio of the 1980s for which many regional and global players bear responsibility. Just as the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were the unintended consequences of similar meddling in Indochina.

    Always be careful of what you wish for.

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  4. The only 'regional players' who bear responsibility for Bin Laden and Al-Queda are the Britz, Americans, Pakistan + Saudi Arabia. The Soviets did all in their power to fight these theoretic fascists.

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  5. And perhaps if the USA and UK had not armed them with state of the arts weaponary the Soviets job would have been so much easier.

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    1. Afghanistan, like the Horn of Africa and so many other parts of the globe, was used as a testing ground for chess games and armaments by both the USA and its erstwhile allies and the USSR. Neither superpower emerges with credit and neither should be receiving retrospective brownie points.

      For those of use on the left, whitewashing the crimes of the "comrades" because those of themmuns/the other side should not pass muster.

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  6. Seems the US and Taliban are still murdering civilians in the country

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    Replies
    1. You are in danger of being called a conspiracy theorist Anthony....

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    2. that I might actually believe that the heavenly willie watcher is spying on everybody 24/7 to see what they do with their willies and if the unapproved is practiced, then it is hell for eternity? !!!!

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  7. He watches Anthony, the real conspiracy is who is watching the Willy watcher..

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