I've noted that the Biden administration seems to be having second thoughts about the wisdom of just abandoning Afghanistan. Did we just backtrack a bit?
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday approved a new command for American forces in Afghanistan to oversee troops who will remain in the country to protect diplomats after the U.S. military drawdown ends next month, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. ...
The new Kabul-based command will be led by Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, and those troops will help with security requirements at the Hamid Karzai International Airport there. The force will also offer “continued advice and assistance to Afghan national defense and security forces” and support counterterrorism efforts, Kirby said.
Is the only result of our withdrawal going to be letting our allies--other than the Turks who are expected to guard an airport and the road to the capital if the price is right--off the hook for helping America in Afghanistan?
No wonder our European allies express relief that America is "back" under Biden. Europeans get to go home and we get to stay at a higher risk.
But is this compromise wise? Is this shrunken American presence and mission enough to counteract the image of NATO pulling up stakes and leaving?
And what does this mean for American efforts to replace on-the-ground training with telecommuting? A bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it works out for them:
Afghans who maintain the country’s military aircraft have been learning to fix damaged aircraft over the past two months via videoconferences with U.S.-funded contractors just a few rooms away.
We'll see if the videoconferencing equipment will be stolen when the contractors need to do that from outside Afghanistan.
We're already having second thoughts in Somalia where we left to advise and fight jihadis remotely:
Gen. Stephen Townsend said during the European Union Defense Washington Forum [that] it’s a lot hard to train, advise and assist Somalian forces from afar.
Will we have the luxury of second thoughts in Afghanistan? If the price of walking away from Iraq in 2011 didn't teach us not to effectively abandon Afghanistan, the Somalia experience won't.
Is the small American troop presence too little to win but too many to lose in a futile mission, as I recently worried?
Not enough to help the Afghan government defeat the jihadis but enough to provide the victims of a sizable jihadi massacre if the government loses: "Roughly 650 U.S. troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, U.S. officials told The Associated Press."
Isn't splitting the difference between winning and losing just a different form of losing?
I worry that what the administration is doing is deciding to lose the
war in Afghanistan but being afraid of having responsibility for losing
the war.
