I don't care that we couldn't forge a nation in Afghanistan. Nobody else did. Nobody else will any century soon. But we built a state that fought at our side and that should have been good enough.
The Defense secretary was similarly frank in assessing some of the longer-term oversights of the United States’ 20-year military presence in Afghanistan, concluding that “we helped build a state … but we could not forge a nation.”
Nobody has built a nation there! So what? The Taliban won't build a nation there, either. But their state will allow jihadis to set up shop and threaten us. Not to mention abuse the Afghan people.
Building a state was absolutely necessary in Afghanistan:
We needed to build a state in Afghanistan. I think we should have tried to build a decentralized state, as I wrote about in early 2009 regarding a potential surge, that would have withstood the fall of Kabul:
The end result in Afghanistan, if all goes well, will be a nominal national government that controls the capital region and reigns but does not rule local tribes and which actually helps the locals a bit rather than sucking resources from the locals, who in turn do not make trouble for the central government or allow their areas to be used by jihadis to plan attacks on the West. We press for reasonable economic opportunities, with bribes all around (I mean, foreign aid), to keep a fragile peace.
And we stick around this time, unlike after the Soviets left Afghanistan when we ignored the place, for a generation or two to see if we can move Afghanistan into the 19th century (hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves).
Hell, this is what I wrote 19 years ago when I rejected nation building in Afghanistan:
The need to occupy Iraq and also keep forces ready to deal with Iran and North Korea or another unexpected contingency argue against an American-dominated nation-building effort in Afghanistan. Our main interest in Afghanistan was overthrowing the Taliban and crushing al Qaeda. We did both. As long as Afghanistan doesn't re-emerge as a training ground for terrorism, the precise fate and pace of Afghanistan tranquility is more of a humanitarian interest. Trying to govern the country will put us in the middle of rivalries and embroil us in a civil war. Yes, we'd like a peaceful and democratic Afghanistan, so let's try. We should send aid and create a national army and bring the warlords inside the tent; but don't take our eye off the ball--terrorism and terror-supporting states (and terrorist states) are our target.
And our allied state, with our support, killed jihadis every day until we walked away and needlessly threw away our accomplishment. Now the Taliban will build their state. We will take no comfort from their failure to build a nation.
This Biden skedaddle debacle must be immensely comforting to our enemies. They don't need to defeat us. They just need to hang on long enough to give us a chance to defeat ourselves.
And we did just that.
Bravo.
