We lost the Afghanistan War in 2021. Needlessly. But our skill at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was exploited by the Taliban.
Among the criticisms: Because Afghan forces relied significantly on U.S. military support, morale fell once American troops left.
SIGAR determined that neither the U.S. nor Afghan government appeared politically committed to “doing what it would take to address the challenges, including devoting the time and resources necessary to develop a professional ANDSF,” during the 20 years of U.S. presence in the region.
And because it can take decades to build up security forces: “The February 2020 decision to commit to a rapid U.S. military withdrawal sealed the ANDSF’s fate,” the report states.
I addressed these same points back in December.
I think part of the problem was trying to build a professional ANDSF. "Afghanistan" is a territory with rival tribes and not a national government young men are devoted to defending.
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).
Hopefully our military surge recedes by the end of 2011 and we can get down to a single combat brigade plus air power that function as a fire brigade and a hammer for the central government should a local difficulty exceed Afghan military capabilities.
Still, the failure to build Afghan forces is over-stated. We built Afghan forces able to fight with our support. Just as we built Iraqi forces able to fight with our support. Each fought and died every day against our common jihadi enemies. Our troops had little need to fight after years of effort to build up our local allies.
Don't forget that in 2011, European NATO states were unable to take on the forces of Libya--wracked by civil war, no less--without American help. So yeah, of course Afghan forces needed help to keep fighting! But America left, while debating just how long it could take for Afghan forces to collapse. That's a real confidence booster for our allies, eh?
Trump, Biden, and Obama deserve plenty of criticism for this defeat.
Bush was in office too long ago for me to put blame on him.
But Biden was getting paid the big bucks when he ordered a flawed and too-quick withdrawal despite the warning alarms going off as our troops skedaddled. This is on him (back to the initial article):
But in the end, U.S. forces leaving dealt an unrecoverable blow: “Low troop morale, something the U.S. military did not take into account, was one of the main contributors to the ANDSF’s collapse. However, nothing affected morale more than the realization in February 2021 that U.S. military forces were leaving.”
How could we not account for morale? It was obvious that Afghan morale would suffer. I wanted enough American support to get Afghan security forces and government people through a danger zone of morale vulnerability. Biden refused to do that.
The buck stops at Biden' s desk.
Sadly, it seems to be in our genes that we demand too much from victory and end up creating defeat in our frustration.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 continues here.
