Why did the Afghan army collapse so quickly? Here's the New York Times:
As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food.
But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces — which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just one-sixth of that, according to U.S. officials — were apparent. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the West’s insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, and which has proved unsustainable without the United States and its NATO allies.
Commanders [knew] that the afflictions of the Afghan forces had never been cured: the deep corruption, the failure by the government to pay many Afghan soldiers and police officers for months, the defections, the soldiers sent to the front without adequate food and water, let alone arms. In the past several days, the Afghan forces have steadily collapsed as they battled to defend ever shrinking territory, losing Mazar-i-Sharif, the country’s economic engine, to the Taliban on Saturday.
When U.S. forces were still operating here, the Afghan government sought to maximize its presence through the country’s far-flung countryside, maintaining more than 200 bases and outposts that could be resupplied only by air. Extending government operations to the most of Afghanistan’s more than 400 districts has long been the main pillar of America’s counterinsurgency strategy.
Mr. Ghani had ample warning of the American departure after the Trump administration signed the February 2020 agreement with the Taliban that called on all U.S. forces and contractors to leave by May 2021. Yet, the Afghan government failed to adjust its military footprint to match the new reality. Many officials didn’t believe in their hearts that the Americans would actually leave.
And let's not forget the Washington Post:
The near-collapse of the Afghan army in the space of just a few stunning weeks is prompting the military and Washington’s policymakers to reflect on their failures over the course of nearly two decades....“You look at the Afghan constitution that was created in Bonn [in 2001] and it was trying to create a Western democracy,” said Michèle Flournoy, one of the architects of President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan in 2010. “In retrospect, the United States and its allies got it really wrong from the very beginning. The bar was set based on our democratic ideals, not on what was sustainable or workable in an Afghan context.”
....On trips to Afghanistan, she met frequently with young Afghans, including women’s groups, who shared America’s vision for the country....But those individuals were no match for the rot that had permeated the Afghan government. She and other U.S. officials understood that with all the U.S. money floating around in Afghanistan, there would be “petty corruption,” she said. What U.S. officials discovered in 2010, after the surge was already underway, was a corruption that ran far deeper than they had previously understood and that jeopardized their strategy, which depended on building the legitimacy of the Afghan government.
“We realized that this is not going to work,” Flournoy said. “We had made a big bet only to learn that our local partner was rotten.”
Let's round this all up:
- Hubristic nation building.
- Starry-eyed constitution writing.
- Wildly unrealistic military training.
- Vast corruption.
- Lack of food and weapons for Afghan soldiers.
- Bad negotiating from the Trump administration.
- Afghan leadership void.
I'm glad everyone is finally able to admit this now that the war is over, but it sure sounds like it's been common knowledge for at least a decade. This is why I think it's folly to suggest that things would have been any different if we'd waited another six months before withdrawing.
There's no question that the US policy class has a lot to answer for here, but the bulk of the blame has to be placed on the army. They were the ones on the ground. They were the ones who built an Afghan military that was completely unsuitable to the country. They're the ones who apparently never grasped the full extent of the corruption they were up against. They were the ones who advised four different US presidents that things were going well if they could just have a little more time and a few more troops.
The US military is hardly the only organization that hates to be the bearer of bad news. Nor are they the only organization that hates to admit they can't do the job they're being asked to do. But an unwillingness to do these things was one of the primary reasons we lost Vietnam, and our military leadership at the time swore it would never happen again.
But it did, just as soon as they found themselves in a similar situation. I remember years and years of blathering about counterinsurgency during the aughts, with army officers insisting that we could learn how to do it and skeptics pointing out that there were practically no examples of successful Western counterinsurgencies in the entire era since World War II. But after David Petraeus left the scene everyone got tired of this stuff and the nation's op-ed pages moved on to other things.
But guess what? The skeptics were right.
If the usual military industrial complex needs a new project, Haiti needs some help right now.
Biden's poll numbers are going to drop. Don't kid yourself; this was a FUBAR clusterfuck and both sides of the aisle have loads of criticism for Biden's administration. This lack of motivation, coupled with the notion that the administration didn't think Afghanistan wouldn't fall this quickly, highlights once again that they really believed the bullshit assurances the Taliban had given them, thanks to Zalmay Khalilzad.
Nope. They will rise. You really underestimate how the American people depised Afghanistan. I see it every day. The crude jokes.
His poll numbers will drop for a week or two and then everyone will go on with their lives like they've been doing for 20 years. No one cares about Afghanistan.
I know this is off topic but regarding the ca recall, Newsom is now asking voters to leave question #2 ( who replaces him if recall wins) blank.
I was wondering if I could write in Newsom.
Of course you can but the vote does not count. Newsom is ineligible in the 2nd part. There may be some such votes cast as a protest ( and more because they do not know it is a wasted vote). I am not sure if they get counted and reported but then not valid or just not counted at all.
You can be sure that, if Newson was eligible in part 2 by write in, he would be asking for that instead of to leave it blank.
Clearly by making sure there was no major democratic figure on the 2nd ballot and asking voters to leave it blank, he is trying to present a choice of either him or a republican only. Also he is clearly trying to pump up Elder as the alternative ( by attacking him that causes unsophisticated conservatives to support him ), which is an old political tactic. And Newsom's campaign seems to have given up trying to promote him as a good governor.
Unlike the Davis recall when Schwarzenegger had a base of independent support, if there was any prominent Democrat on the 2nd ballot, very likely democrats would hold the governorship.
I voted for Angelyne in part 2. I actually would prefer her to Newsome.
I have seen her a few times when she stopped by the local McDonald's. She is old..
Time has a way of doing that. I’m not evaluating her as a sex symbol but as a person who wants to do something good as opposed to playing all the political angles. Out of all the candidates running to replace Newsome, she’s the only one who doesn’t seem to be a monster or a lunatic.
Yes, I know you should have expected time to make you old. But it still can shock you so when you have not seem someone for years and still have an image of when they were a younger sex symbol. Especially when they still wear the short tight miniskirt that now just looks ridiculous.
And, if you actually listen to her, she is closer to a lunatic than the others. Something is not quite right with her. Have to say that, if she had run again, porn star Mary Carey was more serious.
And really kevin falconer, who is a moderate republican who competently ran San Diego, is a monster or lunatic? If you feel half the whole country are monsters or lunatics, maybe it would make sense to emigrate?
Most of the candidates are not serious gadflys who are not up to actually being governor but are certainly not monsters or lunatics.
Not to brag but this did happen about as fast as I thought it would.
The fix was clearly in throughout the country and those who the US thought were allies were really there only for the graft, and without the graft they knew it would be too easy for them to be seen as criminals unless they went all in for the Taliban as fast as possible, and the Taliban knew that's exactly how it would play out.
So, why didn't anyone at the State Department or the intelligence services get this?
Who do the State Department and intelligence agencies actually hire?
I was going to say it was as if the deal negotiated by the Trump administration had been dictated by Moscow, but I didn't.
Just now I saw a headline linked on Reddit, from the Moscow Times website, that the Russian embassy has no plans to evacuate and everyone 'is working calmly'.
One big difference is that people like the Taliban have more fear of what Putin could order his special forces to do if they attacked the Russian embassy and killed their personnel. Such as not only go after the taliban leader themselves but also kill their small children. That is a powerful deterrent that we do not have. I am happy and proud that the usa is not a nation to go as far as deliberately killing the innocent children of terrorists but having a credible threat to do so can work. And everyone knows Putin is just the sort to do so.
Back in the 80s, when Hezbollah was kidnapping and killing westerners, they tried it with Soviet personnel. The families of those leaders were killed and that put a stop to it..
I expect the state department and military were fully aware of this. But to publicly go around saying this would simply have made the collapse even quicker. By lying, we got ~200k civilians out of the country between the May 1st Trump deadline and today. We're still getting more pro-western afghans out every hour and we got all of the embassy personnel out. We got out all of the US military equipment. This is most definitely not another Saigon, but so far an orderly withdrawal.
Have we got out 200,000? I had not heard such a figure.
But for your scenario to work, our state department and military had to be aware that the afghan govt would collapse like this. But the Afghan military themselves had to not be aware themselves that they would collapse. That seems hard to believe.
The rapid collapse only comes when the people doing the fighting first realize they have zero chance of winning. They collapse as soon as they think they will collapse. A self fulfilling prophecy.
And not sure how old you are but no way is this less chaotic than south Vietnam.
Well at least we aren't pushing helicopters off the aircraft carrier deck.
"we got ~200k civilians out of the country between the May 1st Trump deadline and today"
Link please. (On July 30, I see a headline that reads, "First evacuation flight brings over 200 Afghans to US".)
The US has about 2500 troops in Iraq still, about the same as what we had in Afghanistan. Since it was so urgent to get the 2500 troops out of Afghanistan, according to the Biden-Trump team, are we going to pull those 2500 troops out of Iraq too?
I just don't get why we suddenly pulled out of Afghanistan. If US troops were still getting killed, okay that would have been a reason to leave. If it was unaffordable, okay that would have been a reason to leave. But instead we just decided the place is too crappy and hopeless to bother with any more.
Sure, Afghanistan is corrupt and tribal, but there were still people there fighting the good fight and trying to make a better country. We had encouraged a generation of people there, including a great many women. I wonder how many of them and their families will escape now. Shame on us.
Pity that the Afghan Army didn’t form a Légion Étrangère, so you could enlist …
As I said, American troops were no longer getting killed.
You really don't get it, do you? A corrupt and unpopular government being propped up by America, only exists because we are pouring wealth and lives into the country.
NO, that is NOT sustainable, or justified.
YES, it is exactly the same situation as Vietnam, except in that case, the communists never actually attacked America at all...
As I said, American troops were not getting killed there anymore.
The US was spending $45B a year in Afghanistan. Annual federal spending is $6.6T. $45B is then 0.68% of the budget, meaning less than 1%. For comparison, we spend about $45B in Korea each year.
So I don't see how you can conclude it's not sustainable.
The only reason to leave is if you believe the the place is too corrupt and hopeless to bother with any more. That is a valid point of view, it's just that I don't share it.
Or we could just light $45 billion on fire and cook some marshmallows. It would be as productive.
"America was finally using Biden’s Afghanistan strategy. Then he pulled the plug."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/08/16/afghanistan-biden-withdrawal-military/
People keep mentioning corruption and that was the main problem. But what isn't being mentioned is that the worst corruption was from americans. GWBush flew in billions of dollars to iraq cash on pallets. That money was entirely stolen, and pretty much all of it by americans like eric prince and halliburton.
2 trillion dollars and broken soldiers later. Wanna unite a Trumptard with a woketard. This is it. Stupid political class and its media are out of touch.
$3 Trillion. For each of the Bush/Cheney wars, by the time the last wounded veteran passes away.
But who's counting?
Here's Chuck Hagel pointing out that the Trump administration negotiated the Doha agreement with the Taliban without including the Afghan government in the talks and then just presenting it to them as a fait accompli,
https://www.rawstory.com/chuck-hagel-afghanistan/
Exactly the way the US negotiated the withdrawal from Vietnam.
So, in that way it's like the fall of Saigon.
Thank you, Donald Trump, you're always winning.
Doing it like this throws away, all at once, any shred of credibility or legitimacy the Kabul government could have had.
'So, in that way it's like the fall of Saigon.'
In what way is it NOT like Vietnam??
Many ways. Nothing is ever exactly the same.
For one , the north vietnamese military was a far stronger and more capable military than the taliban, in conventional military terms ( manpower, weapons, etc.) and had a solid base of support from Russia ( not really China by the end).
South Vietnam's military was also stronger than the Afghan military in the same terms. But not by near as much.
So the collapse of the south vietnamese military was not nearly as unreasonable or surprising . The only thing that shocked some was the speed right at the end ( and it should not have ).
The south vietnamese army was never much stronger than the northern. Matched up by numbers and weapons, it can be argued that the south should have been able to hold, at least on defense, but the disparity in forces was not such to make them a clear favorite.
The Afghan govt forces far outnumbered and outgunned the Taliban in conventional terms and should easily have been able to defeat the taliban even without our help, if they had the will and the hope of winning.
In 1972, after we largely left Vietnam, the south vietnsmese, largely fighting on their own on the ground with us giving air support, basically crushed a North vietnamese which the n viet expected would succeed ( and many here also thought the south would collapse then in 72). At times, the south vietnamese did better than many expected. When did the Afghan govt forces ever surprise on the good side?
1973 the north came back to peace talks as they realized that they could not win with the level of us support left ( even though now s Vietnam was doing the ground fighting without us soldiers). So we had a " peace deal", but nobody expected the north to honor it if they thought they could break it without deterrent. It was that the us would come back with air support if they did and the south could win with just that. And the us certainly did plan to do just that.
Then Watergate happened, Nixon was gone and the political will in the us collapsed. The north launched a probing attack in dec 74 ( violating the treaty ) to see if the us would respond. We did not so they felt able to safely turn it into a full invasion.
Yes, there was the aspect of " learned dependence " in both places. But the south vietnamese did show the will and competence to fight hard to some extent. The Afghan military never.
And hard to blame the south for eventually giving up. We did build a military really dependent on air superiority to be able to beat the north. The ussr supplied a conventional Soviet style army with lots of tanks and artillery, that the south could not match. They needed air support to win. And then when spare parts for what they had were cut off, they could see that their eventual loss was inevitable no matter how hard they fought.
The Afghan army had plenty of troops and weapons to beat the taliban without our support, if they had the spirit and will to fight. South Vietnam really did not.
And the south vietnamese govt really did have some base of support inspiring some loyalty in their country. Yes, they were corrupt but not really more so than a standard Asian nation or Latin American nation of that time ( and maybe even today some places). They had an actual economy although us dollars did play a significant part. In Afghanistan, the US dollars flowing in simply dwarfed the legit Afghan economy, so everything came down to how to get part of those dollars..the result being an Afghan govt that was only about corruption and mostly nothing else, which inspired zero loyalty.
The south vietnamese defeat ( really only a collapse at the end) was maybe partly due to a lack of belief and the will to win. Buy also due to an actual conventional imbalance caused by the us creating a structure depending on us support ( and not just psychological).
The Afghan collapse was caused by the lack of a belief they could win. They lost simply because they thought they were going to lose.
Seeing now some of what blinken has said including that how quickly the Afghan govt collapsed was unexpected. That is just not the same concept as what biden said not long ago - that it was very unlikely that the Taliban would be able to fully takeover at all.
If there is some legit belief that the Afghan govt could hang out, to at least part of the country, that might be an incorrect assessment but not inherently illogical.
But thinking that the only uncertain issue is the speed at which the govt will collapse is just unsuppotable. Once the govt forces lose any hope of winning , of course they will collapse immediately. What do you expect the Afghan govt soldiers to do ? Fight and die in a clearly lost cause just to hold out for an extra month to give the US time to easily get out their people while abandoning you?
I have to admit I was somewhat defending the administration here feeling they cannot have been that stupid and that in the end this will not cause biden harm, but I give up and this just looks worse than I thought it could.
At least however, the usa does not look the absolute worst. We can reserve that for ghazni..
Big News? Since when nation building without the population making the large majority of the hard work? Never. Ever.
Their neighbors, Pakistan , Russia and China have better incentives than US.
but this is big news for the GOP, they have now an opportunity to endlessly attack the weak Biden. Once they gain back control of the House, expect the opening of new hearing a la Bengazi.
“We realized that this is not going to work,” Flournoy said. “We had made a big bet only to learn that our local partner was rotten.”
You mean the hindsight that we had after leaving Saigon barely ahead of the NVA?
THAT hindsight? Conservatives never learn, and that includes Neo-Cons. Unless, of course, you count how effectively they scam America for our wealth....
That brings up another difference with Vietnam.
In Vietnam, the early parts of the final war in late 74 and early 75 were not a surprise to just about anyone. Ford wanted more aid and for the usa to provide air support as we promised if the north broke the treaty. The Ford administration did not think the south could hold on long term without it.
And the congress ( then heavily controlled by democrats ) did not allow that. But it is not like the democrats then were saying that the south needed no help and then they were surprised that the south lost. The congress largely knew that what they were doing meant that the north would win and they just accepted that consequence. You cannot say either Ford or the congressional democrats were too stupid to understand that the south would lose.
The only "surprise " was that the south finally did collapse so quickly in the last month. They still had the resources to hold parts of the county including Saigon till maybe the end of the year, giving us time for an orderly pullout . But once the last hope for a s vietnamese victory was gone, it was every man for himself to get out.
Yes, maybe that should have been obvious and is in hindsight. But from the perspective of the 70s , it is understandable. Then our most recent war experiences were when the losing side fought to the bitter end ( Germany and Japan in ww2, and even n. Korea in the first part of the Korean war).
In Afghanistan, we should have known better as we have seen this too many times before.
I strongly doubt sir support had anything to do with it, and don't really see the reasoning behind that considering what we've seen. What isn't talked about much is all the surrenders the Taliban negotiated over the past year (under the covers), so that they could walk right in many places without a fight.
Air support
The Afghan army was completely dependent on air support for tactical support, casualty evacuation and resupply. Once they realized we weren't going to continue to provide that, the local forces gave up.
So how did the taliban manage to supply themselves and evacuate casualties without an air force.
If the Afghan army had the will to fight, they could have managed easy without an air force. That they needed air support also in order to stand up to a weaker army without any air just shows how weak they were.
Not so for south Vietnam as they actually needed air support to counter armor and artillery.
My point was not that air support was the crucial factor In Afghanistan. In fact sort of the opposite.
In Vietnam, air support was crucial for the south to hold on long term. Because the north vietnamese had a strong conventional Soviet style armor and artillery force that the south would have a real hard time countering without air support as they did not have the same sort of armor and artillery.
Heavy hard to hide weapons like tanks and heavy artillery can be decimated by an opponent having air superiority, even if that opponent has little. As the north found out in 72, if the us was able to neutralize their armor and artillery superiority by air power, the south vietnamese army was plenty strong enough and fought hard enough to kick their abs.
But remove that air superiority, not only do you damage morale, but, even if morale holds, the armor superiority of the north was likely going to prevail. Add in loss of spare parts and the south was doomed.
And in Vietnam we did not supply the south with a large tank force or build a good native air force because they " did not need it " - because we would always be there with air support ( until we weren't ).
In Afghanistan, by contrast, air support was not " needed " by the Afghan army to win. The taliban has no large armor or artillery force that you need air power to take put. The Afghan army had plenty of soldiers with small arms ( mostly all taliban had) to defeat the taliban ( or even three talibans) without a bit of air support, as long as they retained the will to fight.
But air support was still crucial. With it, the Afghan army would have retained their belief in winning and still continued to fight. And, while not as effective as against tanks, air superiority is still pretty devastating.
And we actually did establish some Afghan native air force and maybe enough to do the job. But they were not flying as not maintained. We did not let contractors who knew how to maintain the planes go back in.
Remarkably like Trump's entire negotiation with the Taliban was controlled by Moscow
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-afghanistan-2654663943/