Behind the fall

Two things stuck me today watching the BBC coverage of the Taliban's rout of the Afghan government; one was a surprise the other not. The unsurprising thing was seeing Taliban fighters with M-16s or similar - but clearly modern US made automatic weapons. We're quite used to seeing pictures of the Taliban with AK-47s left over from the Russians entanglement in the country so seeing American weapons brought home the point quite graphically. 

The other, and this was a surprise, was learning that the Taliban had been secretly negotiating surrender arrangements with regional leaders for 18 months, but only put them into effect just as the Americans were preparing to leave. That explains the rapidity with which they captured territory; its not that the Afghan army and police decided at the last minute they would not put up a fight; it appears the handover of power local has long been prearranged. That this wan't known or understood by the US suggests a huge intelligence failure. 

Yet despite the rush to pin the blame on the Biden administration, in the bigger picture its calculus ultimately is the same. Certainly many who might have left had the Taliban only advanced at the speed US intelligence had expected will likely now not be able to. Yet they might also have chosen to stay and the scenes of chaos may reflect that fact that more people are now trying to flee the country (following the example of their ex-president) because of the speed of the Taliban return to power than would otherwise have been the case. 

Biden was clear in his address today that the US is not in the business of nation-building. Yet that is clearly what the last 10 years in Afghanistan were all about. Osama bin Laden had been killed and Al-Qaeda's ability to train and organize had apparently be degraded to the point that it no longer presents a threat to US homeland security. So the counter-terrorism component of the US mission in Afghanistan was accomplished meaning that staying longer was only about nation-building.  

This raises the question of ambition versus what is achievable.  As a Brit I have noticed (a huge generalization of course) a tendency for America, with the best of intentions, to try and establish 'copies' of itself in other places. While numerous politicians of both parties have eschewed nation-building, that does seem to have been a goal of the post invasion strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  One might argue that the post-cold war attempt to transition the countries of the ex-USSR and the Communist block more generally to Western-style market economies and democracies was similarly an attempt to reshape those countries in its image.

The ambition may have been commendable though not everyone agrees that a foreign power imposing its systems and values on another country is anything but modern day colonialism.  But putting that aside, the ambition far outstripped what was realistically achievable.  The Brits tried to govern Afghanistan in the 19th century, the Russians tried in the 20th; and both failed. So the notion that the US would do any better may have been over-optimistic.

As with America's ambitions for post-cold war Russia, its aspirations in Afghanistan were too ambitious and insufficient attention paid to context; meaning that ultimately the attempt to turn the country in to a Western-style 20th century democracy has, after 20 years, ultimately failed.  It has been said that the 19th century belonged to Britain, the 20th to the US, and the 21st will be China's.  If that's the case, then who knows, perhaps China can find a way to impose its values and systems on other countries more successfully that its colonial predecessors?    

The last straw

As if to underscore the inevitability of the Taliban's return to power, Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's president has fled the country.

And, according to the Guardian's real time reporting, within 20 minutes of his departure the Taliban had entered Kabul. 

Ghani's departure is a highly symbolic end to to the American effort to stand up Western-style democracy in Afghanistan. Its nation-building project in Afghanistan is now unequivocally at and end.  

The American-Afghan war is, to all intents and purposes, now over, just 53 days shy of a platinum anniversary.   If America's twenty year anniversary gift to Afghanistan would have been china, China might be breathing a sigh of relief.

Taliban win the long game

I have written about the US occupation of Afghanistan and the decision to withdraw (April 18th, July 14th) and there is little in broad terms I can add to those posts. It was almost inevitable that once the Americans (and NATO) forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban would take back the country.  They live there, it's their home; the Americans are there temporarily and it's not their home. That gives the Taliban numerous strategic advantages; they can be more patient, they have better intelligence; they have a better understanding of the culture and the political situation on the ground (something the Americans appear to lack); and they are hard to identify from other Afghan civilians. So their resurgence was not a surprise. What was perhaps surprising was the remarkable speed with which this unfolded, in a matter of days rather than weeks. Some have dubbed this, with some justification, another "Saigon moment" for America. 

There are a few comments, perhaps more of a post script, that might help explain the surprising speed with which the Taliban had retaken the country.

First was corruption and mismanagement in the Afghan government; corruption undermined support for the government particularly amongst the security forces, many of whom, according to the Economist, had not been paid for months. While Biden had said that it was time for the Afghans take complete responsibility for defending their country from the Taliban, it seems his administration, perhaps from incomplete intelligence, may not have understood the fragility of the armed forces' morale and commitment. That has led to desertions in the field as the Taliban advanced. 

Second, like many things (Climate change for example) the worse things get the faster they deteriorate. As the speed of the Taliban advance became clear this week that contributed to a sense of inevitability and further undermined the will of Afghan soldiers to put their lives at risk for a government many didn't believe in.  Just as the Taliban were well equipped with Russian material (AK-47s and grenade launchers) they had seized after they drove out the Russian thirty years ago, I expect we will see them driving captured Humvees and brandishing American supplied M-16s before long.  

The Russians lasted 9 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 1 day, according to Wikipedia; the America almost made it to its twenty year anniversary.  And the appropriate gift for a twenty year anniversary? China. 

Afghanistan

There are two schools of thought on withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan. One is that Al-Qaeda has been dispersed and the threat is no longer localized in Afghanistan, so keeping troops there is not an effective use of the military's resources. Moreover, in removing troops from Afghan soil, the Taliban may find less local support making common cause against the invading infidel.  The other is that the Taliban remain a threat to the Afghan government and without an American presence they may will retake control of the country. The modernizing reforms achieved since the US occupation began would be rescinded and the country would revert to the oppressive values the Taliban espouse. 

Where one comes down on this probably hinges on whether one sees the US' role in the world providing a policing presence or as exporting its values (or for some people, neither).  If one sees the US' role only as policing or simply defending the homeland then the troop withdrawal is the obvious answer. If one still sees the US' role as exporting its values, then it should have stayed. 

That Biden chose to leave suggests either that a more inwardly focused perspective is taking hold here (some would characterize it as the "America First" position) or that there has finally been a realization that imposing values on another sovereign nation with a completely different culture and history is harder than it looks. It requires a sustained, often heavy-handed presence which those being "asked" to reform might justifiably see as colonization.