In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Off the top of my head, I have no idea why except that the Russians have always had prickly relations with their neighbors (and Russia has a lot of them).
It wasn't long before the Russians were bogged down in the desert, no real sense of what they were doing or why. Meanwhile, the Russian people back home were watching the clumsy carnage on their TVs and grew dissatisfied with Moscow's imperial ambitions (Afghanistan has long been considered Russia's 'Vietnam'). And, predictably, the Americans stoutly supported the native antagonists (as long as they continued the job of killing Russians, according to Charlie Wilson). The American support took the form of giving money to Pakistani intelligence to funnel to anti-Soviet warlords in Afghanistan.
Within the larger Arab world, the fight against the Soviets in Central Asia was a righteous cause (a la the Spanish Civil War) and many Arabs dedicated themselves to going to Afghanistan and making war on the imperial infidels. These groups were called "Afghan Arabs", though they are not Afghans, and eventually they wore out their welcome in Afghanistan. By the mid-1980s, the Soviets were done with all that and pulled out. American support, too, disappeared when the Soviets left town. Soon after getting their country back, the Afghan people grew tired of these outsiders trying to show up and take credit for everything (a phenomenon seen again when the Iraqi Sunni fought against al-Qaeda interlopers after the fall of Saddam) and drove many of the Afghan Arabs out.
Afghanistan bathed in its ability to spurn empires, recounting tales of fending off invaders going back to Alexander the Great. In the following years, the Taliban came to power. They were mostly an obnoxious religious organization with vague political (re: warlord-ish) philosophies, but since Russia and USA no longer cared, really only Pakistan was left to pay any attention. Pakistan took on the Taliban as useful idiots (well, that was the hope anyway) and more or less abetted them. The Taliban were happy to destroy religious relics and basically act like the recalcitrant dinosaurs they are.
During this time, the most famous of the Afghan Arabs, Osama bin Laden, who went from Afghanistan to the Sudan after the Soviet retreat, returned in the late 1990s, presumably under Taliban watch. It was from the mountains of Afghanistan that bin Laden planned and implemented 9/11.
The Americans by Xmas of 2001 were able to rout the Taliban and put "our guy" (Hamid Karzai, who is ready for a comeback...?) in power, where he stayed for almost 14 years, controlling Kabul with an iron fist and not much else. The hinterlands were never swayed by American influence but the overwhelming force did drive the Taliban underground for a decade or so.
#1 took almost a decade and took place outside of Afghanistan but the goal was accomplished. #2 al-Qaeda was well smashed in Afghanistan by 2010 and I think foreign terror influence there is currently minimal and I think likely to stay minimal (at least when it comes to attacking the West, the Afghans have bigger fish to fry). As for #3, we pushed the Taliban out of Kabul within weeks, mostly before even putting boots on the ground, and kept them out for 20 years even though they clearly make up the largest chunk of the population and basically represent the only political game in town.
The third part of the mission is where we got creeped. Pushing the Taliban out as punishment for their involvement in 9/11 is like sending your child to his/her room: is the kid supposed to stay there forever? Were we really supposed to suppress the Taliban indefinitely in their own home country? The only thing that suppressed them was the overwhelming American firepower hidden in the hills and now that that has been collected up and rotated back home, what is there to stop the Taliban? The Taliban are the bulk of the population, why wouldn't they rule the country? It is worth noting that throughout July and August as the Taliban "re-took" territory from the departing Americans, these gains did not come (for the most part) through battlefield victories. The Taliban didn't have to fight anyone to get the power back, they merely had to show up. This is a re-flourishing of culture that has been hibernating for the last decade or so.
When Trump and then Biden negotiated their various escape plans, they talked with the Taliban because they're the only people there. USA negotiated the withdrawal with the Taliban because who else were the Americans going to negotiate with? Think of this: we worry now about the refugees pouring out of Afghanistan as the Americans leave, but there was no such worry in 2001 when the Americans invaded because those people didn't leave. They stayed and for 10 years or so they (kinda) fought the Americans and then for the last 10 years, they've just been biding their time waiting for the Americans to inevitably exit.
The Americans have known for years that as soon as they leave, the Taliban will take back over, the Americans forces were merely a finger in the dike, not a force for nation-building. Everyone was taken aback by the sheer speed of the Taliban takeover, but no one was surprised that it happened. The question is how long was the American Public supposed to care about keeping the Taliban out of power? What was the value of a Taliban-less Afghanistan to USA? Does it matter at all? In October 2001 it was a perfectly reasonable mission but by the summer of 2021, the mission no longer served any purpose.
I'd say it was by 2012 or so that the mission no longer served any purpose. From 2001 to roughly 2010, the Americans routinely skirmished with those militants willing to fight the American presence, which whittled down al-Qaeda and other foreign terror elements and the most militant elements of the Taliban. But after Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011, the mission didn't have much left to accomplish. Obama declared the end of combat operations in 2014 because combat had pretty much run its course. The Americans fought everyone that wanted to fight and when that dried up, Obama was clearly ready to bring the troops back home. As we can see, the American presence in the hinterland put a freeze on activity but didn't really squash any beefs.
Obama wanted to leave but the Pentagon suggested instead keeping the troops there. Why? Recall that in 2014 Obama was entering the final two years of his second term, which is a death knell for the Prez in DC. During this phase, the Prez is free to make all sorts of bold visionary speeches and invent all sorts of ways to lionize himself or smite his non-gov't enemies. But when it comes to actually getting shit done, a Prez in his final two years is pretty powerless, even in foreign policy. The Pentagon was not going to let an outgoing president push long term agendas. And at that time the Pentagon still liked the idea of having combat troops in forward bases because...well, the Pentagon just likes that stuff.
But I think it was somewhere around 2018 when the Pentagon decided that Afghanistan was more trouble than it was worth and began to indulge Trump's ambitions to leave. They famously dragged their feet (*), but they had already begun plodding toward the exit in Afghanistan by the time of the 2020 election. So when Biden came to power earlier this year, he picked up the exit strategy that Trump had already begun (which suggests that if Trump was President, the turmoil in Kabul would look pretty much the same as it does now) and was eager to start his Presidency with a quick and smart retreat.
What happened to make the Pentagon prefer a lighter footprint in Afghanistan? I dunno. Perhaps the money-sucking potential of boots in country just wore itself out and supporting them was costing more than the corruption could bear. Perhaps the trade war with China showed the Pentagon that China was becoming a different sort of adversary and that positions in Afghanistan would be more of a weakness than a strength. Perhaps militant Islam of the sort that threatens the shores of the USA was just simply no longer there. Perhaps the evolution of the American military from a large standing army to drones and special forces has finally matured. Perhaps this is just a re-assessment of Central Asia security needs. Perhaps the realization that keeping the Taliban out of Kabul was just no longer necessary finally took hold. Perhaps other allies (India or Turkey, for example) were willing to take up positions in Afghanistan similar enough to the USA's that we became redundant. I dunno, pick your favorite explanation.
At any rate, I would suggest that the mission was far from a failure. Again, we achieved everything we wanted to achieve...and then hung around an extra ten years because withdrawing was always going to be an unholy shit show. 9/11 is far enough away now to perhaps no longer recall that it was not uncommon in the American media landscape to refer to these War on Terror incursions as World War III. I would point out the American casualties in 20 years of war in Afghanistan (2,448 according to the Associated Press) aren't even as large as single days of Civil War battles, which suggests that this was not the epoch-shifting clash of civilizations that we thought we were in for at the time. Indeed, in America we've had the luxury of largely ignoring this war. Even its effect on the Arab world has been pretty minimal outside of Pakistan (though exerting no more force on Pakistan than USA already possessed). This was not World War III, it wasn't even Gulf War II.
And during that 20 years the Taliban didn't go away. They just realized they couldn't rule by force and so went into hibernation. Did the Taliban mature during that time? Well, it probably won't look like it to American eyes but I don't see how they couldn't have matured. They step into power with a brand new appreciation of foreign policy, a more sophisticated sense of controlling the media narrative and will have to serve their populace in a whole new way now that they have been introduced to the 21st century. Don't get me wrong: the Taliban are still pretty close to the bottom of enlightened thinkers but their floor has been raised whether they like it or not.
Imagine having enough guns to be able to invade Kansas and at gunpoint force all the residents to become Duke basketball fans. Watch the Blue Devil games, cheer the wins, sing all the fight songs, all that shit, just for Duke. No Jayhawk gear is allowed (not even Wildcat gear), just Duke blue for everyone, everywhere all the time. Say, this lasts for 20 years and then you pack up your shit and leave one day. Do you think the local Kansas residents will all stay loyal Duke fans? Oh, I don't think so.
And as for the troubling exit strategy, look man, there is no exit strategy that makes for good lookin' TV. The proper withdrawal from Afghanistan (to my mind) would've been to send in an additional 10,000 troops to sweep into the hinterlands around Kabul, accumulating any American assets that would be exiting, then gathering at the south end of Kabul ready to lead a procession to the sea. Move large, move fast, gather friends, avoid enemies and talk a lot of shit. This would've been a provocative move designed to make the locals defensive rather than offensive and ideally should've minimized any reprisal as the American forces hasten to the exit. This would've been accompanied by loud angry words from the POTUS and probably even some shady misdirection on how/when the exit would actually take place, all designed to keep the timid elements from joining any kind of fray. (This would've been expensive as hell, would've really cut into the Pentagon's foreign budget, but what does POTUS care?)
Is that the plan you wanted, America? An increase in troops, six-to-eight weeks of constant war games, while your President screams bellicose words into a camera, just so that we could leave an empty crater in our wake to pretend like Afghanistan never happened...is that the plan America wanted? Because that would've looked like shit on your TV. Exits need to be hard and fast, you need to leave fire in your wake, you need the people left behind to be glad that you're no longer around. But that's not how the politics of this stuff works. Partisans nowadays are eager to look soft and sensitive rather than tough and brutal, which is theoretically better (fewer pointless deaths) but optically tougher (everything always looks like shit when you think in terms of the specific rather than the abstract).
Biden willing to take the short term heat (personal) for the long term good (collective) is something we just don't get out of a POTUS any more. It is better to be out of Afghanistan, it is probably better to not use that level of boot-force ever again. It is time for militaries to turn into search-and-rescue teams built to save lives rather than take them.
The eminent British historian John Keegan once made a list of the countries he thought to be more or less unaffected by World War II: Iceland, Ireland, Afghanistan. Not a lot. And honestly I'm not sure why Iceland is on there (**). Do you understand how far from the mainstream of civilization Afghanistan really is? It is the edge of the world. Papua New Guinea--a literal Stone Age population--was way more affected by World War II than these people were. And it sums up why the Americans are eager to leave in 2021: Afghanistan is harsh deserts with harsh mountains with a harsh population still living at mostly subsistence level and that doesn't mean much to us in our digital world.
Does it surprise you, then, that it was from this place that the plans for 9/11, the plans to bring down the western global socio-political economic infrastructure were born? It shouldn't--it should be plainly obvious that these were the people most suspicious of the coming global order. Now in 2021, World War II is finally complete. Even the Taliban have cell phones and the internet now. We tried give them the best of what we've got but the Afghan people did not want it, did not need it, did not hunger for Republican Democracy (apparently the Hamilton Mix Tape hasn't made it to Kabul yet). The technology, though, has been forced on them and they will keep it now whether they want to or not.
In the long run, I think, the big move signaled by the American exit from Kabul is that the Americans want war through the drones, special forces, and spies, rather than regular army positions. The USA has decided to remove itself from the 21st century ground war. Currency wars, tariff wars, bond market manipulation, the endless elbowing for market share, shit talkin' politicians and (ugh!) the 24-hour propaganda machine....those are the mechanisms of future conflicts. Fewer deaths but virtually endless angst...is that better? Wars have become just too damn expensive. And rather pointless, even when they end in victory! Drone strikes have limited value in an actual war, they are much more useful as interrupters of peace than as instruments of war.
Okay....you ready for the crazy prediction? I bet this will be a golden age for Afghanistan; don't get me wrong, it probably won't look like one to American eyes (and all we'll get is the bad news), but the Taliban are the natural leaders of that territory. The "improvements" the Americans had to offer (bicameral legislation! Judicial oversight! Citizen control of the military!) are not really all that sexy to people that will mostly never learn to drive a car. But the Americans leaving is likely something they almost all agree on.
And I'll bet they've got a line of financing already open (w/ either China, India or some of the Gulf States (****) or all of the above). I bet their statecraft is going to be a lot more modern than it was in 2001 and a lot more sensitive to the media and int'l diplomacy. I think they've actually got a nice shot at working India and Pakistan against each other, at least for defense purposes. Slowly but surely, even Afghanistan will crawl into the light of civilization and central Asia will become an actual homeland rather than just a place for space agencies to test their Mars rovers (*****). In short, now that the Americans have come and gone, Kabul is as connected as it has ever been with as much opportunity for advancement as it has ever had. The Americans turned the lights on and then got out of the way--frankly this is one of the great days in their long history. I think this could be the ultimate unifying experience of the Afghan people.
As for the Americans, I assure you nobody will look back 6 months from now and wish that we were still in Afghanistan. Nobody. If the Pentagon doesn't want it, then you know nobody wants it. The Afghans are better without us and we are better out of their territory. The Taliban are back in charge and they know better than anyone how ruinously annoying the American military can be...and how quickly (and capriciously) it can return.
I think getting out of Afghanistan is a momentous move, a brilliant move and the right move. And President Biden should be applauded for it. Of course, we're not going to do that because we prefer "optics" to "reality". And if you don't like it, let me suggest that 20 years in Afghanistan is perfect example of how gov't programs work: made sense at first, endured setbacks, had some success, lingered because no one knew how to get rid of it, then brought nothing but calamity to the guy with enough courage to actually pull the plug on it. This is what the American gov't has been doing to Americans for decades.
The Afghans have finally had their taste of civilization. Yup....just like chicken.
(*) This may well be apocryphal and I may well be remembering it wrong, because I can't recall which tell-all book by which author this came from. But the story goes: Trump said to the Pentagon, I want out of Afghanistan, how do we get that done? The Pentagon says come back in six months. So six months later Trump calls a press conference and announces we're completely pulling out of Afghanistan. The Pentagon says, whoa! What was that? Trump says, you said six months. The Pentagon says, no, that meant come back in six months and we'll start talking about it. Your announcement means nothing because we're not prepared to do anything any time soon.
To me, the story illustrates the difference btw running a company and running a gov't: when CEO Trump brought in some mid-level flunky for some project, Trump knew how to treat the guy and what to expect and then how to reward or punish him in conclusion. But just because the POTUS tells the Pentagon to do something...yeah, that doesn't really mean much. The Pentagon is willing to work with the Executive, but the Defense apparatus of the USA is much larger than any one office could control, which is why the Pentagon is an ongoing concern while any given POTUS is guaranteed to be gone in 8 years. The fact that the Americans left suggests the Pentagon didn't want Afghanistan enough to fight for it (in Congressional sub-committees, I mean, not Afghan battlefields).
(**) Iceland's wartime dealings with the American Navy warped their social economy well into the 1960s, a clear and direct outgrowth of World War II.
Yes, the USSR's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan had Cold War implications, which itself was an outgrowth of WWII, but it isn't hard to imagine Russia in the 1970s blundering its way through Central Asia with or without WWII or the Cold War.
(***) Me. The whole point of this blog is to go from the top of my head without any research. Research is fine but I've been researching these things my whole life, the point is to not distill all my knowledge for all time into one post, but rather to spit out what I think I know at any given moment. But with this post for instance, I kept re-starting it, I just kept writing the same shit over and over, such that the editing process was more of deleting rather than re-organizing. And instead of posting this in a timely manner (this was more or less done a month ago), I let it linger to a point where it barely seems relevant any more. Oh well, I can console myself that this post was never relevant and never will be, so what difference does it make when it goes up?
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