I have been asked by several people in the last couple days about Afghanistan. I want to be clear that I am not an expert in the area or military operations, but I thought it might be helpful to write out a few thoughts.
What I Do Know
#1 – This is not a failure of the last six months of a US Presidency. The current difficulties in Afghanistan go back at least to the 1980s, and probably far earlier depending on where you want to draw lines between cause and effect. Trying to relegate it to such a short time frame is, in my opinion, just ridiculous.
#2 – This moment does not “belong to Biden.” I’m not very strong on affixing blame to any one person for long-term crises like this, but I think one could make a far stronger case for this “belonging to Trump,” based on signing the Doha Agreement in February 2020; Trump met with the Taliban, and Trump set the timetable for withdrawal. But I want to emphasize that I’m not “blaming Trump” for Afghanistan either. At the very least, we’re talking four presidential terms, and I would argue for far more.
#3 – We should protect our allies in the area. Interpreters, milita forces, foreign actors, whoever; if they have supported the US effort in Afghanistan, then I think we owe it to them to do whatever we can to help support them (but see comments below).
#4 – We should allow immigration from Afghanistan, for whoever wants to escape the Taliban. Yes, I know if we have wide gates, some bad actors will get through. It’s worth the tradeoff.
What I Don’t Know
#1 – The best plan. I don’t believe I have the answer for Afghanistan, and I’m not convinced anyone else does either. Certainly nobody on news media claiming what we should do has shown they have any sort of appreciation for the history and difficulties of the area. It’s not quite Palestine, but it’s close, and anyone claiming they can bring peace to the area “with this simple plan” are either fooling themselves or lying.
#2 – Going with #3 above, I don’t know how many of our allies WANT to leave. I think this needs to be considered in the midst of all the rhetoric of “we’re leaving those that helped us behind.” In some cases, maybe the majority, they might want to stay. I think for Americans, we are so mobile that we just think “well, if it’s that bad, I’ll just leave.” But when I lived overseas, we mentioned to some friends that if things got rough where they lived, they could come live with us in the States. They were surprised and flatly said they would never leave, no matter what. I suspect that many of the interpreters/etc working for the US forces in Afghanistan feel the same way. They will stay and fight for their home. If the US helps, great. If not, they will stay and fight alone. So I think we need to understand the “get everybody that helped us out” idea might be more complicated than we think.
#3 – The percentage of people who support the Taliban. Depending on who you listen to, support for the Taliban in Afghanistan is either 10% or 80%. I tend to go somewhere in the middle, around 45-65%, based on my general reading. But I think this is something we need to come to terms with – it’s possible the majority of people in Afghanistan do NOT want western-style democracy. Not everybody has the best opinion of the West, and I think we need to understand that we might be trying to force “our” way onto a population that doesn’t actually want it.
#4 – The long-term strategy. This is the one that I really think people need to understand. Unless you work at the Pentagon, you don’t know what the discussions regarding long-term strategy are, and it’s almost certainly longer than the last six months or the next five years. Americans tend to think any war can be won with more bombs and punching problems in the face. That is just not realistic, and I think betrays our young status as a nation.
If I had to guess, I would wager that Biden is following something similar to Obama’s strategy with ISIS, which proved fairly effective. This involves less direct attack and more containment. The problem with direct assault on the Taliban is you are feeding into their recruitment propaganda. That is, their argument is that the West hates Islam and is trying to eradicate it. So, if we bomb an Islamic state, that just brings more recruits from around the world to defend them. It’s a clever strategy and one that minimizes use of force. So a longer, less frontal approach is needed. But, I want to say again, I’m just guessing.
Finally
Are there things we could do better? Probably, because how often does everything go perfectly? Was this sort of withdrawal inevitable? Certainly considering the immediate two-to-three year history and treaties that the US was committed to. Do we have responsibilities? Absolutely. But I think we need to understand that even people with decades of diplomatic experience in the area do not have a solution, and it’s foolish to think that we’ve all become experts based on a few google searches, or to think that it’s the result of Biden’s administration. I believe the best military minds in the US have been working as best they can for years or decades, and they haven’t come up with an answer, so how could I?
In the end, I don’t know that there is any “failure” in leaving, nor is there any real “victory” in an ideological war like this. You can’t kill everyone, and even if you try, you’ll just be feeding the next wave of recruitment. Maybe holding the peace there for twenty years is enough; maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe we never should have gone in the first place.
I don’t know. And that’s the whole point.