Afghanistan Withdrawal Was Necessary, but Poorly Executed
We had to get out of Afghanistan, but getting out did not have to be a goat rope.
When I get a lot of emails from readers asking my opinion on things, it’s a pretty good sign I should write up a post. The dominant story this week, in international relations and foreign policy, is the *ahem* chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The speed whereby the Taliban seized provinces and toppled the Afghan government stunned observers. The Afghani government’s collapse, and the bungled American withdrawal, do not make remaining in Afghanistan a better option.
We Had to Leave Afghanistan
I have been pessimistic about prospects in Afghanistan for some time now, but no specific outcome was ever guaranteed. It was incredibly unlikely that Afghanistan was going to emerge from any foreign intervention as a stable, unitary state. Nonetheless, there is a spectrum of outcomes from “Afghanistan the Iowa of Central Asia” to “The Islamic Caliphate of Afghanistan.” Many outcomes would have been acceptable from a national security perspective. Both foreigners and Afghans have made choices over the past twenty years that have narrowed potential outcomes substantially.
Among those choices was the establishment of the erstwhile Afghan Government, which unified the Afghan people in exactly the opposite way a government should. Part of the reason the Afghan government collapse seemed like a reverse of the Taliban collapse is that both were attempting to do something the situation on the ground would not allow. Imposing a political system that does not match socio-political realities becomes a contest of power, which the US has, but the central Afghan government did not. It would have been conceivable that the Afghan government would align its power structure with the socio-political realities, but they did not.
Foreign intervention propping up the Afghan government created perverse incentives for the Afghans and had to end for Afghanistan to make progress. Having a foreign military in Afghanistan which could protect the central government allowed the government to ignore the socio-political realities in Afghanistan. Nothing the government did was likely to cause the government to fall, as long as the Americans were around. Any reforms would have weakened the government’s ostensible strength, and so the government resisted reform.
The central government, as it was structured, was also an obstacle to any local aspirations, and therefore became a unifying cause for everyone in Afghanistan who didn’t like the status quo. Whether you wanted to be the local mayor or you wanted to establish the Islamic Caliphate, the central government was in your way. The central government didn’t want to change, so people outside the government were left cold. Afghanistan has been facing a constitutional crisis for twenty years but has not had to fix the problem because the US was willing to bear most of the costs.
We Did Not Have to Leave Afghanistan How We Did
The US departure from Afghanistan looks more like a teen party with alcohol when someone yells “The cops!” than an orderly military operation. The chaos was not necessary and reflects a failure to plan and/or execute a plan. I will withhold speculation as to why such failures occurred and will not address many specific strategies. From a strategic perspective, the outcomes are more important than the ways we achieve those outcomes.
Withdrawal should have been orderly and complete, including everything and everyone we had obligations to. I don’t blame the Marines, but when you have to fly Marines back to Afghanistan to get people out, it’s a sign you took them out too soon. Equipment that was not cost-effective to evacuate should have been destroyed. Although Afghanistan was not a military victory, we were not forced out at gunpoint. Leaving in an orderly fashion and depriving an enemy of the symbols of military victory they did not earn is an important difference between a rout and a withdrawal.
We should have a plan for post-Afghanistan beyond “let the government handle it.” Even if the Afghan government was able to hold some parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban were likely to make advances into parts of the country they had not controlled before. There’s no reason to assume that ethnic, religious, and tribal differences disappear after a totalitarian Islamist regime takes control. We’ve had a free hand to develop contacts and networks for twenty years; we should be helping people blow up the Taliban’s convoys, and see how they like it. How many IEDs did the Taliban hit on their drive to Kabul?
We’re Playing a Global Game
I realize that Afghanistan is a bit outside the usual coverage of cyberspace and international relations, but this temblor will shake many aspects of national security. The point of the OSIRIS Codex is to help people understand how global politics and cybersecurity interact. Realistically, the US could have occupied Afghanistan for 100 years, but it could not afford to, because of geopolitical constraints. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware or the SolarWinds attack did not drive the US from Afghanistan. But the same international competition that makes major cyberattacks important also made Afghanistan a costly, fruitless distraction.
David Benson is a Professor of Strategy and National Security focusing on cyberstrategy and international relations. You can reach him at dbenson@osiriscodex.com.
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