The 20 Years’ War: America in Afghanistan

Strategic blunders by each administration virtually assure that the future of Afghanistan will reflect the interests of the Taliban, not the United States.

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America’s war in Afghanistan successfully killed or captured most of al-Qaeda’s original senior leaders, destroyed their safe haven in Afghanistan, and helped prevent another 9/11-scale terrorist attack in the United States. But alongside those gains are the war’s failings: The Taliban and al-Qaeda reestablished safe haven in Pakistan, the Afghan state is weak and corrupt, the Afghan army is dependent on international support and its continued existence may be in doubt. The Taliban is resurgent, peace negotiations between it and the Afghan government have stalled, and jihadists are celebrating the American withdrawal as a victory for their cause. 

These failings stemmed from strategic blunders committed by every commander in chief who oversaw the 20-year effort there: George W. Bush’s light footprint and war in Iraq, Barack Obama’s self-defeating doubts and withdrawal timetables, Donald Trump’s peace deal, and now Joe Biden’s withdrawal. These decisions helped make a bad situation worse and virtually assured that the future course of events in Afghanistan will reflect the Taliban’s interests more than the United States’. These errors share in common a failure to understand what America’s interests were in Afghanistan and how to achieve them at acceptable cost within the constraints imposed by external circumstances. 

Bush’s Light Footprint, 2001–2006 

Bush approached the prospect of war in Afghanistan predisposed to favor a light footprint, not just in military power but civilian resources and reconstruction assistance. He had campaigned against “nation-building” in 2000 and criticized the Clinton administration for using the military for humanitarian purposes. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sought to transform the military by substituting high technology for manpower, which predisposed him to oppose manpower-intensive operations like peacekeeping or nation building. And based on a version of Afghan history then circulating in Washington that painted Afghanistan (inaccurately) as a legendarily xenophobic “Graveyard of Empires” hypersensitive to foreign involvement, Bush and many of his advisers believed that they had to avoid appearing like an imperial occupier at all costs. 

The initial military campaign seemed to justify their beliefs in the efficacy of a light footprint. A small number of U.S. Special Operations forces and intelligence personnel embedded themselves with Afghan Northern Alliances forces and Pashtun militias to coordinate Afghan ground attacks with American air power. The U.S.-Afghan linkup was an impressive and successful improvisation: Operations started on October 7, 2001; Konduz fell on November 7, ending Taliban rule in the north; the Taliban government fell from power exactly a week later without a fight; and the Taliban was routed in its home territory of Kandahar on December 7. Operations against al-Qaeda at Tora Bora in Nangarhar Province in December 2001, and the Shahi Kot valley of Paktia Province in March 2002 appeared to be the last major operations of the war. Some scholars hailed the “Afghan model” as a new form of warfare for the 21st century.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Joyce Stoer Cordi

    Paul Miller succinctly summed up the situation. While Bush and Obama made missteps, mistakes and misjudgements: Trump's "negotiations" with the Taliban throw away both whatever external leverage we still had long with the internal progress toward modernity the Afghan people had achieved. Biden inherited an unattractive set of choices and, perhaps, chose the worst of those available? In the end -- his choices forced a surging of US troops and a resultant loss of American service personnel, a betrayal of the Afghan people who had trusted, befriended and allied themselves with us. and a flushing down the drain of the $1 - $2 trillion we had "invested" in Afghanistan over 20 years. Outcomes that were clear as the choices were made. To what end? President Biden will carry the deaths of 13 US Marines, Navy, and Army personnel on his conscience to his own grave. That may be the principal difference between the Trump and Biden Afghanistan unnecessary and foolish surrender strategies.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    More articles like this that involve policy history are welcome!

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    Derekdouglas

    I support full withdrawal. 20 years of spending countless blood and treasure has not proved fruitful, and even with the best training and equipment the Afghan army and leadership consistently fall to the Taliban at every event.

    Of course it will be a shame for Kabul to fall to the Taliban and for the people to lose their rights. But the day has come for the U.S. to leave, the Afghanis need to own their country. This is a two way street; instead of accepting American aid for what it was, to use and rebuild their society, the leadership squandered it amid corruption and malfeasance.

    The Taliban, at this point, poses no security risk the U.S. homeland.

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  4. Token Liberal

    The choice has been to spend more lives, money and resources indefinitely, or to get out. Neither is pretty. But I think it is incorrect to assume that if these presidents had made different choices that the result would have been different in the end.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Narwhal

      So, you believe in predeterminism?

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      1. Token Liberal

        No, but if it was going to take a sustained effort of at least 80,000 troops to even have a chance,,,, that was never going to happen.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Narwhal

          It could have more easily happened in 2002. Bush didn’t lack popular domestic or widespread international support for operations in Afghanistan at that time.

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          1. Token Liberal

            I think a fly in the ointment was Pakistan. Imagine how the rebuilding of Germany might have turned out if the Nazis had been able to retreat to a nearby safe haven?

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  5. Avatar photo
    Narwhal

    “Poor strategic choices were not the only factors that led to strategic setbacks in Afghanistan. Several factors outside U.S. control were unhelpful, including Pakistan’s unwillingness and inability to combat militants in its tribal areas; Russia’s and China’s growing antagonism towards the U.S.; Europe’s internal turmoil and refugee crisis; the war in Iraq; the 2008 financial crisis; U.S. domestic political turmoil; and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. And while many Afghans were notably steadfast and courageous, the Afghan government consistently proved corrupt and opportunistic. Collectively, these factors significantly constrained what might have been achievable in Afghanistan. But that does not mean that U.S. choices had no impact on the ultimate outcome. Bush’s light footprint, Obama’s withdrawal deadlines, and Trump’s peace deal were deliberate policy choices that caused direct, avoidable harm. Different choices at each junction could have altered the trajectory of ensuing events, almost certainly for the better. ”

    An incredibly even handed and comprehensive account IMO. I’m likely to buy Mr. Miller’s book after reading this article. Thank you Dispatch for publishing his article here.

    My question is how much Pakistan’s government and the changing conditions in the region have played a role in the peace deal and our withdrawal.

    While I can’t know how much, how often, for how long and in what ways the government of Pakistan has put pressure on the US retaining a presence in Afghanistan. I do now know, thanks to Axios, what their PM Imran Khan has said publicly. And if that is what he is willing to now say publicly then it isn’t hard to imagine what he has been saying privately for years. Or to see the leverage that the PRC is capable of exerting on Pakistan’s government.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Dpatricola

    1980 Soviets: We'll invade Afghanistan teach them a lesson
    2003 USA: Hold my beer!

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  7. Griffin Gasink

    We failed to build a state worth fighting for. We could train, equip, and tell the Afghan soldiers that the taliban are bad, but they found themselves fighting for a stunningly corrupt narco state that wouldnt have their back. Naturally when the going got tough, they went home. It was the same thing in Vietnam

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  8. jmk789

    Miller claims that, "The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan was indefinitely sustainable and strategically vital" and cites the reduced recent casualties as proof of its sustainability. This is misleading. The lower recent casualties came in part because of the Trump admin's negotiations that led the Taliban to reduce their attacks on US troops (even as they increased them on Afghan troops). It's quite possible that the Taliban could have shifted to targeting US troops had there not been ongoing negotiations.

    There was also a shift in US military strategy throughout the Trump administration that favored staying in-base and using airstrikes, which while great for lowering US casualty numbers while keeping enemy bodycounts high probably made actually "winning" the war much harder. And "winning" here would have required a competent national government, which never emerged because the corrupt leaders believed that the US would never leave. It was a permanently negative feedback cycle that was nowhere near as costless and sustainable as Miller suggests.

    An even more dubious claim is that Afghanistan today is "strategically vital." Where's the evidence for this? You have a position in a land-locked country between multiple hostile nations that depends on a road through a hostile frenemy (Pakistan) for most of its resupply. Even the next sentence of Miller's piece calls Afghanistan "the far frontier of the international system." Given the current state of the world, I would be curious to hear why Afghanistan is strategically more vital than many places in East Asia or Eastern Europe.

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    karmol

    I did a quick search of the article to look for references to China, and only found one brief mention. I think you can't talk about the future of Afghanistan without examining the role of China - there have been a number of recent articles about the Taliban trying to play nice with Chinese government (calling chinese government a friend, pledging not to work with Uigher dissadents, etc).

    Keep in mind that China has a vested interest in rare earth mineral mining (and a domination of the global supply chain) and Afghanistan is estimated to have 1-3$ Trillion in rare earth metals. This could become Afghanistan's oil.

    I'm curious to see how this will play out - on the one hand the Uigher situation seems like it would be a rallying cry for more traditional Islamist Extremist groups. So if the Taliban is playing nice with China, it makes me wonder if they aren't going to take a more nuanced approach to trying to be a governing power/partner.

    This article is very worth reading

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-04/u-s-needs-a-strong-defense-against-china-s-rare-earth-weapon

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    1. Avatar photo
      karmol

      "The Taliban has said the group sees China as a “friend” to Afghanistan, hoping Chinese investment for reconstruction work in the war-torn country, according to a media report. Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen told South China Morning Post that the group controls 85 per cent of Afghan territory and would guarantee the safety of Chinese investors and workers."

      hindustantimes.com/world-news/taliban-calls-china-a-friend-promises-not-to-host-uyghur-militants-in-afghanistan-report-101625926382725.html

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      karmol

      a must read on the situation - China is likely going to invest heavily in Afghanistan's infrastructure

      https://www.ft.com/content/49d266c6-a6c2-4ab2-bf52-ed34d72b22c1

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  10. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    And now our war is over.

    Godspeed Afghanistan.

    You will need it.

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    1. Avatar photo
      El Duderino

      They will need our prayers as well. 6 months from now, the only difference in that country from 25 years ago will be that there are flat screen tv's and smartphones owned by the elite, while everyone else will still be living in dark age squalour.

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