How did Afghanistan fall so quickly?

by Sid McGlynn

Why did Afghanistan fall so quickly? Despite the involvement of the world’s most formidable military power and over 83 billion dollars invested into the Afghan military over the course of 20 years the Taliban, an extreme political insurgency faction, have seized the capital city of Kabul along with the vast majority of the country before US/NATO forces had completed their withdrawal. Although it was believed by many that Afghanistan would likely be overrun by the Taliban within 6 months, almost no one expected it to occur within weeks let alone as the US was still withdrawing from the country. The supposed 300,000 “highly trained” Afghan soldiers were deemed adequate to step up to the task of combatting the Taliban only for the same soldiers to melt away from the Taliban advance and offer no resistance besides that of Afghanistan’s special forces. This article aims to explore some of the major reasons as to why Afghanistan fell so quickly and how the US failed to ensure it did not.

 Firstly, we look at how the US plan to train and equip a modern Afghan army would become a mismanaged and ill-thought-out plan that really should not have missed such important key factors to building a capable military force. Within this plan, American, NATO, and private contractors were to train local Afghan soldiers in a way that would allow them to fight the Taliban more effectively with the eventual goal of the Afghan National Army (ANA) would one day resume all security responsibilities and ensure that the government in Kabul stood strong. It is without a doubt that the Allied trainers did indeed succeed in ensuring that the soldiers of the ANA would become far more capable fighters as they soon began to conduct their own raids and offensives against Taliban targets. However, beyond this, the successes of US/Allied training would fall short. Although the ANA would become a more capable fighting forces which would begin resuming frontline security roles, the US/Allied would never train the ANA in how to manage the gathering of intelligence, the planning of operations as well as the leadership skills necessary to conduct them and most essentially the management of logistics in order to ensure that the dozens of military installations and outpost across the massive country remain strong. All such roles, though mostly considered as support, are vital skills that are required for any fighting force. These roles would remain the full responsibility of US/Allied forces up until the recent and rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan.

 The initial withdrawal plan would state that at least 3,000 US troops would remain within the country until September 11th. However, in breaking from this plan, not only had those 3,000 troops withdrawn early, but so had 14,000 NATO and private contractors, almost all of which ensured the smooth working of logistics and intelligence gathering. This left the ANA essentially frozen and without a means to keep their positions across the country supplied. Without these supplies, outposts across the country were very quickly overrun in which the ANA soldiers manning them abandoned their posts or surrendered to the advancing Taliban. Furthermore, not only was the training of the ANA made relatively difficult and inefficient due to various language barriers, but also a failure to understand the various cultures of the country's tribal regions as well as the minds of the Afghan people themselves.

What every invading force, particularly the west, has failed to understand when attempting to subdue the massive country is that unlike themselves, the Afghan people do not typically associate ‘government’ with the nation state. The idea of a single nation state is not as strong of a concept as it is within the west. The country is divided into multiple tribal regions that governed through local authorities which has made the task of imposing control over the various populations difficult for any central government and even more so for foreign invaders. The existence of a well-developed tradition of strong local social organization in combination with corrupt centralized governments and foreign forces has constructed a general sense of mistrust towards any outsiders who attempt to impose restrictions upon their people. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Afghanistan would not welcome the US goal of establishing a centralized democratic government within Kabul. Despite clinging to the belief of American exceptionalism the US, like every invading force before it, would simply appear to be incapable of understanding the minds of the Afghan people and why they would not leap at the chance to install a government very similar to that of the US.

For the time being, Afghanistan’s future is uncertain. It is apparent to all that the Taliban will become the dominant power within the country although it is becoming clear that their rule will not be unopposed. There have already been reports of a resistance led by Ahmed Massoud whose father resisted the Taliban’s initial rise to power within the 1990’s who have claimed the former title of the Taliban, the Mujahideen. More recently however, an offshoot of the extremist group ISIS, known as ISIS-K, have quickly moved to take advantage of the power vacuum left by the withdrawal of coalition forces and the fall of the Afghan government. It is well known that the Taliban and ISIS are far from allies and have clashed on multiple occasions. After failing to properly train and equip a professional fighting force as well as lay the foundations necessary for Afghanistan to thrive once again, the US has left Afghanistan in almost the exact same position that it found it in within 2001 with only the word of the Taliban that their rule this time will be different, only time will tell what the future holds for Afghanistan and its people.