By George Alexandrou, Contributor and incoming Postgraduate at the University of Cambridge
“Empires are restless organisms. They must constantly renew themselves.” – Gore Vidal
In but one lamentable week, the Taliban has claimed 11 of the 34 provincial capitals of Afghanistan, with Herat, the third-largest in the whole nation, falling during the process of writing this very article. The rapid loss of government control in these cities is an obvious consequence of the ongoing withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan, an operation headed by President Joe Biden, which at this point is 95% complete and due to end entirely by the end of the month. Similarly rapid has been the sounding of concern rung by the usual suspects: newspapers of record, foreign policy analysts and hawkish politicians.
Rank and file, America’s biggest newspapers took to arms over the issue, chastising the Biden administration for anything from a delusional policy of withdrawal to consciously abandoning the children and women of Afghanistan. Adjacent to these outlets are security experts, predominantly calling for a continued U.S presence in the region, in the forms of continued training and aid for Afghan government forces as well as the reengagement of American air power. With such instruments of manufacturing consent, it is no wonder how politicians like Senator Mitch McConnell can describe the withdrawal as a ‘completely incompetent retreat,’ warning that it will allow global terrorism to ‘feed from the rise of an extremist government.’
It is not that these claims are necessarily wrong that is the point of contention here, rather that those who state them are wilfully ignorant of how this situation has become so dire. Since 9/11, the U.S and its associates have made a subject of the once proud nation. Piece by piece, Afghanistan’s military and security infrastructure have been rendered dependent on the sustained support of the U.S and NATO. Now that the tablecloth of Western paternalism has been flung from underneath Afghanistan, is the answer really to put it back as it were, just with the ruins of the latter now on top?
The U.S and NATO have pumped more money into Afghanistan’s defence forces than could ever be sustainable for the nation. Since the boots of American troops first set foot in the land where Empires have for long gone to die, the U.S alone has spent almost $83 billion supporting Afghan defence forces. NATO as a whole claims to have contributed $70 million worth of supplies to those same forces just this year, bringing their total invested to around $3.5 billion from 2007 to the present. In comparison to these huge sums, Afghanistan itself has only managed to commit an average of around $232 million to its defence annually throughout the 2010s.
Lo and behold, with such extensive support now vanishing, Afghanistan finds itself on the teetering edge. The Wall Street Journal reports that the once formidable weapon that was the Afghan Air Force now stands idle as its fleet remain without the necessary servicing that western contractors would normally perform. Without the air support they’ve been trained to fight alongside with, Afghanistan’s elite commando units have similarly found themselves stranded. The sophisticated military apparatus that the West has built in Afghanistan over an excruciating two decades is plainly and simply not capable of being run independently.
Indeed, this is not just a matter of material support. Seasoned Afghan soldiers have fought for years to guard their nascent state from the terror and brutality of Taliban rule. In the midst of doing so, these fighters have borne witness to unspeakable horrors in their country, not least among these the numerous massacres of schoolgirls just hoping to attain a basic education. And yet, where there was a time when Afghans valiantly fought with the greatest military force humanity has ever formed behind them, they now stand alone helpless to stop the torrent of the Taliban.
Such is the exact situation the withdrawal of U.S forces has precipitated in the minds of many Afghan troops. Even amongst those who had not immediately succumbed to the Taliban this past week, such as in Lashkar Gah, the absence of the Western support they once had could only mean eventual surrender or desertion. As former U.S state department official Elizabeth Threlkeld put it, “If you’re in one of those provincial capitals that remains, you have to ask yourself, ‘what am I fighting for and what are my odds of success?” Western support is clearly not just a matter of arms and supplies, but a source of morale sorely missing in Afghan forces at this perilous moment.
As far as morale relates to the moral, Afghan troops also find difficulty in continuing to defend a government that can scarcely be called their own. Following the invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S and its allies, a new constitution was given ascent under the invaders’ auspices in 2004. It was made, of course, without the genuine involvement of most Afghans. All these years later, the nation is considered a ‘three-man republic,’ headed by the President, his National Security Advisor and the Head of the Presidential Administrative Office. As such, Afghanistan consistently finds itself amongst the North Koreas and Venuzuelas in corruption indexes. Consequently, Afghan soldiers all to often go unpaid and without supplies while their commanders and the government officials they protect live the high life.
With corruption so rife in a state built for Western approval, why so many soldiers put up so little resistance to the Taliban is clear. It plainly no longer resembles a state of the Afghans own or one that is just not worth their lives defending. With so much effort from the U.S and allies in building a robust defence for the Afghan state, perhaps they forgot to build a robust state at all. Ahmad Shah Massoud, a former Afghan ambassador, claimed “There is no motivation for the army to fight for the corrupt government and corrupt politicians here.” Indeed, Massoud continued, “They haven’t even been fed properly. Why should they fight? For what? They are better off with the Taliban, which is why they are switching sides like that.”
It almost goes without saying that such dissatisfaction would become part of the Taliban’s rhetoric in legitimising itself. Asif Azimi, previously an Afghan senator, defected to the Taliban last week stating, “We want an Islamic government. This government is a puppet of America. Anyone who stands against it, we will support it.” The lines between the Taliban Emirate and Afghan Republic have, for justified reasons or not, been blurred in the minds of many Afghans over the years. For this to have happened, the state-building process that has proceeded in Afghanistan, ‘supervised’ by the West, must have truly failed.
This is not all to say that the Western World should completely abandon Afghanistan. Even the most fervent sceptic of the U.S and its allies cannot avert their eyes from the scenes of thousands trying to escape extremist totalitarianism and have their hearts not yearn for some solution. The point is rather, whether consciously or not, a self-fulfilling prophecy has proceeded in Afghanistan. The Afghan military and state was never developed enough to rely on anything other than sustained extraneous support, be it material or morale, from the West. Just as this has disappeared, we already find ourselves at a point where people are questioning why the U.S has left while hoping for some, albeit limited, reengagement. For all intents and purposes, after two decades, the West has failed in Afghanistan. Any further intervention, however limited, should therefore be treated with the upmost caution and scepticism.