Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[alfred russel]

Should we stop to consider the possibility that the US military sucks and all the smoke that is blown up their ass the past few decades is bullshit?

The better part of 20 years were supposed to be spent training the Afghan military to stand on its own two feet and the Afghan military folds within 20 minutes against a goofball gang aka as the taliban.

I don't agree with the premise that the quality of the US Army is determined by their ability and success in training a foreign force.  It's possible it sucks at that task but is really good in lots of other things . . .

In the real world, success in three of the last four major wars the US has fought (Vietnam, GWI, GWII, Afghanistan) came down to the ability of the US military to train a foreign force. The exception, GWI, had us invading Iraq a decade later after we declined to get involved in nation building (significantly involving the training of a defense force). Even beyond those conflicts, training foreign forces is a key element of the military's role facilitating US foreign policy.

I say the Orioles suck because when they play baseball they lose most of their games...You can counter that it is unfair to judge them in baseball because they'd make a killer water polo squad, but I prefer to judge them by their ability to accomplish the tasks they are actually undertaking.

[crazy canuck]

The role of the military is a non military role?

[Neil]

The exception, GWI, had us invading Iraq a decade later after we declined to get involved in nation building

Although to be fair, GW2 wasn't really done for any coherent reason.  It's not like GW1 ended in an unsatisfactory way.  It was just done for pleasure, and because a faction of Republican leaders dramatically misunderstood the limits of American power.

[Neil]

They aren't really specialized commando units; that's just the name used to distinguish them from the otherwise useless regular formations.  The "commando" units are the army: the "army" units are guys getting paid to keep themselves out of trouble.

In which case they're too few to hold back the tide. 

[alfred russel]

The role of the military is a non military role?

Military training is a military role.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also Minsky one core issue with your analysis is that the reason the cost of our involvement in Afghanistan had been relatively low is the Taliban as we know from intelligence leaks and other shit, was deliberately pursuing a strategy of waiting us out. They didn't see a reason after a certain point to lose endless men and treasure fighting an enemy that was going to leave based on a calendar at some point anyway. If we signaled that a reduced commitment to the country would continue forever, I suspect they'd push the matter into more open warfare and we'd have had 10,000 guys on the ground there who would have to get involved in it. Except in an intense war, we'd be badly outnumbered and get in trouble. Which would then mean political and public pressure to send more troops in to back them up...and suddenly look where you are. The only way off that tarbaby is to quit touching it.

The problem with that theory is that troop levels were cut below 10K in 2015, almost six years ago. 
There is no reason we couldn't have continued the policy of leaving small levels of troops while talking about a future withdrawal indefinitely.

Sure there's a big reason--politicians can't keep saying they plan to ultimately leave and not do it. You pay a political price to continually lie to the public about it, and it becomes politically weaponized. I think that's one thing Trump actually realized and why he was pro-withdrawal, we'd been saying we were withdrawing for like 10 years. You do take hits for not doing it.

If you really want to stay "clean" you have to admit you're staying forever, at which point the Taliban might decide a shooting war is a better route than waiting for awhile.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The failure in Afghanistan doesn't have that much to do with training. There are actually some glaring training and equipment failures we've perpetuated, but they aren't really the reason our mission there failed. It's because there is no sizable, meaningful cohort of Afghans willing to fight for a democratic, free, Afghanistan, one where people they might disagree with or who might be from a different tribe, might win elections and would be their ultimate commander. These people are tribal. The 1980s mujahadeen seized on religious extremism and a powerful desire to push a foreign occupier out. The Taliban didn't emerge out of some sort of magic ether, it was honestly just some nonsense in-fighting between mujahadeen groups, and the Taliban kind of sucked a bunch of supporters away from the other top mujahadeen group. Pakistan moved its support over, and they just kept rolling. The Taliban isn't really any fancy ideological group like ISIS or al-Qaeda, they're mostly just a rebranding of the same mujahadeen that have been fighting in Afghanistan forever. They're always going to be the strongest force in the country because everyone else is too fracture along tribal and ethnic lines. The only way to fix Afghanistan is to actually fix all those fault lines by building up some semblance of a civil society. That just hasn't occurred, nor is it goign to magically happen because you give soldiers good training.

The soldiers aren't bad because they received bad training, they're bad because they aren't willing to fight. They aren't willing to fight because they don't give a shit about protecting an Afghan National Government they never believed in, to them their military job is just a paycheck. It's not something to get shot over.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm also gonna say, that while Biden's commentary is obviously a political message, I think it has genuine merit. He's saying that Afghans have to fight for their country, and their leaders need to come together. I frankly agree. The Taliban is estimated at best to have around 60,000 armed soldiers, the full time Afghan Army has 180,000, there's tens of thousand of militarized police etc. Millions of fighting age young men.

The Taliban could absolutely be stopped if Afghans willing to fight them said it was time for them to be stopped. They aren't stepping up, and I'm not sure that's our problem forever.

[DGuller]

How did Afghanistan wind up being a country anyway?  As far as I know, it wasn't drawn on a map by European colonizers without any regard for the facts on the ground.  How did it form into a single country that is so clearly a fractured ungovernable mess in the first place?

[The Minsky Moment]

I think a case can be made that the US did a pretty good job training the Afghans.  The commando units were able to perform effective operations and the US helped trained thousands of them.

There are practical limits to training.  As I indicated the bulk of the ANA is a jobs program for otherwise unemployable men.  Just one example: the majority of the soldiers - including a big chunk of the officer corps - are illiterate.  It makes perfect sense in this context for the US to pick out the most suitable and motivated individuals and focus training efforts on them.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm also gonna say, that while Biden's commentary is obviously a political message, I think it has genuine merit. He's saying that Afghans have to fight for their country, and their leaders need to come together. I frankly agree. The Taliban is estimated at best to have around 60,000 armed soldiers, the full time Afghan Army has 180,000

As I stated before that 180,000 is a paper number.  Most of those formations are unable to fight in the field and have no experience doing so.

Millions of fighting age young men.

That's a problem not a solution.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's hundreds of thousands of Afghans who are not in the Taliban who have military training and many do, factually, have battle experience. The Taliban does not have the manpower to subjugate a country that doesn't want them, that is the simple reality. You can quibble with other nonsense as much as you want--the country of Afghanistan collectively does not have a big problem with the Taliban. That means it isn't our problem, either.

[Valmy]

How did Afghanistan wind up being a country anyway?  As far as I know, it wasn't drawn on a map by European colonizers without any regard for the facts on the ground.  How did it form into a single country that is so clearly a fractured ungovernable mess in the first place?

It is the rump state of the Pashtun Darrani Empire from the 18th century.

[The Minsky Moment]

There's hundreds of thousands of Afghans who are not in the Taliban who have military training and many do, factually, have battle experience.

I agree but that doesn't mean they will fight for the central government.
Returning to the warlord/militia era is a real possibility.  However, it was the horror of that experience the last time that led many Afghan to support the Taliban in the first place.

If the best case scenario is to leap into the fire from the frying pan, it's not saying a lot.

[OttoVonBismarck]

None of which are compelling reasons for U.S. involvement. There's a lot of bad places on earth, many of which we haven't chosen to try to nation build. I'm not sure there's a general reason we should keep doing so in a country where it hasn't worked for 20 years simply because we've been trying for 20 years. That seems like a sunk cost fallacy.