Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[mongers]

We've been here before, the Afghan 'special forces' are similar in effective as the South Vietnamese paratroopers/rangers/marines were to the rest of the ARVN; once those units got tied down, exhausted or overrun the majority of the army collapsed, with only a few other units putting up serious opposition to the NVA steamroller in 75.

[OttoVonBismarck]

To clarify...I think grumbler is too optimistic.  The Taliban already control a large amount of the area that had resisted them prior to the US intervention.  The Tajiks and some others may never go away entirely (or has he suggested, strike back from the outside)...but I think if/when the Taliban win this time, it will be for keeps...and their hold on the country more firm and brutal.

I think too many are disposed to thinking the Taliban as being "somewhat reasonable", when compared to say...ISIS.  But I think they are very little different.

A big defect in everyone's understanding about Afghanistan has been a 25-30 year history of drawing "maps of control" which have no real affiliation with actual reality. These maps are often drawn out of either ignorance or a desire to paint a certain picture. The U.S. military has been drawing maps that have persistently exaggerated how much territory the Kabul government really controlled for like 14+ years. Meanwhile some of the Western press has periodically released maps that vaguely suggest the Taliban controls vast swathes of territory based on "sacking" police precincts in a big city and setting up a few road blocks there. The reality is even going back to the mid-1990s it's very hard to talk about "control" in a country that lacks a real traditional infrastructure and unified national polity.

For example there was a map at one point in the early 2010s that showed Helmand as being "partially Taliban controlled." This was a map attached to a Western media article critical of the war. At the point that map was written there was a major U.S. base in Helmand province with thousands of soldiers. There were police precincts controlled by the Kabul government in every major city. Most roads and checkpoints were controlled by the Afghan National Army. However the Taliban was very active in the province, collecting "taxes" from civilians in rural areas and controlling some roads. If you were making a strategy game how would you express that province? Controlled by America? Afghanistan's National Government? The Taliban? It's not an easy answer.

To link back to your original point, things partially look bad because we're starting to see maps now that are probably closer to reality than the 14 years of fake propaganda maps the military has been releasing were, but some of those maps likely are dramatically overstating what "control" means when it says the Taliban has control of a city. There was a claim at one point that before U.S. intervention the Taliban controlled 90% of Afghanistan. That was not really ever true either. It's probably more true that "the Taliban was the strongest faction in 90% of Afghanistan, but some of that territory it operated little effective control over, and some of that territory it was actively contested for control over by other factions."

I don't actually think anything grumbler said was optimistic, he mostly was just saying Afghanistan is going to revert back to what it has been ever since the Saur Revolution overthrew the Daoud Khan dictatorship and replaced it with a Soviet-aligned government, leading the Soviet occupation and rise of the mujahadeen. A fractured hell hole with lots of people fighting. The Taliban are the ethnic/religious force with the most support among the Pashtun ethnic group--the largest ethnic group in the country. Its domestic opposition is made up by a corrupt and anemic Aghan National Government that has to deal with great ethnic strife among its constituent members, and a number of non-Pashtun warlords who frankly, know how to fight the Taliban "for real" and if given weapons and money would probably be doing a better job than the Afghan government has done. Those non-Pashtun warlords have been systemically neutered by the Afghan National Government because they represented a threat to its authority, and the U.S. significantly backed their efforts to curtail their power. This likely was a tactical mistake. But over time I imagine things revert back to where they were and new warlords emerge, able to raise funds and acquire men and weapons easier with a weakened Afghan National Government collapsing--they may just start absorbing defector groups from the Afghan Army and their equipment whole sale. This will create a situation where the Taliban won't be able to establish a true national government that runs the country--just like it was never able to do so in the 90s.

The best analogue would probably be Somalia since the mid-90s--no one has ever actually ran it. Some factions have been on top, but they still weren't really running it like a country, it was more like "this street gang is the toughest right now and controls the most corners" but to confuse that with some sort of governing system is not correct.

[OttoVonBismarck]

We've been here before, the Afghan 'special forces' are similar in effective as the South Vietnamese paratroopers/rangers/marines were to the rest of the ARVN; once those units got tied down, exhausted or overrun the majority of the army collapsed, with only a few other units putting up serious opposition to the NVA steamroller in 75.

Except North Vietnam was an actual country with a government and well established political and military leadership, and a huge army. The Taliban is none of those things. The North Vietnamese were also seen as ethnic compatriots by literally everyone in South Vietnam. Some South Vietnamese, probably not even 50%, opposed annexation and Communist rule, but it was still rule by people who had the same ethnic background, cultural background, and spoke the same language. Tajiks being rule by extremist Pashtuns is not anywhere the same. And the resources the Taliban has to stamp out insurgency and internal dissent are probably not even 1/100th of what the Vietnamese had.

Remember Vietnam's People's Army was so powerful right after it finished like a 25 year war with western powers, it rolled right into Cambodia and almost effortlessly removed the Khmer Rouge from power and replaced it with a different regime. About 5 years later it bloodied China's nose and fought it to a stalement along its northern borders. Comparing North Vietnam and the Taliban in ability to project force and occupy territory is akin to comparing Mike Tyson in his prime with YouTube boxer Jake Paul.

[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.

[Sheilbh]

Really striking that European countries seem to have largely opposed this move - but are ultimately utterly irrelevant. Apparently the British Defence Secretary was trying to organise a NATO coalition from European countries that were opposed to US withdrawal to stay in Afghanistan but there wasn't anywhere near enough support.

The most I've seen is former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt calling for European national and EU politicians to visit Kabul to "show support to the government in a most difficult situation". Which is about as good an example of magical thinking foreign policy as I can think - though the US is also guilty of this with Psaki commenting that the Taliban (the Taliban!) should think about how they'll be viewed by the international community if they breach the agreement and just take over.

The worry from Europe is having failed to prepare for this and having failed to influence it, I feel all that's left is to prepare for a flood of refugees in the course of the next year because I think, sadly, that is now inevitable (and as politics in Turkey has taken a strongly anti-refugee turn I don't think we can just expect Iran and Turkey to take a few million refugees). Instead I suspect it'll be a humanitarian catastrophe

(More shallowly this might all happen just in time for the French Presidential election )

[OttoVonBismarck]

Let the refugees go to Pakistan--the country most directly responsible for Afghanistan's troubles (well, other than Russia, but it conveniently no longer shares a border with Afghanistan.)

Make no mistake, I 100% agree the humanitarian outcome of this will be terrible. But if the Europeans really wanted to stop it they'd have to transform into a group of countries that do overseas force projection at scale. They have the economy and manpower to do it, but they have nowhere close to the political will. Should they try to change that? I don't know. I'm not sure Europe is much better off if it spends 30 years developing a force projection capacity to get entangled in third world hell holes. As a citizen of a country that does have that capacity I don't know how often it's worked to our benefit in this century.

[Josquius]

I guess Iran will be a major destination with Tajik and Farsi being pretty much the same thing and big cultural links.
No idea how open Iran would be to this.
Europe does seem a logical target alas. And Syria is still burning....

[Sheilbh]

Make no mistake, I 100% agree the humanitarian outcome of this will be terrible. But if the Europeans really wanted to stop it they'd have to transform into a group of countries that do overseas force projection at scale. They have the economy and manpower to do it, but they have nowhere close to the political will. Should they try to change that? I don't know. I'm not sure Europe is much better off if it spends 30 years developing a force projection capacity to get entangled in third world hell holes. As a citizen of a country that does have that capacity I don't know how often it's worked to our benefit in this century.

Sure but the regions the US is or has been projecting forces to are Eastern Europe, North Africa, Middle East - I'd argue a lot of that is down to protecting the "West" which means Europe. And this may not be the last US retrenchment, or should be.

I'm not sure at this point that Europe is willing or in a place to replace the US, or to deal with the refugees and humanitarian consequences of events like this (added to Syria, added to Libya - the Sahel is still to come) arriving in Europe. Maybe fortress Europe will be enough - the suffering stays outside of Europe and we are able to keep our hands "clean". But we can already see the limits of that in the way Lukashenko and Erdogan use refugees. And I don't know, I'm not sure that is sustainable when we're faced with mounting humanitarian and climate crises - I certainly hope it isn't sustainable, I hope it causes a strong enough moral revulsion for us to address the fact that this is all our neighbourhood. In any event I think we need to start preparing now and not be surprised in 5-6 months when we start seeing Afghan refugees on the borders.

[The Minsky Moment]

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.

[DGuller]

My concern with this Afghanistan situation is probably highly cynical.  My biggest worry is that we may suffer a huge humiliating geopolitical defeat, if Taliban decides to spike the ball and wiggle its ass.  That will aid our own domestic Taliban into getting back in power.

[crazy canuck]

My concern with this Afghanistan situation is probably highly cynical.  My biggest worry is that we may suffer a huge humiliating geopolitical defeat, if Taliban decides to spike the ball and wiggle its ass.  That will aid our own domestic Taliban into getting back in power.

I think Yi hacked your account.

What does spike the ball and wiggle some ass mean in this circumstance.  Who are our own domestic Taliban and when were they ever in power?  How will they get back into power?

[Valmy]

He is talking about the Republicans.

[crazy canuck]

He is talking about the Republicans.

I am not sure the Taliban deserve that kind of insult. 

[Razgovory]

My concern with this Afghanistan situation is probably highly cynical.  My biggest worry is that we may suffer a huge humiliating geopolitical defeat, if Taliban decides to spike the ball and wiggle its ass.  That will aid our own domestic Taliban into getting back in power.

I think Yi hacked your account.

What does spike the ball and wiggle some ass mean in this circumstance.  Who are our own domestic Taliban and when were they ever in power?  How will they get back into power?

That's a typo.  He meant "spike the ass and wiggle the ball".  I don't know what that means either.  But if I don't know, and you don't know and Valmy doesn't know we can all not know together and that is the meaning of friendship.

[Valmy]

But if I don't know, and you don't know and Valmy doesn't know we can all not know together and that is the meaning of friendship.

Awwwww