What America should have understood about Afghanistan

In 2021 America decided to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, without consulting the Allies.

When the United States decides to risk the lives of its soldiers and involve other countries the strategic and political objectives must be clear. Strategic objectives to define the reasons why they are fighting; political, to define the governing framework of the country concerned. The military objectives set for Afghanistan were not achievable and the political objectives were too abstract.

When a war becomes guerrilla warfare, it loses its traditional character and defeats its strategies. There is no longer a precise enemy and in identifiable places because it can be anywhere and attacks can come from any part of the population. Identifying the perpetrator of an attack especially in an archaic and tribal environment becomes very difficult or impossible. It is no longer a traditional war in which it is possible to imagine the end but a kind of infinite swamp. In past centuries entire populations were exterminated. Today it is no longer possible.

The passing of time without achieving the expected results caused clashes, friction, and contrasts in Washington. Many American politicians were convinced that it would be possible to transform Afghanistan into a modern Western-style state with democratic institutions and a government that governed in a constitutional way. A hypothesis very far from realpolitik.

Knowledge of the history, customs, traditions, religion, and mentality that characterizes that people should have made it clear that it was a utopian military plan. Sun Tzu wrote: “know your enemy.”

To be a modern state is to have a central government and one recognized authority, but Afghanistan is home to many tribes, each with their own leaders. The conditions for a modern state can only be the result of a slow evolution in the thinking of the local population and their unfamiliarity with similar institutional structures means that it will take a considerable time for such a change to occur.

The lack of a central authority and the fragmentation of local institutions have encouraged the establishment of terrorist networks in Afghanistan, many coming from outside the country. The various “local warlords” are in perpetual, low-intensity conflict with each other, but overcome their rivalries forming vast coalitions if there are external forces trying to impose themselves such as the British Army in 1839 or the Soviet Armed Forces occupying Afghanistan in 1979.

The Taliban could be fought but it was impossible to eliminate them all. When the war against them began in 2001, there was a very strong American determination to eliminate the Taliban but many years have shown the impossibility of achieving the objectives and realpolitik forced Presidents Donald Trump and especially Joe Biden to enter negotiations with representatives of those they wanted to eliminate. Negotiations that were equivalent to an unconditional military withdrawal.

P.S.: Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, the Washington Post published many documents: American officials consciously lied. “We didn’t understand, we didn’t know what we were doing”. The war cost 975 billion dollars.