KARACHI:
After 20 years of US presence in Afghanistan, more than $83 billion spent on the Afghan National Army, and a huge amount spent on equipment’s and salaries, the rapid takeover of the Afghan capital by the Taliban could not be prevented by the Afghan Army. Moreover, the takeover was neither prevented nor resisted. The US withdrawal was so hasty that even president Biden underlined that he and his administration were caught off guard. Following this, the Kabul astonishingly crumbled without a single confrontation since dozens of major provinces across the country were swept within two weeks.
There are many factors behind this downfall. Waging a war against an enemy requires moral upkeep. The government needed to give moral support to its military. According to Napoleon Bonaparte, “In war, the moral is to the physical as ten is to one”. In a certain sense it seems quite simple; the Afghan army had been dependent on US support for last 20 years. After the withdrawal and lack of management by the top brass leadership, the army became highly demoralised. Therefore, they were unable to fight or resist. According to a statement issued by the Pentagon, there were more than 300,000 Afghan soldiers in the Afghan army, but the actual number seemed much less. Due to long-standing corruption, the official numbers were undeniably exaggerated. The commanders had created “ghost soldiers” to get free salaries from the US. Persistently, in the Afghan government, many senior positions were either vacant or filled by those commanders who were not ready to wage a war against the Taliban.
The US and its allies never fully apprehended that they were dealing with a cumulative successful Taliban insurgency rather than a terrorist organisation. The Taliban’s increasing strength and its sophisticated capabilities were underestimated by the US military. They had disregarded the political history of the Taliban.
Samiullah Safi
Islamabad
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2021.
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