Afghanistan — why Afghan army collapsed

It has been more than a year since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) forces routed the then Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANSDF) including the 350,000 strong Afghan National Army (ANA) in their lightening advance towards Kabul, while sizeable American and NATO forces were still deployed in Afghanistan.

The bulwark against the rag-tag Taliban forces, ANA, melted under the combined effects of Taliban (IEA) tenacity and momentum, lack of resolution and commitment to fight, ANSF’s overall low morale due to corruption, and IEA’s successful tasleem strategy, emphasising and offering peaceful surrender and repatriation.

A February 2023 report by SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction), a US government entity, under directions from ‘The House committees on Oversight and Reform, and Armed Services’ investigates the disaster. The scope of investigation encompasses: a) ascertaining factors leading to ANDSF collapse; b) identifying any underlying factors during training, responsible for underdevelopment of important ANDSF capabilities, readiness, and its under-performance; and c) accounting for all the US-provided equipment, and the status of all the US-trained ANDSF personnel.

The Reports includes eyewitness accounts and offers no recommendations.
As per the Report, the US government allocated nearly $90 billion in security assistance to ANDSF since 2002 to raise a self-sustaining, capable, and independent force in order to combat internal and external threats to Afghanistan. The force was trained, mentored, and employed in joint operations by the US/NATO forces over two decades.

The Report cites “ANDSF’s dependency on US [Coalition] military forces” as the basis of collapse, as it never allowed ANSDF to mature into a self-sustaining force, outside the US/NATO security umbrella.

Rapid pull-back of all the US military personnel, and substantial reduction in the US support, consequent to the February 2020 Doha Agreement with Taliban, were catalysts for disintegration. This ‘destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police’, as the US/ NATO combat support protected it against large-scale losses. The Afghan troops also saw America as their paymaster, ensuring timely disbursement of salaries. 

SIGAR cites the Doha agreement having accentuated ANSDF’s sense of abandonment due to sudden curtailment of the US combat strength on ground and consequent reduction in the US airstrikes, ‘a critical force-multiplier’. In 2019 alone, America conducted 7,423 airstrikes, enabling ANSDF combat successes and regaining of some ground. This was important as the US had designed ANSDF a mirror image of the US Military (USMIL) with heavy reliance on combat air support. 

Mirror-imaging also created long-term ANDSF dependencies. The US, for example, created an NCO (non-commissioned officer) corps, with no foundation or history in the Afghanistan’s Military System. Afghan Air Force (AAF), although a critical component of this new Military System, was not envisaged to be self-reliant till 2030.

Decision to withdraw on-site contract maintenance from AAF in May 2021 almost crippled the AAF. Besides limiting offensive air support to ANA, this decision greatly curtailed logistic viability of the ANSDF, which was dependent upon AAF for moving stockpiles of the US-provided weapons, munitions and supplies, that otherwise could not be moved quickly and safely overland. Therefore, the Report concludes, ANDSF units were short of ‘ammunition, food, water, and other military equipment to sustain military engagements against the Taliban’.

The Afghan government is also criticised for failure to develop a national security strategy when the foreign troops withdrew. President Ashraf Ghani frequently changed military leaders, preferring loyalists and ethnicity, politicising, and polarising ANSDF in the process. Well-trained bright officers with professional credentials were sidelined for being US-trained.

IEA successfully exploited ANDSF’s leadership, logistical, and tactical gaps. Its emboldened attacks and negotiated surrender calls (tasleem) set up a domino effect with district after district falling to them. The IEA/Taliban’s effective use of local, social and other media under their psychological warfare magnified IEA gains and sapped ANSDF’s will to fight.

Certain systemic failures also played a critical role. First, the US time-commitment to raise the force was non-realistic. Raising a self-sustaining security sector takes decades, as in South Korea for example. The Report criticises the ever-changing milestones and politics that inhibited realistic goals for building a self-sustaining, capable military and police force.

SIGAR identifies the contradictory nature of undertaking. Battlefield success was pivotal to create conditions for the US withdrawal…a stated goal. For this reason, effective, cohesive, and hardened US troops often led missions or supplemented ANSDF. And the US/NATO augmented gaps in Afghan system like close air support, medical evacuation, logistics, and intelligence collection. This in turn deprived the ANSDF cadre the combat experience of fighting on its own. Consequently, ANDSF became capacity and capability-reliant on foreign forces.

Second, the project’s overall ownership by Coalition Forces was awkward as no single agency and country was responsible for it. Temporary organisations, like ISAF (the International Security Assistance Force), Resolute Support, and CSTC-A (Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan) with tenure-based and constantly rotating commanders and staff were to raise and train ANSDF. This ‘impeded continuity and institutional memory’.

Third, trainers and advisers were themselves poorly trained and ill-equipped for their mission and tasks. ‘Limited or no pre-deployment and in-theater training, and frequent rotational deployments’ affected training regimen and hindered the development of ‘trainer-trainee trust’.

Fourth, lack of an effective assessment system and oversight caused an unclear ‘picture of reality on the ground’. There was no real yardstick for measuring ANDSF’s development and effectiveness. Reasons that hid ‘performance-degrading factors’…like poor leadership and corruption… escaped attention. The US Defence Dept’s (DOD) evaluation methods were changed five times. The highest recorded performance appraisal was ability to operate “independent with advisors”.

Fifth, corruption played big. Not clamping on corruption and a culture of impunity resulted in lackluster performance and absence of Afghan ownership of mission and logistics, pushing the USMIL to conduct combat and patrol missions.

On bookkeeping the US equipment and status of trained Afghan manpower, SIGAR found grave accounting shortfalls. In 2020, DOD did not comply with its own oversight criterion for sensitive equipment transferred to Afghanistan, making theft and loss possible. Afghan Personnel and Pay System (APPS) could be manipulated, and fictitious records could be inserted.

On equipment, SIGAR found that IEA [interestingly] continues to openly use the US-supplied equipment etc. Although the US did salvage some US-provided aircraft at the time of collapse. Some planes were flown to central Asia by fleeing AAF pilots. Some were moved to storage in America while others duly repurposed were sent to Ukraine etc. For ANDSF manpower disposal, SIGAR concludes fleeing Afghanistan, killing by Taliban, hiding, or joining other groups, as likely scenarios.