The Rise, Fall and Annihilation of the USA’s Afghanistan
For the fiscal year 2021, The United States of America has allotted a whopping 778 Billion dollars for its military. This is more than three times the money spent by its closest contender. If the defence budget of the next ten highest military spending countries is added, the United States will still be spending more than them.
The United States, as a part of its War on Terror, was boots on the ground in Afghanistan on October 21st, 2001. As of 25th August 2021, at the time of writing this article, the United States and its allies are struggling to evacuate its citizens and coalition allies from Afghanistan. The Taliban has also issued an ultimatum of ‘Leave Afghanistan by August 31’ to the USA.
What could have caused a group of seemingly irregular and ill-equipped fundamentalists to create distress in the world’s most elite and technologically advanced warfighting forces in the past twenty years?
The ‘Distinguished ANA’
The ANA or the Afghan National Army was America’s and its NATO allies’ solution to combat terrorism and maintain security in Afghanistan if and when the West withdrew its forces. The ANA was trained by American and NATO forces and accompanied these troops in direct action raids, counter-insurgency operations, and foot patrols.
The motive was that these indigenous troops could gain experience from these missions and would, as time passed, push the Western coalition into a support role while they took care of primary operations. However, as the world witnessed the incidents unfolding in Kabul, it is evident that the Afghan National Army collapsed and failed all of its directives.
The Afghan National Army was doomed to fail. Here’s why:
On its best days, the Afghan National Army was useless and downright detrimental in operations at its worst. The only competent entity was the Afghan National Army Commando Corps, wherein despite attributing to 7% of the Afghanistan Defence, they were engaged in up to 70% of combat. The ANA was rampant with corruption. While on paper, the ANA is a formidable fighting force, the practice of Ghost Soldiering was very prevalent. Ghost Soldiers refer to the troops who are a part of the active-duty military on paper but, in reality, do not exist. The other troops withdraw the pay and benefits directed for the particular soldier and use it for their own convenience.
Apart from this, the ANA was plagued by desertion, corruption, defection, and inefficiency. Various accounts by NATO and US military trainers deployed to train the ANA had repeatedly stated that the Afghan National Army was far from combat-ready. The reason for this was the morale of the troops. For any fighting force, having unit cohesion and good morale is imperative. Once these components are rooted out, all other infrastructure, no matter how advanced, becomes irrelevant. An active military requires a highly motivated and spirited troop force.
In a war-torn country like Afghanistan, job avenues were scarce. The ANA was one of the most lucrative jobs and offered a stable paycheck. Unfortunately, that was all that the ANA was for them. A stable paycheck.
A soldier has his loyalty towards his country. He fights and dies for it. This was not the case for the Afghan soldiers. Most of their loyalty was to their tribes. The idea of fighting for a ‘national cause’ was mostly alien to them. Modern concepts like democracy, power-sharing, and federalism had very little influence outside of Kabul. This was why when push came to shove, a large segment of the ANA had no will to train and much less to fight against overwhelming odds.
This misled loyalty had detrimental effects not only on the nation-building efforts but also on the coalition forces. These troops never had any intentions of maintaining peace and stability. The troops’ allegiance was to the tribes they belonged to. Hence, fragging by the ANA, the practice of intentionally shooting friendly forces was quite widespread. So, while having to fight the Taliban, the US troops had to keep an eye on their ‘partner’ forces as well.
ANA troops would often steal equipment and weaponry and trade or sell it for money to the Taliban. The American Soldiers also had to make it a point to make sure that any of the ANA troops, soldiers they were supposed to trust, were not carrying any mobiles due to fear of the ANA alerting terrorists of the American’s next move.
Adding on, these troops had no will to fight. Cowardice was widespread. Whenever making contact with insurgents, the ANA soldiers would hide. They would refuse to fire their weapon and cower, hoping that the American troops accompanying them would take the initiative and call for superior American firepower such as airstrikes. The American troops and American airpower were absent for a majority of the Taliban’s offensive in 2021. The average ANA soldiers were apathetic to their duty. The job of an infantryman or any combat role for that matter requires prestige focus and dedication. Before heading out for patrols, Afghan soldiers consumed narcotics such as Hashish, a psychedelic which made the troops combat ineffective.
The Taliban
For the most part, the Taliban were underequipped, had a very vulnerable logistic chain, and did not have air superiority. For the second time in half a century, the United States found out the hard way that the desire to fight outweighs Western military expertise, technical supremacy, and financial resources. The Taliban only had one thing: the will to fight. The Taliban was aware that the United States Military and its allies would inevitably have to pull out of Afghanistan. The first step to winning was merely outliving western presence.
In any insurgency, one of the most crucial factors which dictate the outcome is Human Intelligence. Soldiers of the ANA were prone to defection due to them not having allegiance to the government. Owing to the incompetence of entities like the ANA, the people of Afghanistan also felt that the government put in power by the US was inefficient and corrupt. This led them to distrust the government making them more susceptible to tip-off the Taliban about the ongoing military operations.
The Taliban’s human intelligence network was so vast and proficient that many heads of state of different nations had to cancel their visit to Afghanistan owing to the fact that the Taliban were already aware of their itinerary, thus compromising their security. The Taliban had a plethora of sympathizers at the local level — including locals who used to work in military bases, under defence contractors and so on and so forth.
Informants in military bases, prisons, and the Afghan security forces, including those hired by military contractors, were used by the Taliban to identify informants, provide intelligence on military movements and facilities of interest to the Taliban, and intimidate or coerce other Afghan personnel.
Moreover, another advantage the Taliban had over the Americans was that they could train, rearm, rest, and recuperate in a theatre where the US and its NATO allies were not authorized to operate conventionally — Pakistan. Owing to the porous borders and the affiliation of the Haqqani network with that of ISI, Pakistan’s Military intelligence, it only makes sense that Pakistan sponsored these insurgents. This claim is solidified by the presence of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.
The United States
The United States itself is responsible for the severe military failure that took place in Afghanistan. The intervention was a harbinger of failure due to the United States' very belief during the invasion. Apart from eliminating Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership, the military was not very clear on its objectives in Afghanistan. Apart from these directives, even the President of the time had little to no idea regarding what to do in Afghanistan.
The West time and again has this imperialist conviction that all cultures they come in contact with are a whiteboard, a sponge, to adopt and imitate the West’s culture and traditions. Due to the West’s saviour complex, they were under the belief that after toppling a tyrannical government, the people would welcome democracy with open arms. This strategy failed in South Vietnam, and it failed in Afghanistan as well. The American’s were unsuccessful in winning the hearts and minds of the population.
By leaving, the United States effectively crippled the technological superiority that the Afghan Military had in 2021. The accelerated pullout of the American Military also meant that defence contractors, engineers, and crucial elements responsible for the effective maintenance of the military would no longer be possible. Afghan Air Assets quickly ran out of supplies and firepower. As American contractors carried out most aircraft maintenance, this meant that now when an Afghan Chopper faced an error, it could not be used for combat owing to the absence of crucial parts, ammunition, and human resource to maintain this asset.
The peace deal negotiated by ex-POTUS Donald Trump and accelerated by POTUS Joe Biden only lessened the ANA’s confidence in the West’s military. They felt that in the midst of one of the greatest Taliban offences, they were being abandoned. This significantly impacted the ANA’s will to fight and led to mass surrenders.
In conclusion, the factors mentioned above combined to form a deadly concoction that led to the fall of USA-occupied Afghanistan. After twenty years of military operations, the Taliban is yet again in power. Women will have no rights in that corner of the world. Hollywood will make movies focusing on the PTSD suffered by American soldiers and business entities like Lock Heed Martin, Private Military Contractors, and the Military-Industrial Complex would be having their wallets full, plotting another region in the world which ‘needs’ democracy.
