The American populace, fueled with rage and revenge following the attacks on September 11, 2001, and the George W. Bush Administration took that anger and radically shifted the geopolitical position of the United States. Initiating the War on Terror, Bush placed the blame for the attacks on the Taliban, a militant group which had taken control of Afghanistan only a few years earlier in 1996. The American military quickly met its objectives, conquering all major population centers and ousting the Taliban from power, and established a foundling democracy. For the next 20 years, the American military remained in the country, fighting alongside the regime, and began steps to withdraw in 2021. Within the span of a few weeks, the enemy that was on the run re-captured every major city including the capital, re-imposing the very regime the U.S. swore to destroy. The question is, how did the situation collapse the way it had, and what are the consequences of our policies and involvement in Afghanistan, both domestically and internationally?

The Country of Afghanistan

It is important to understand what exactly “Afghanistan” is, and why it matters. Afghanistan is a Central Asian nation bordering Pakistan, Iran, China, and other minor Turkic nations. The country has roughly 31.4 million people, primarily composed of various ethnic groups, notably the Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks, and including roughly a dozen other minorities. While containing a mostly arid topography riddled with mountain peaks, Afghanistan has been a central hub for commerce since ancient times, with the Silk Road passing through the country connecting the Western civilizations of Rome and the Pharaohs to the Asian societies of China and India. Culturally, Afghanistan has been dominated by tribal politics since its inception, and from as early as 1815, British ambassador Mountstuart Elphinstone noted that there were over 392 tribes in the country, each governed with “republican spirit...compared...to the Highland clans of his native Scotland.”

Imperialism and Early Afghan Politics

The United Kingdom, interested in gaining new trading partners in the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, entered India in the early 1600s, resulting in the subjugation of the entire Indian subcontinent by the dawn of the 19th century. Afghanistan had a unique position to play in this conquest, as the British and Russian empires were constantly competing over control of Central Asia, culminating in the establishment of a British protectorate in Afghanistan following the First and Second Anglo-Afghan Wars, which created a buffer zone between both empires. The British managed to install a series of friendly monarchs that were able to grant excessive concessions to the Crown and ensure little to no retribution for the occupation. 

Afghanistan: Monarchy to Democracy

As the world grappled with the War to End All Wars, the Afghan people rebelled against their imperial overlords, which led to the establishment of the Afghan monarchy by 1926. The new government, led by the Khan Dynasty, remained isolated from the world, maintaining a quasi-status quo while the rest of the world engaged in the Second World War. As the war concluded, the West and East were divided between capitalism and communism. As the geopolitical sphere became evermore divided, Afghanistan remained relatively isolated from Cold War politics, due to lack of strategic position or valuable resources. However, the shift towards the globalization of Afghanistan began with the removal of the Khan monarchy and the implementation of a new democratic regime led by Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan in 1973. Daoud helped modernize Afghan law, constructed new heavy industries and education systems, and began to connect diplomatic ties to the rest of the world. 

Red Afghanistan

The exposure of Afghanistan to the international community and its attempted modernization led elements within the new democracy to become increasingly frustrated with Khan’s government and the inability to modernize Afghanistan effectively. In turn, communist forces overthrew Daoud Khan in the Saur Revolution of 1978. The revolution was initiated by communist insurgents, primarily Hafizullah Amin and his compatriot Nur Mohammed Taraki, implementing unpopular land reforms and repeals of tribal law which angered the rural populace and increased domestic pressure against the regime. The ever-increasing inter-governmental tensions between Amin and Taraki led to the assassination of Taraki, initializing a brutal policy of extrajudicial military killings, exponentially increasing opposition to the regime. 

Soviets Land in Kabul

The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan due to the perceived weakness of the Amin regime, and desire to protect the fledgling communist government from collapse. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sent Soviet paramilitary forces into Afghanistan and assassinated Amin, installing Babrak Karmal as the new leader of Afghanistan in 1979. Under this new leadership, there were many promises of economic assistance, an end to the extrajudicial military killings, and free elections. Karmal ultimately failed to provide these promises to the Afghan people, and as the domestic situation deteriorated, the Soviet Union rolled their armed forces into the country. By 1980, all major cities were occupied by Soviet forces, quelling any opposition and cementing the power of the unstable communist government. As the Soviets attempted to gain further control, the United States joined the fray, funding Afghan rebels, most notably the fundamentalist Mujahedeen. Armed with advanced American weaponry, the rebels decimated Soviet forces and supply lines, utterly undermining the perceived “invincibility” of the Red Army. Dubbed “the Soviets’ Vietnam,” thousands of Soviet troops perished with hundreds of tanks and helicopters destroyed, with a cost of roughly 50 billion dollars from 1980 until the withdrawal in 1989. 

The Taliban 

The Mujahideen, with US weapons and training, managed to defeat the unstoppable Red Army while also cementing its control over Afghan politics. A conglomeration of primarily Sunni rebels, the fringe group transformed into the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group bent on installing its version of Sharia law on the Afghan government and people. By 1996, the Taliban occupied most of Southern Afghanistan and the capital city of Kabul. As Kabul fell, multiple tribal chiefs from Tajik, Uzbek and Shi’a ethnic groups united under the Northern Alliance, sparking the Afghan Civil War which lasted up until the American invasion in 2001.

The American Eagle Soars into Afghanistan

Following the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush set forth a national security strategy designed to protect Americans from future terror attacks. Part of this strategy was attacking the countries which harbored and aided the terrorists responsible for 9/11, and the first target on the list was the Taliban. In the span of a few months, alongside a coalition of international partners and the Northern Alliance, the Taliban were ousted from power and reinforced their positions in the Afghan countryside. A new democratic government was founded, and the War in Afghanistan would remain at the forefront of American military policy for the next two decades.

Initial Mistakes 

The primary cause for the failure in Afghanistan began with the aftermath of the actual invasion. The American policymakers, primarily Donald Rumsfeld, Mark Rove, and Paul Wolfowitz intervened in Afghanistan to protect the American people, but also did not fight the war for the liberation of the Afghan people. Therefore, there was never a clear-cut policy regarding the creation of a democratic system within Afghanistan. McCage Griffiths, lecturer at UC Davis, argues that U.S. national security policy during the Cold War was predicated on the actions of its rival superpower, and reflected conflict regarding the opposing ideology, in this case, communism. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States was the sole global hegemon, and experienced “growing pains” attempting to define its role in international affairs. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were unilaterally-led conflicts that were not the norm in American foreign policy, unlike the interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq in the late 1990s. As a result of the 9/11 attacks, American foreign policy radically shifted from humanitarian interests to one of protecting the American homeland from foreign threats, utilizing any means possible to do so. Afghanistan was the first test of this shift of policy, and the goals of U.S. policymakers were opaque at best. As summarized by Dr. Nazanin Azizian, member of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, “America’s objectives to restructure the domestic affairs of Afghanistan... without a consistent, clear, adequately resourced long-term strategy [without] the support of the American people was mission impossible and destined to fail.” After over forty years of conflict, the country could not be easily reconstructed and democratized, but American relations towards the sociopolitical structure of Afghanistan contributed to the overall corruption and weakness of the American-backed government.

The Corrupt Afghan Regime

The initial assumptions made by U.S. officials and the security community further deepened the ambiguity of why the United States was in Afghanistan in the first place. American policy was largely built around the notion that Afghan society was “tribal, sometimes more expansively framed as ethnic.” Therefore, all policy actions have been framed to solely ameliorate tribal and ethnic tensions, such as “ensuring the correct composition of the...Karzai and...Ghani administrations,” in order to supplant the right balance of stability upon the country. This assumption leads to the belief that “Afghans are not viewed as rational actors pursuing clear political interests...but rather creatures of their culture and tradition.” This key assumption is what made the political regime inherently unstable, because American policymakers imposed neo-imperialist sentiments by failing to adequately examine the historical contexts of the country. To make matters worse, the United States also took a page out of the British colonial playbook by supporting (and intentionally ignoring) the rampant corruption within the country. The presidencies of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani were nothing short of pyramid schemes built by the United States and protected by the U.S. military, and this idea became so apparent that the U.S. Department of Defense issued contracts “totaling tens of billions of dollars [which] ended up in the hands of criminal syndicates and officials.” The corruption even went as high as the Kabul Bank, in which billions of dollars meant for the reconstruction of the country were funneled out of the country to shell companies abroad by various Afghan political elites, with the U.S. intelligence apparatus being more than aware of the Ponzi scheme and resulting in zero consequences. 

The Resurgence of the Taliban

When President Obama was elected, the new administration rekindled its promises to Afghanistan, and committed more troops to ensure U.S. goals were met. For Obama, his primary goal was to deter terrorism and exterminate Osama bin Laden. In an effort to solidify American presence in the country, and to promote the policy of state building, President Obama sent as many as 100,000 soldiers by 2011. In the words of Obama’s grand strategy, the primary objective was to “cripple the Taliban, train the Afghan military, stabilize the government, and then withdraw U.S. forces when Obama’s second term ended.” Obama attempted to withdraw troops, but stubborn resistance in the south and a rise in radical terrorism in Iraq ensured that American forces were staying for the long haul. American policy dictated that the U.S. military create the institutions necessary for the Afghan military to continue the fight against the Taliban on their own with limited American support, similar to how the Iraqi military reclaimed northern Iraq from ISIS with assistance from U.S. advisors and airstrikes. At the time, it was believed that an increased American presence alongside the Afghan military would strengthen the domestic capabilities of the military and cement the feeble Afghan democratic regime from annihilation. From 2011 until 2020, Afghanistan remained unchanged, under constant threats from al-Qaeda remnants and the Taliban, and the American puppet regime remained in power until summer 2021.

The Rotten Structure Collapses

The Trump administration began negotiating with the Taliban in February 2020, without the input, or even the presence, of officials from the current Afghan administration, resulting in the agreement to withdraw by May 2021. As the Biden administration took power, there was increasing domestic pressure to withdraw U.S. troops from abroad, which extended to the removal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of August. The Taliban took advantage of the deteriorating domestic situation and restarted the advance in the south. By early August, the largest cities in the country fell to the Taliban without the slightest resistance. The security and military forces defending the country were woefully inept, with generals and police sergeants that once received praise from U.S. officials later removed for corruption, little to no pay for soldiers, no death benefits, and an illiterate military staff that could not be managed alongside modern tactics eroding the faith in the government. Both the security and military forces of Afghanistan were unable to combat an enemy that had already won the psychological war, because it was a perceived fact that the government cared more about filling their coffers with American aid rather than rebuilding the country. Across the front lines, the Taliban managed to wage, and win, the psychological war that both the United States and the Ghani regime failed to anticipate and prepare for. The message of the Taliban was anti-imperialist, fighting and garnering support against a foreign power that only uses Afghanistan for its own political gain. This message earned a following with the rural countryside, quickly collecting massive nationalist support against the corrupt American puppet regime. As a result, in a blitz across the country, all major province capitals, including Kabul, fell within 11 days. In 11 days, the Afghan military that was built over the course of 20 years by the United States simply abandoned their posts and did not even fire a shot, even when Biden officials claimed they could last up to 6 months. 

American Impacts

The most significant short-term impact on American interests was the loss of millions of dollars worth of military equipment after the utter collapse of Afghan forces. The embarrassingly quick manner in which the Afghan military structure collapsed ushered the line of questioning as to where the trillion dollars spent in Afghanistan went if our position was never attainable in the first place. Throughout the American occupation, the U.S. military instituted training programs that were designed to protect and mitigate damage from rebel forces that were damaging U.S. interests in the region. The military aid to the country, costing roughly 88 billion dollars per year of occupation, including ammunition, weapons, and heavy equipment, was largely unused by Afghan forces in the fight for internal stability. As the Taliban began their campaign to reconquer Afghanistan, these resources were squandered by Afghan forces, and the Taliban utilized these weapons to further their cause, promoting themselves driving American Humvee's and attempting to fly Apache attack helicopters. 

The PR that these images created startled and angered the American public, because of the embarrassment of so-called terrorists riding in American taxpayer-funded military equipment costing billions and billions of dollars. While it is true that the majority of Americans wished to end the War in Afghanistan, many Americans were extremely disappointed in how the Biden administration handled the withdrawal, even receiving bipartisan backlash in Congress. The PR campaign against the U.S. occupation worsened as images of Afghans attempting to board a moving USAF aircraft, suicide bombings, and countless American citizens trapped in Kabul frustrated domestic sentiments and the administrations' approval rating, echoing the hasty evacuation of Saigon in the late 1970s. The George W. Bush Administration commenced the War in Afghanistan with a message of defeating terrorism and improving U.S. national security, with Dr. Griffiths further noting that the war did little to curb terrorism, and in fact exacerbated tensions higher than they already were in the first place. President Bush took a moment of sheer anger and led the United States to fight those responsible for 9/11, and the PR of removing the Taliban and the eventual killing of Osama bin Laden by Obama granted positive images for the American public. As the years went on, however, the rampant corruption and shortcoming of the U.S. state building policies were met with mass pushback from populist leaders such as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The commitments in the country were muddled with increasing challenges of internal corruption, lack of American adaptability, and simply throwing money and the issue at hand. As the cherry on top, the American people simply had little to no information of these topics nor the rapidly deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan until the withdrawal in August. The situation was already deemed unstable, and the Afghan government was given a mere 6 months before collapse. To repeat, after 20 years in Afghanistan, the U.S.security apparatus labeled the Afghan government as being able to last six months until expiration, an exact testament of the failed state building policy. The American public continues to be infuriated by a gargantuan loss of taxpayer dollars, over 1 trillion dollars, with nothing in return. Further bombshell leaks, such as the Afghanistan Papers, claiming President Bush did not even know the name of the American commander in Afghanistan, opened the floodgates to the complete American failure in Afghanistan, leading to mass cynicism of American foreign intervention and the decline of the Biden Administration’s approval rating. 

American commitments abroad have also taken a hit, specifically because of the debacle of the withdrawal. The international community was already increasingly frustrated with the unilateral posturing of the United States under President Trump. President Biden promised the opposite, to cooperate with international partners and end the War on Terror. Dubbed “the Biden Doctrine,” his new grand strategy entailed “an end to an era of major military operations to remake other countries,” offering what he said was a better way to protect American interests around the world through diplomacy, the military’s targeted antiterrorist abilities and forceful action when necessary.” This new doctrine was the exact justification for the withdrawal of Afghanistan, and was a watershed moment for Biden’s policy moving forward. American foreign policy for the past 20 years was built on preserving the hegemonic position of the United States, and the loss in Afghanistan has damaged this image domestically and internationally. Therefore, Biden requires a diplomatic win, whether it be in Syria or the second Iranian Nuclear Deal, or face further deterioration of American hegemony. Already we have seen nations such as China and Russia posturing towards their regional adversaries, testing the waters for a potential American response, and there has yet to be a direct response, which further deepens the perceptions of an internationally weak United States.

International Reactions

The initial conflict in Afghanistan had international backing, alongside the perceived approval of the United Nations Security Council. The coalition in the initial invasion encompassed NATO allies, Indo-Pacific partners, and most notably logistical support from Russia and Iran. While support for continued involvement in Afghanistan has ebbed and flowed over the 20-year period, there were never direct diplomatic actions taken against the United States. The geopolitical fallout from the withdrawal and conclusion of the War in Afghanistan, however, have remained consistent between both friends and foes. All global powers have condemned the way the United States withdrew, leading to actions that have directly destabilized the region and earning condemnation from Russia, Iran, and China. The refugee crisis created by the rapid collapse of the Afghan state further angered American allies designated as locations for the refugees, such as Germany, Italy, Spain, the UAE, and Qatar. Our allies felt betrayed for having to deal with the impacts of our failed policy, which has exacerbated the already bitter relationship between the U.S. and the European Union. Many in the EU are now questioning whether the United States will remain committed to the defense of European partners, such as Ukraine and the Baltic States. The Russian Federation is utilizing the failure of Afghanistan to bolster Russian interests in Europe and the Middle East, due to the perceived belief of inaction by the United States.

As the U.S. and EU squabble over where to house refugees, one global player is strategically playing their cards uniquely: China. The crisis comes from the reaction of the People’s Republic of China, which is traditionally against fundamentalist Islamic regimes, primarily due to the unrest and eventual genocide of the Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. The PRC has created ties with the Taliban, signing trade agreements only days after the US withdrawal, shifting the balance of power in the region towards the PRC. China has strategic interests in Afghanistan due to the massive lithium deposits, as well as the position of Afghanistan which is situated perfectly along the Belt and Road Initiative, bolstering Chinese influence and willingness to cooperate with the Taliban. 

What Could have been done differently?

Contrary to the various alternatives to the War in Afghanistan, a prominent theory being discussed in political circles is that the United States could have remained in Afghanistan beyond the 20-year period. While traditionally unpopular, in an interview with Dr. Griffiths, he explains how “the time spent in Afghanistan was utilized poorly, which led to the feeling that our presence was not useful long term. In case studies of Germany and Japan, those were decades of denazification and rebuilding their economies, and contemporarily with the liberalization of the former Soviet bloc, take time. If we spent 20 years in Afghanistan with political scientists on the ground, building a proper democracy and providing basic infrastructure and amenities to the Afghan people, we would be having a different conversation today.” The misallocation of resources, whether it be military or developmental aid, did not rebuild Afghanistan, but rather funded corrupt Afghan officials and commanders. If the United States ensured that the democracy that was established was built properly from the local level, there would have been considerable progress. Instead, the political development was forced from the top down, with a regime that was widely unpopular with a populace that gave little care for the democratic process, because it was forced onto them by a foreign power. Another possible solution to the crisis could have been a scaled back response, either by special forces or with regional intelligence forces. Griffiths further elaborates on this plan in how “killing Al-Qaeda’s leadership would have rendered the group unable to respond to external pressure, and demoralize the group into breaking apart, while also weakening the Taliban without destroying the country.” These potential solutions to the issue of Afghanistan could have limited future fallout and preserve American lives, costs and geopolitical popularity. 

Conclusion… or is it?

The Afghan crisis remains to be resolved, and continues to develop day by day. The Taliban continues to cement their control over the country, oppressing minority groups, notably women, Christians, homosexuals and Shi’a Muslims. Afghanistan continues to further dip into an economic crisis, and eventually 90% of the population will fall below the poverty line. While there could have been solutions, and potential scenarios in which Afghanistan could have become a beacon of democracy like Germany and Japan. What took root instead was corruption, greed and malice, leading the country to slip into complete disarray. The Biden administration ought to learn from the mistakes of the past and present, as countries such as Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, and Egypt continue to backslide, as well as other democracies internationally. However, as Dr. Griffiths points out, when asked if policymakers will learn from their mistakes, “I do not believe that we will learn from this mistake, and it will live with us for the extended future.”

Note from the writer:

I would like to extend my personal gratitude to Dr. McCage Griffiths for the opportunity to inquire into his opinions on the Afghanistan crisis, and for his expertise on American National Security Policy. This article would have not been possible without his contributions, thank you again Dr. Griffiths!