August 15th marked the one-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul. Coincidentally, the day after the fall, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan released a report of lessons learned from the twenty-year Afghan conflict. A recent Washington Post article reminded us of what it said, and what we should have learned.
The report detailed the cost of the effort: $145B in reconstruction, $837B in warfighting, 3587 US and allied troops lost, at least 66,000 Afghan troops lost, and tens-of-thousands of civilian lives. The report cites several failures: incoherent strategy, unrealistic expectations, lack of patience, insufficient monitoring, contradictory goals. The Post article goes on to quote Carter Malkasian, a civilian military advisor who offered what some might call a more substantive reason: “The Taliban exemplified something that inspired, something that made them powerful in battle, something closely tied to what it meant to be Afghan… Aligned with foreign occupiers, the government mustered no similar inspiration.” The article also quotes General David Petraeus, who wrote that the “foundational mistake” was a “lack of commitment” by the US.
While all of these may be true, they are mere symptoms of the problem. Why was the strategy incoherent? Why were the expectations unrealistic? How much more patience would have been needed? Why did the people identify with the Taliban instead of the government? Twenty years was a lack of commitment? In my book, World Leadership, I explain the real reason the effort failed. Afghanistan is a chiefdom/fiefdom. The correct move would have been to reinstate the monarchy. Instead, it tried to become a republic, for which it was not well-positioned. It could not be positioned for it for generations. Had the monarchy been restored back in 2001, Afghanistan could well be a constitutional monarchy today (a la Great Britain).
It is sad that the official book of lessons does not contain the greatest lesson that should have been learned: that societies lie along a spectrum of development, and one needs to consider this in planning. Until we get this simple, basic lesson, we are vulnerable to repeat this same mistake in the future.
Source:
Fareed Zakaria, “Kabul Fell One Year Ago. Here Are Lessons We Should Learn,” Washington Post, 14 August 2022, A25; see also https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/afghanistan-war-failures/
Photo: Zabi Karimi (AP)
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