Since then I've read and listened to a fair amount of articles and podcasts. I haven't gotten much better informed, but at least I've learned to appreciate the complexity of the situation. And to marvel at how opinions of well-informed people can be so starkly different. The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that the execution of the withdrawal has been an unmitigated disaster surpassing the worst expectations (Biden said there won't be pictures like that of the helicopters rescuing Americans from the top of the US Embassy in Saigon - he was absolutely right, seeing Afghans trying to hold on to the wheels of American airplanes taking off, then falling to their death is even worse). Beyond that, half of the people I usually listen to say that regardless of the blunder, Biden made the right decision, and the other half claims that it was both stupid and immoral. I could rarely notice even the trace of doubt from either side. It's worth emphasizing that I'm referring to very intelligent and well-intentioned people, who do journalism for a living, not right-wing assholes or woke idiots. Everyone seems lost in the whirlwind of information, instinctively groping for their favorite tropes to find a vantage point.
As for my current vantage point, I can accept a wide range of opinions barring "the Americans should not have forced their culture on the Afghans" or "it is their (the Afghans) decision how to live, who are we to say that our ideology is better than the Taliban's" - which is exactly what I was told just a couple of days ago. Sure. So there are gay people in the world who prefer to be killed on sight. Our gays are just brainwashed by our Western liberal culture to think that staying alive is better. The same goes for atheists (or just secular-leaning people), or women who want education, or Muslims who have a different interpretation of the holy scripts. Stoning, burning, chopping off limbs for petty crimes are wrong only by our measures. Seriously, how braindead people can be? (the answer is: quite, see anti-vaxxers).
Ranting is over, back to the big picture. I decided that instead of giving an opinion, I try to collect the questions I think one should ask before forming one. I came up with the following list:
- If we accept both that the Americans had reason to go to Afghanistan and that they should have left already, then when would it have been a better time to leave?
- If the war was a failure, what objectives have the Americans failed to achieve?
- How much responsibility do the Afghans bear for the failure?
- What have the Afghans gained and lost in the past twenty years?
- What is changing actually? How much of the country was under American control and how much of it will the Taliban take over?
- How much did it cost for the US in money, energy, political capital, military resources to uphold the Afghan state?
- How much will the withdrawal cost in intelligence, global prestige, counter-terrorism efforts for the US?
- What will be the effects on America's enemies and allies?
- What will be the effects on the people of Afghanistan?
- How will the answers to these questions change in 5, 10, 20 years' time?
- Could have the withdrawal been done sensibly?
Along these lines, here is what I think now.
Objectives and results
The Afghanistan war started as America's retaliation against Al-Queda for 9/11. The US aim was to kill Bin Laden and destroy his terror organization and prevent further attacks on American soil. Al-Qaeda resided at that time in Afghanistan in the terrorist haven of the Taliban (the relationship between them and their hosts wasn't frictionless, but the Talibs hated America much more than they would have been willing to hand over Bin Laden). Contrary to the public image of a war-mongering, imperialistic US trampling over international laws, the invasion enjoyed unanimous international and domestic support across the whole political spectrum. For the first time in its history, NATO invoked its fifth article, declaring that the attack on America was an attack on the whole alliance.
Toppling a regime of a Third World country was not a challenge for the world's sole superpower, and the US had the resources and resolve to hunt down its targets. But had the Americans left right after achieving that, the terrorist groups would have simply re-organized, and the Taliban would have returned. So they had to stay and try to prevent it from happening. Thus, in the following years, the US half-heartedly committed itself to a second objective, namely building up a democratic Afghan state as a bulwark against extremism. After twenty years, both objectives can be deemed as failures. Al-Qaeda is not rooted out, the Taliban controls more territories than before the invasion, and the withdrawal immediately pulled the plug on the incredibly corrupt and incompetent Afghan state. It looks all but certain that the Taliban will take over completely, and whatever advances the Afghans have made in human rights and freedom will be reversed.
However. Even if the Afghan democracy lasted only twenty years, and it was miserable by Western standards (and often disappointing for their own citizens), it still meant that a generation grew up where girls could go to school, women could take a role in public life, boys could play football or watch TV, theaters opened, people could live their lives free of religious fanatics.
Just to quantify a few achievements:
- Consumption of electricity rose tenfold.
- The infant mortality rate fell from 145 per 1,000 to 104 per 1,000
- Life expectancy for women rose from 45.5 years in 2001 to 54.4 years in 2019
- The literacy rate for women rose by 300 percent
This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not nothing, this is actually amazing. This is something everyone should cherish who gives a damn about other people.
At what costs was this all possible? Calling Afghanistan a "forever war" was a catchy and misleading political slogan. From the US point of view, it has hardly qualified as a war at all. The number of US troops on Afghan soil had been decreasing for years. In September 2017, the number was 14,000. At the start of the Biden administration, 2,500. The American casualties in the last two and the half years were 24 soldiers. 24. Just for comparison, 58,000 US soldiers fell in Vietnam. In Germany today, 34,000 US soldiers are stationed. In Japan, 55,0000.
The brunt of the sacrifices fell on Afghan soldiers, among them around 60-75,000 died in the last twenty years, fighting against the Taliban. The number of civilian casualties is comparable.
Can we say that the achievements above compensate for the 120,000 deaths? I really don't know, no one does, it's just not computable.
Was it worth it for the US? The war cost around 2 trillion dollars. This is a far greater amount than one could comprehend, so let's not try to calculate how many ICUs could have been built from it. Money on this scale doesn't work like this, anyway. It also cost around 6-7000 American lives. Was it worth it? I don't know.
The costs of leaving
I remember that shortly after 9/11, the most often heard wisdom from the experts was that the next attack is not an "if", but a "when". And yet, 20 years passed and no serious terrorist attack took place on US soil. Would it have been different if not for invasion? I don't know, but I find it likely.
Now the US completely loses the intelligence network it has built up in the past twenty years and also its ability to act on the ground. How much will it cost in money and lives to prevent another 9/11, continuously, with no end?
Dismantling everything they built there and not leaving even a single base where they could operate from seems just a bad decision regardless of the time horizon.
The effects on allies and enemies
It's good to remember, that the Afghanistan invasion and war weren't a US operation. It was a NATO operation. The American unilaterally pulling the plug on it won't foster trust and goodwill in the future among their allies. And what do the Taiwanese think now? Or Japan or South Korea or Ukraine or the Baltic states?
As for the enemies, China, Russia, or Iran just can't stop gloating over the American humiliation. But under the surface, things are less clear. Are they really happy to see the US beaten, or would have rather seen it staying mired in the Middle East with no end? Does China feel emboldened now (vis-à-vis Taiwan), or rather worried that America will turn its focus fully on her? Afghanistan's Muslim neighbors sound jubilant now, but I've just listened to a Pakistani journalist, who said that under that unified facade they are less than joyous, because contrary to how ignorant Westerners think, it's not all tolerance and camaraderie in Muslim-land.
Could the withdrawal have been done better?
The answer is undoubtedly an emphatic yes. The evacuation has been a horrific blunder. Thousands of Afghans who worked with the Americans are desperately trying to get out of the country under the threat of imminent execution. Seemingly everything that could have gone wrong, did.
On the other hand, the Biden administration had a very bad hand to play with. The speed of the collapse took them as a surprise, for which the blame is squarely on them. They should also have prepared for the worst scenario much better. Yet, what would have been the effect of them saying a month ago: "Guys, we are off in 4 weeks, and your corrupt, incompetent government will be the first to throw in the towel, so get out of the country right now while you can, because you won't believe the shitstorm that's coming" ? What would that have led to?
So it could have been done much better. But not very well.
Summary
To finish with a banality, this is complicated - even if too many seem to think it's dead simple. For me, the only honest attitude seems something like "This is hard. I am for/against the withdrawal, but I accept that the other side can pose legitimate questions I just don't have the answers for". Biden's decision - which I still think was a bad one - will have long-lasting consequences on counter-terrorism, geopolitics, regional politics, American domestic politics, human rights, and a bunch of other things. It will change some for the better, some for the worse, and some better in 2 years and worse in 10. As the Zen master Gust Avrakotos said, "we'll see".
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