Afghanistan is the latest example of why the US needs clear policy goals
For over a decade, US presidents have been vowing to end “forever wars,” especially by at last completely withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan. Joe Biden has finally taken the plunge – the remaining 2,500 US troops in the country will be removed by the symbolically resonant date of September 11. This is obviously a US defeat, but of what kind exactly is ambiguous because the overriding US policy was never clearly defined.
This war, which began as a striking success but degenerated into an interminable debacle, reveals what has gone wrong with American national security policy-making. Unlike the US invasion of Iraq, the Afghan war was necessary. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US by Al Qaeda, a military response was imperative. No self-respecting power could allow such a deadly threat to operate with impunity. Consequently, the Afghanistan mission was non-controversial when it began, as opposed to the invasion of Iraq.
Yet time and again, even when there is a consensus for a major American foreign policy initiative, there is a lack of agreement about the goal. It is then often impossible to measure its progress, not only “objectively” but on its own terms, simply because aims are not defined. Any policy initiative that lacks clear goals, which can therefore be subjected to a systematic measure of success or failure, is destined to fail. Short of an implausible victory, it cannot succeed because Washington does not agree on what would constitute success.
This was true of the Iraq invasion, but it became increasingly true in Afghanistan as well. The initial US thrust into Afghanistan, led at first by the CIA and other irregular forces, in conjunction with anti-Taliban Afghan groups, was remarkably successful. Within a few weeks the Taliban were negotiating the terms of a de facto surrender. That is when the policy lost its initial coherence. It made sense for the US to act forcefully in Afghanistan to eliminate the threat of Al Qaeda and deliver the Taliban such a blow that the organisation would never again harbour anti-American international terrorists. But having achieved that, the US abandoned this clear, limited and achievable aim in favour of a quixotic effort to reshape Afghani governance.
Over the next two decades, Washington attempted to build a new, centralised state based in Kabul that corresponded to American ideas of how Afghanistan ought to be governed. But this had nothing to do with what is possible and what makes sense for the people of Afghanistan. Worse, there was never any honest debate about why the US would seek, in effect, to rule Afghanistan from the other side of the world. Why would any American cherish such an ambition? And why would any Afghan be tempted to embrace such a project, other than for immediate self-interest?
The state-building agenda in Afghanistan was irrational, insofar as it offered few, if any, major strategic benefits. And it never stood any chance of success. The tragedy is that Washington could have secured favourable terms with the Taliban and other Afghan forces at that time and at a low cost regarding the issue of international terrorism and other limited and focused demands.
Yet US policy has consistently eroded Washington’s ability to secure such terms. The US is leaving Afghanistan without real commitments by the Taliban. It is a sorry tale that will end in an ignominious strategic defeat. Mr Biden is probably doing the right thing, because after so many blunders, there is likely no cost-effective way to salvage US policy in Afghanistan. Better, as in the case of Vietnam, to accept reality: that a conceptually flawed project, which could never succeed, has inevitably failed.
The biggest tragedy for Americans is not that what amounts to a Taliban victory in Afghanistan means that country will again become a major hotbed of anti-American terrorism. It probably won’t. It is that the lessons of this fiasco will almost certainly remain unlearnt. As with so many other post-Cold War policy failures, this again illustrates that Americans need focused and limited goals, to which they need to apply precise leverage, pressure and, if necessary, force required to achieve them – but no more.
The last time a major US success like that occurred was in Kuwait in 1991. Though it was not immediately obvious, what had been a relative US foreign policy consensus collapsed along with the Soviet Union, not long after the USSR’s own Afghanistan fiasco.
What is needed is the kind of honest, serious policy conversation that is not rewarded in the American system, and which instead mostly incentivises the avoidance of blame which then hinders bold decision-making.
Most of all, it would require something that may not be possible: the restoration of a shared American vision. But even without that, major policies must have reasonable and shared aims. They are not a guarantee of success. But without them, failure is virtually certain.
This war began as a success but became a debacle. It shows what went wrong with US security policy-making