Vanquished US has lost face, credibility

The 20-year Afghan war (2001-21) between the US, its allies and the Taliban was the longest in the past two centuries in the landlocked Pashtun-Tajik-Uzbek land, lying at the junction of South Asia, Central Euro-Asia and Arab-land. The three Anglo-Afghan Wars were comparatively of a shorter duration while the fourth war with the Soviets lasted a decade (1979-89).

Understandably, the world faces the post-war trauma of the human catastrophe in Afghanistan, the very name of which makes a majority of the nations wary owing to more of being ‘impression-fed’ and less of dissemination of ‘credible information’. Thus, while most nations had thought war to be a necessity in 2001, few possibly could have had foreseen its consequences. Fewer could possibly have further imagined the cost of war for those wealthy nations who dreamt of a cakewalk in an unforgiving terrain of perennial inaccessibility and formidable logistics.

Today, therefore, is not the day to analyse either the ongoing violence in Kabul or the inevitable parricide in Panjshir because the present wave of chaotic combat is too fast to assess and the scenario too fluid to click. It’s time to ponder the price paid for monumental blunders, catastrophic failures and astronomical fatalities leading to the present plight.

The main actor is the vanquished US which initiated the war. The US has not only been routed and incurred sky-high expenditure, it has also lost face, honour and credibility. The West-led coalition doesn’t have any place to hide because it was a 48-nation force against decentralised units of men hailing from the rural terrain for whom even the best of times were “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. For several hundred years, Afghanistan has been a geography of murderous polity and inter/intra-tribal rivalry. Yet, it’s been a nation with its own honour, self-respect and identity. It’s been a bewildering mixture of pride and prejudice, usually expressing agony and anger, perilously oscillating between civil war and war.

One, therefore, should recall the stark death figures of the 20-year war, through April 2021: 2,448 US and 66,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen; 3,846 US military contractors; 1,144 NATO state soldiers; 47,245 Afghan civilians; 51,191 Taliban and other opposition warriors; 444 aid workers and 72 media men (The Boston Globe, August 17, 2021). It’s further reported that the amount the US has committed to pay for the healthcare, disability, burial and other costs for approximately four million Afghans and other veterans came to $2 trillion. Lesson? The wars end, costs don’t.

Did the US expect the outcome of such battering in 2021 when they landed in Afghanistan, along with British forces for Operation Enduring Freedom to fight the “war on terror”, on Sunday, October 7, 2001? It was a heady start by the US when it received unprecedented international support. On September 12, 2001, the UN Security Council unanimously expressed its unequivocal condemnation of terror attacks and stated its “determination to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts”.

Expectedly thereafter came the logic and justification from the US. In a televised address to the state (and world), President Bush declared the proposed act by the US, formally justifying the plan, referred to as “the exercise of its inherent right of individual and collective defence” in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, “designed to prevent and deter further attacks on the US”. The world virtually unanimously accepted the US justification and logic.

The longest war began with a bang. It has now ended with a whimper as the mighty military of the superpower left the Kabul airport at dead of night without even informing those hosts who belonged to the soil and shed blood, sweat, toils and tears, jointly with the alien Americans even after incurring hostility and the displeasure of their brethren who were vehemently opposed to the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

So, has the longest war ended? Yes, on paper. But a ferocious Afghan civil war looms large. The fault lines of tribal rivalry of Afghans are too deeply embedded to be forgotten or forgiven. All the more as the gun-loving Pashtun-dominated Taliban have got hold of the state armoury owing to the collapse of the Afghan forces and the departure of American soldiers.

How can the Taliban, which fought for 20 long years against its own countrymen, ‘collaborating’ with 48-nation forces on Afghan soil, turn soldiering to sainthood? The Military Balance (2021) figures are revealing. “Afghanistan army’s 171,500 has melted. Its seven corps evaporated (201st, 203rd, 205th, 207th, 209th, 215th, 217th and 111th Capital Division). There were Russian-made 44 T-55/T-62 Main Battle Tanks; 1,013 armoured personnel carriers; 775 towed artillery/mortar; engineering and maintenance vehicles like armoured recovery vehicles/mines”. Plus, there were air-launched missiles; laser-guided bombs; 34 combat capable aircraft; attack/medium range helicopters and transport”. All withered away, only to fall in the hands of the victorious Taliban.

In this situation, which Taliban leader will resist the temptation of not calling a spade a spade to a challenger (legal or otherwise) after having won such a bumper lottery of modern weapons? Also, when the Taliban have the open backing of the Communist Party of China and the Pakistani Army-ISI duo at its disposal, it may be well nigh impossible for the gun-loving leadership not to make its “best use” to give a “finishing” touch to the unfinished mission.

That the West is in disarray is indisputable. Hence, the distraught Tony Blair, the former British premier who partnered with Bush to initiate the October 7, 2001, “war on terror” on Afghan land, today refers to the Biden-led US withdrawal from Kabul as ‘imbecilic’. Blair blurted out: “The world is now uncertain of where the West stands… decision to withdraw driven not by grand strategy but by politics.” Who’s right or wrong, Blair or Biden, only time will tell. But today, the victor, whether one likes it or not, is the terrorist Taliban and the anti-terrorist US-led multi-nation forces is the vanquished.

The international security assistance force, led by the US since 2007, consisted of around 1,31,000 troops from 20 NATO and 28 non-NATO nations (The Military Balance, 2011). Ten years have gone, and yet? All, including the Afghan National Army, trained and equipped by the best of the West, has melted away? Why? The future will reveal this one day surely. As of now, however, it’s the Taliban all over. Though America’s direct role in Afghanistan appears to be over, another new civil war looks likely. Afghanistan’s problems always increase post-war.