The Atlantic Council open letter of August 6 (since removed) regarding the situation in Afghanistan at that moment was extremely useful. It lays out what the foreign policy establishment believes should happen now that the current regime in Kabul seems on the verge of collapse. Their primary and most immediate suggestion was to step up the bombing campaign which has been ongoing for almost twenty years “we recommend a course correction involving redoubled efforts to support the Afghan security forces—particularly through airpower” There are a number of problems with this suggestion. First, obviously if it hasn’t worked for twenty years (much longer if we include Soviet efforts) why do they think it will work now? Second, since the Taliban are now inside many cities bombing them will inevitably lead to large number of civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure. Thirdly, with no airbases located anywhere near Afghanistan, the cost of sustaining such an effort, both in terms of actual expenditures and burning out of aircrews and machinery will be immense and frankly not sustainable. Fourth, the vast distances restrict the types of airpower that can be brought to bear as only long-range platforms can be (and are currently) used such as B-52 heavy bombers. Use of these massive weapons in this situation risks creating war crimes.
The article notes that “In consistently failing to engage the Afghan government in good-faith negotiations, the Taliban has signaled that it is going for all-out victory.“ Which was exactly what the US and the Kabul government were trying to achieve until they finally realized they couldn’t. The paper reports “Meanwhile, consistent polling over many years suggests that large numbers of Afghans do not want to live under the Taliban”. What does “large numbers” mean? 100 people? A thousand? And where did the polling take place? I don’t expect the pollsters went from house to house in villages across Afghanistan, but like many other polls the people interviewed were accessible urban dwellers. The article notes with some satisfaction the return of Ismael Khan to rescue the city of Herat not understanding or mentioning that this is not a victory for the Kabul government but a victory for Ismael Khan and a sad return to a country ruled by warlords which will increase as the war continues. In any case with their surrender it’s a moot point.
The article goes on to advise that the US support and build up the Afghan air force. This is truly magical thinking at that point. With the departure of the contractor maintenance workforce, it will only be a matter of weeks if not days before nothing is flying. There is no possibility of maintaining let alone increasing the capability of the Air force without the expatriate workforce and no time to train an indigenous one. One could ask why wasn’t this done over the past twenty years? It certainly won’t happen over the next few weeks!
One of the weakest suggestions is a renewed diplomatic initiative. Getting regional powers such as China, Russia, and Iran to follow our lead in this effort is a forlorn hope, especially as we treat these countries as enemies on so many other fronts. It is likely that they are getting a great deal of schadenfreude from our failure. That is not to say that these countries do not have their own agendas for Afghanistan, they just won’t be ones that we will be comfortable with. NATO allies were only involved in this war because we pushed them to it. Now that the US has withdrawn, they will be even more reluctant to put their hands back into the meatgrinder.
The real motivation for re entering this forever war is made quite explicit in the last paragraph, “But above all, (my emphasis) an ignominious American departure from the country would send a terrible signal to other countries as the United States competes with China and other authoritarian states.” In other words, it would be bad for the United States to lose face. It’s not really about Afghan women and minorities or democracies, we support enough repressive regimes around the world. It’s about us.