In a press conference during his visit to the United Kingdom President Trump said something that was, at the very least, provocative. Alex Gangitano reports at The Hill:
President Trump said he is aiming to regain control of Bagram Air Base, which has been under Taliban control since U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
“We gave it to them for nothing. We’re trying to get it back, by the way. That could be a little breaking news, we’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump said Thursday of the base.
“We want that base back but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he added.
I think this is an excellent example of how just because something your predecessor did was stupid does not necessarily mean that doing the opposite is smart.
Bagram Air Base, built by the Soviets, came under the control of the U. S. in 2001 during the U. S. invasion of Afghanistan. The U. S. held it until President Biden withdrew U. S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021.
My own view is that invading Afghanistan was stupid (a punitive action would have been smart) so occupation of Bagram was stupid. That didn’t make President Biden’s withdrawal smart. The invasion of Afghanistan was already a sunk cost by that time as, arguably, were the ongoing costs of the continued occupation. Withdrawal was stupid—it threw away any benefits realized by the invasion and occupation including improvements in the education of Afghan women for no apparent strategic purpose.
Why would U. S. reoccupation of Bagram (assuming the Taliban approves of such a thing) be smart? It would not only be a foothold; it would be a target.
There is a reference to Greek mythology which describes it neatly: piling Pelion on Ossa meaning performing a difficult and, ultimately, futile task. Does President Trump actually believe we could reoccupy Bagram at a low cost and without ongoing daily danger to our troops? Does he not think that the Chinese would find it provocative?
Our panicked leaving of Afghanistan was an extreme embarrassment. But that war was irretrievably lost, and any attempt to prolong our stay would have resulted in the actual defeat and possible capture and destruction of our forces in country. An American Dien Bien Phu was awaiting us.
Trump’s lunatic demand that Afghanistan surrender a significant part of its sovereign territory to the US has received the contemptuous response it deserved. But the mere statement of the demand has reinforced the perception that Washington is Bedlam in the extreme. We are being driven to some sort of World-Historic calamity.
Dave Schuler: I think this is an excellent example of how just because something your predecessor did was stupid does not necessarily mean that doing the opposite is smart.
? Who was that predecessor to Trump that agreed to withdraw and surrender Bagram to the Afghans?
The U. S. left Bagram during Joe Biden’s presidency. The Afghans looted it soon after that. If you have information to the contrary, I would welcome it.
We needed to leave. We were losing lives and spending money with no possibility of improving Afghanistan. Towards that end Trump negotiated a withdrawal. Details below. Trump released 5,000 Taliban and our troop levels were down to 2500. He set the withdrawal date in May. To be fair to Trump the Taliban largely, not entirely, honored its commitments during the withdrawal. It wasn’t the Taliban that attacked in Kabul.
Biden delayed the withdrawal. Should/could he have reneged on the deal? I think we needed to leave and you haven’t offered a good reason to stay. By the time Biden took office we were down to 2500 troops anyway so not in the best negotiating position. Could the withdrawal have gone better? Maybe, but note that many/most analysts expected it to be ugly and it’s specifically why Trump negotiated a date for after he was out of office.
“The blame game has begun over who lost Afghanistan.
The fact is, President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, were both eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end what Biden referred to in his Aug. 16 speech as “America’s longest war.”
The Trump administration in February 2020 negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government, freed 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers and set a date certain of May 1, 2021, for the final withdrawal.
And the Trump administration kept to the pact, reducing U.S. troop levels from about 13,000 to 2,500, even though the Taliban continued to attack Afghan government forces and welcomed al-Qaeda terrorists into the Taliban leadership.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/
Steve
Dave Schuler: The U. S. left Bagram during Joe Biden’s presidency.
That wasn’t the question.
You changed the subject. I returned to the subject.
I think that invading Afghanistan was stupid, I think that agreeing to leave Afghanistan was stupid, and I think that leaving Afghanistan was stupid, particularly in the manner in which we left it.
I’ve been to Afghanistan and Bagram. Afghanistan was my focus area for most of a decade as an intel analyst.
The whole idea of getting Bagram back is dumb – really, really dumb. It’s hard to understate how dumb an idea it is.
Let’s assume the Taliban would allow that (they won’t). Bases need supply and the ability to resupply. Before the withdrawal, supplies came either through our frenemy Pakistan, or via the “Stans” and Russia. So we get Bagram back, then what? How do you supply the base? Which of our enemies/frenemies are we going to entrust with a supply line? Theoretically, you could supply by air at a huge expense, utilizing a non-trivial part of US air mobility assets, which would come with massive tradeoffs and risks. But even that assumes those same enemy/frenemy countries will allow our military aircraft passage through their airspace. For what purpose exactly? Bagram, as an island in a hostile country that is landlocked by other hostile countries, is not any kind of strategic or tactical asset – it’s a massive strategic liability.
As for who gets the “blame” for the Afghan withdrawal debacle, that’s entirely on the Biden administration. I get that a lot of people want to transfer it all to Trump, but all those arguments are specious. Biden wanted withdrawal, just like most Americans. He set the date for withdrawal, had withdrawal plans in place, and implemented them. The problem was that the Biden administration failed to see what open source analysts saw, which was the rapid collapse of the Afghan military that would lead to the rapid collapse of the government. They didn’t adjust the plan and ignored those developments until far too late, and was still acting as if the government would still be around for many months at least. So there was no sense of urgency in getting our allies out or in preparing for an immediate departure. They did not foresee rapid collapse as a possibility, did not adequately plan for that contingency, and so had to execute an ad hoc NEO from a postage stamp of an undefendable airbase with the Taliban providing perimeter security. As an emergency withdrawal, it was a success but came at the cost of the lives of several US personnel and probably thousands of allies who were hunted and killed by the Taliban. It could have been a repeat of Elphinstone’s disaster, but we were lucky the Taliban mostly played nice.
Andy- The actual timeline was Trump agreeing to withdraw and Trump drawing down to 2500 troops after releasing 5000 Taliban. Biden oversaw the actual withdrawal. I thinks its a joint responsibility. We needed to leave sometime since we weren’t accomplishing anything. They should both get credit and fault for that decision. I dont know how much say Biden had in the actual mechanics.
Query- Since you know Bagram how many troops would you estimate you would need to keep it secure? The numbers i have seen tossed around on the milblogs seem to run from 1k-2k, but that was with an agreement in effect with the Taliban.
Query #2- Did any analyst believe we could withdraw with no casualties?
Steve
Agreed. I think it’s a joint responsibility that goes all the way back to GWB. Maybe even to Bush I.
Doesn’t the argument you’re making apply to the Middle East, generally? We’re taking casualties albeit at a low level and not accomplishing anything.
“The actual timeline was Trump agreeing to withdraw and Trump drawing down to 2500 troops after releasing 5000 Taliban. Biden oversaw the actual withdrawal. ”
It was the actual withdrawal that went sideways – the part that Biden was wholly in charge of and began and ended entirely on Biden’s watch.
“I thinks its a joint responsibility. We needed to leave sometime since we weren’t accomplishing anything. They should both get credit and fault for that decision.”
There are two different things – one is the political decision to end our involvement in Afghanistan. I agree that both get credit for that political decision.
However, political decisions must be operationalized and implemented. That happened under Biden. Biden extended the withdrawal timeline – a decision made entirely without Trump – so that his administration could implement a phased withdrawal. The Biden administration planned the withdrawal consistent with the timetable the administration set. As noted, the Biden administration failed to plan for a worst-case scenario, failed to see what was happening on the ground in time, and failed to act in a timely manner when their plan went sideways.
Consider this analogy. Let’s say you’re a heart surgeon and you determine a patient needs heart surgery and get them on the schedule. However, you retire and another heart surgeon takes over and also agrees that the patient needs heart surgery, and plans how the surgery will be performed and does the surgery. The heart surgery happens, but something goes wrong during the surgery, and the patient dies. Are both doctors at fault for their mutual decision that heart surgery was necessary? Or is the doctor who performed the surgery, who didn’t adequately prepare for it, the one at fault? Can you blame the first doctor for the surgery going badly?
Several prominent analysts and experts had predicted or cautioned that removing enablers and a total withdrawal could lead to a rapid collapse of the ASF and the government, and they proved to be right. This makes it all the more damning that the Biden administration did not adequately anticipate, prepare for, and respond when that eventuality happened.
“Query- Since you know Bagram how many troops would you estimate you would need to keep it secure? The numbers i have seen tossed around on the milblogs seem to run from 1k-2k, but that was with an agreement in effect with the Taliban. ”
Bagram is a huge base with an 11-mile perimeter. The number needed would depend on a lot of different factors, and one of the most important is who is controlling the area outside of the base. During the height of the surge, there were about 1k dedicated to base defense, but there were also contractors and a sizable force of Afghans who provided security.
If you compare that to forces flowed into Kabul Airport to protect it during withdrawal, that was about 6k troops for a 3 to 4 mile perimeter. So, suffice it to say, the force required depends entirely on the security situation and the friendliness, cooperation, and capabilities of the host government.
“Query #2- Did any analyst believe we could withdraw with no casualties? ”
There is always the potential for casualties. Predicting casualties really depends on how one thinks an operation will go. Had the withdrawal gone as the administration hoped, there likely would have been no US casualties.
Since you used the heart surgery analogy, what happens all too often is that the chair of CT surgery agrees to do surgery to a marginal pt that we think has a high risk of death. He then assigns the case to another surgeon so that he, the chair, can avoid a death going on to his statistics. I lived through a period like that for about 5 years and it was hell in the ICU as they dont die in the OR all that often but rather have a prolonged ICU course before dying. There is actually a small body of literature on this phenomenon. Fortunately, we go rid of that chair and the one I worked with for the last 10 years before I retired was more likely to take on the difficult cases himself.
In theory the second surgeon has the option to refuse to do the case but if they refuse they anger the family who has been promised surgery by the first surgeon and they risk getting fired by the chair if they refuse. This is made worse by many surgeons thinking they are more skilled than they really are. It’s further complicated knowing that the option of not doing surgery usually also meant a bad outcome for the pt.
Steve
Andy: Consider this analogy. Let’s say you’re a heart surgeon
Steve best responded to this, but to follow your analogy, the first surgeon committed to the surgery, started the surgery, then left the patient with his chest cracked open for someone else without bothering to brief the new surgeon, who had no choice but to complete the surgery. Certainly, the new surgeon can be judged on what he did based on what he was presented with, but nothing was going to prevent the collapse of Afghanistan after the American withdrawal. As Nixon would say, “I look at the tide of history out there —
South VietnamAfghanistan probably can never even survive anyway.”ETA: The only other option was a permanent military commitment, but try to sell that to the American public after twenty years, especially after the Iraq debacle.
” but to follow your analogy, the first surgeon committed to the surgery, started the surgery, then left the patient with his chest cracked open for someone else without bothering to brief the new surgeon, who had no choice but to complete the surgery.”
I think that’s not an accurate extension of the analogy. The first surgeon committed to the surgery. The second surgeon delayed the surgery and developed the surgical plan and did the actual surgery.
“Certainly, the new surgeon can be judged on what he did based on what he was presented with, but nothing was going to prevent the collapse of Afghanistan after the American withdrawal. ”
Then why didn’t the Biden admin plan and prepare for that, if it was so obvious? Why was the Biden administration caught so flat-footed when the situation went south?
What, exactly, about Trump’s initial commitment to withdraw was bad, and what do you specifically think would have been better?
Andy: The first surgeon committed to the surgery. The second surgeon delayed the surgery and developed the surgical plan and did the actual surgery.
The first surgeon reduced American forces from 13,000 to 2,500. The surgery was already well underway when the second surgeon took over, without even being briefed.
Andy: Then why didn’t the Biden admin plan and prepare for that, if it was so obvious?
They made bad decisions about a bad situation.
Andy: What, exactly, about Trump’s initial commitment to withdraw was bad, and what do you specifically think would have been better?
The withdrawal should not have crossed administrations. Once committed, Trump should have completed the withdrawal. The better military option was to maintain a presence. but that would not have been politically viable. Of course, the best option would have been to not to try to dictate ongoing political events in Afghanistan, while avoiding Iraq entirely. And that would have been politically viable.
“The withdrawal should not have crossed administrations. Once committed, Trump should have completed the withdrawal.”
As January 6th shows, Trump was not planning on losing and handing this off. Regardless, this point is also irrelevant. The failures in the execution of the withdrawal were not due to administration turnover.
“The first surgeon reduced American forces from 13,000 to 2,500.”
The troop numbers at the beginning of Biden’s term are irrelevant to the failures of planning and execution that happened months later. As it stands, the facts are that the Biden administration planned and executed the withdrawal, had full authority to do so, including temporarily increasing the 2,500 number if needed. They exercised this authority by unilaterally extending the withdrawal date and implementing a phased plan. It was this plan that the Biden administration approved and executed, which failed to adapt to a predicted scenario with observable indicators that were observed, that resulted in the debacle. Biden’s plan, Biden’s execution, Biden’s responsibility. Trump’s drawdown from his “mini surge” numbers to 2,500 (and that number does not include NATO allies and contractors, many thousands more), did not factor into that failure.
“The better military option was to maintain a presence. ”
Ok, so that’s a vote for forever war in Afghanistan. I mean, I think that’s a legitimate view with a lot of merit, but that’s not where the American public was, and it wasn’t where Trump or Biden was. And the Taliban made clear they would restart the conflict against coalition forces in earnest. So that’s a plan for a slow bleed of blood and treasure – for what purpose?
“Of course, the best option would have been to not to try to dictate ongoing political events in Afghanistan, while avoiding Iraq entirely. ”
Nation-building was clearly a mistake. I knew Afghanistan was a lost cause as early as 2007 and knew the “surge” under Obama would fail, as would all future efforts to turn Afghanistan into a functioning nation-state.
But one must understand that not attempting to dictate political events in Afghanistan in the early years would have resulted in the return of the warlords, which were a big factor giving rise to the Taliban in the first place. The appeal of a third choice that wasn’t either the warlords or the Taliban was hard to resist. My view is that Afghanistan should have been a short-term punitive expedition, and then put Pakistan on the hook for managing things from there.
Andy: The failures in the execution of the withdrawal were not due to administration turnover.
“Certainly, the new surgeon can be judged on what he did based on what he was presented with” and “They made bad decisions about a bad situation.”
Andy: The troop numbers at the beginning of Biden’s term are irrelevant to the failures of planning and execution that happened months later.
But they are relevant to your own analogy. Contrary to the above, the first surgeon made the binding commitment and had already started the surgery.
Andy: I knew Afghanistan was a lost cause as early as 2007
It was a mistake from the get-go. Great militaries are agile: The Romans had roads; the British the sea; the Americans the air. They could attack when they wanted where they wanted. The initial toppling of the Taliban illustrated this well. The continued occupation illustrated the contrary. A committed adversary, especially within their own country will learn from exposure the weaknesses of the great power, while sapping their resources.
I think the withdrawal was a debacle, but with the senior military staff, it was inevitable. They were dragging their feet, and had no plans to withdraw or a withdrawal.
We needed to get out, period. He still had the balls to demand we withdraw. Trump was supposed to do it. Obama was supposed to do it.
(Obama did get us out of Iraq, but the withdrawal was pre-Trump. The Republicans were still war-mongers, and now, the tables have turned. I guess having a long memory has become gauche.)
“Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss”
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Andy- Your working assumption seems to be that the Taliban, having negotiated a deal and date, would have willingly accepted any new terms we dictated when Biden took office. I find that pretty unlikely but if I am interpreting you correctly you seem to think we could have done so at no cost. If Biden just started ordering more troops back I dont think I see them honoring their deal either. Looking at concurrent statements from the Taliban it looks like they were prepared to attack if we extended past August.
Steve
Zachriel:
“But they are relevant to your own analogy. Contrary to the above, the first surgeon made the binding commitment and had already started the surgery.”
The analogy has obvious limitations as a method of comparison. You’re attacking the analogy and not the core point. And the commitment wasn’t binding, Biden could have reneged on it and gone back to the status quo ante. I also previously pointed out that Biden extended the date. He didn’t back out because he wanted to get out of Afghanistan more than most in the beltway, and did not want to repeat what he saw (correctly) as the major mistakes of the Obama admin.
You don’t offer an alternative to withdrawal, or explain why anything Trump actually did resulted in Biden’s material errors in implementation, which I’ve pointed out several times now.
Steve:
“Andy- Your working assumption seems to be that the Taliban, having negotiated a deal and date, would have willingly accepted any new terms we dictated when Biden took office. ”
That’s not my assumption at all. However, it’s an irrelevant point in light of the mistakes the Biden administration made that I previously pointed out, which you and Zachriel continue to ignore.
The Truce with the Taliban was always going to have an expiration date. And – we were lucky on this – the Taliban did hold to their end and did not attack US forces during the drawdown, or when we were vulnerable at Kabul airport. Not sure what you think would have been preferable and achievable. The most likely alternative would have been Trump kicking the can and doing nothing, with no truce and a lot more troops in Afghanistan.
Tasty:
“I think the withdrawal was a debacle, but with the senior military staff, it was inevitable. They were dragging their feet, and had no plans to withdraw or a withdrawal.”
I think there is something to that. There’s been a lot of finger-pointing between State, DoD, and the IC regarding the failures I previously mentioned. We’ll never know the reality because this is a failure that no one wants to examine or learn lessons from.
Andy: The analogy has obvious limitations as a method of comparison.
All analogies have limitations. However, your analogy was just wrong. The operation was committed and already started when the second surgeon took over.
Andy: And the commitment wasn’t binding, Biden could have reneged on it and gone back to the status quo ante.
Committing to withdrawal set in motion changes in Afghanistan that couldn’t easily be undone. The Taliban had already begun to roll up the demoralized Afghan government forces across the country, while Afghans were making decisions about the aftermath of the withdrawal, most (including those in the military) trying to work out accommodation with the insurgents. That’s why the ending was inevitably precipitous. Furthermore, the Taliban would certainly have begun to attack U.S. forces again.
Andy: You don’t offer an alternative to withdrawal
Indeed, we suggested staying to continue air support for Afghan government forces, but that wasn’t possible after Trump agreed to withdraw.
Andy: However, it’s an irrelevant point in light of the mistakes the Biden administration made that I previously pointed out, which you and Zachriel continue to ignore.
Gee whiz. Said it thrice now: “They made bad {tactical} decisions about a bad {strategic} situation.”
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ETA: Disagreement doesn’t not imply disrespect.