At the website of the American Foreign Service Association Ronald E. Neumann discusses why we have so stubbornly refused to learn from our experience with military interventions. The problems have persisted for longer than you might think—170 years, since the Mexican-American War. Here’s his thesis statement:
Iraq and Afghanistan were the latest in a 170-year history of American and State Department failure to figure out how to staff and run State’s part of military interventions. For the curious, I date State’s failure from 1848, when the department could not fill the U.S. Army’s request to send diplomats to help the Army manage civil affairs in conquered Mexican territory. Providing diplomatic personnel remained a problem in the latter half of the 20th century when every administration since President Harry Truman’s had foreign interventions that required diplomatic assistance. Nadia Schadlow has told much of this story in her book, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (Georgetown University Press, 2017).
The staffing problem is an example of the persistent unwillingness to learn from our own past. I have lived some of the latest chapters of this story while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The difficulties in staffing interventions are many, but the underlying issue is that every intervention has been treated as a unique occurrence, often better forgotten than studied. Yet with more than 70 years of repeated military interventions requiring close civil-military operations in the field since the close of World War II, it is plainly unreasonable to assume that “never again†is a sufficient response.
He proposes four reasons:
- Tour lengths that are too short undermine effectiveness
- Confusing policy with implementation
- Intellectual arrogance
- Lack of a mechanism to “surge” staff
For more detail I suggest you go over and read the whole thing—it’s fairly terse. All I can add is that it comports well with my own experience of dealing with the internal workings of government agencies at all levels. I could propose solutions but they would all be pretty unpalatable. The most urgent need is civil service reform.
IMO problems are particularly acute within the foreign service. Their status just isn’t what it used to be. Most large businesses have been making their own foreign policies for decades and that has extended to much smaller businesses. It is not unusual for me to have a meeting that includes people from five timezones and as many countries. Like it or not that is conducting foreign policy.
After Joe Biden, its clear the #2 failure in the Afghanistan debacle is State. State has been a mess forever, as noted. It is clear the military was largely ignored.
The single biggest military error here was shutting down/not utilizing Bagram. That was an Obama/Susan Rice objective for years. Its obvious who Joe Biden is taking his marching orders from. In fact, Brit Hume posted a pre-debacle, but August, memo in which Milley specifically said he was instructed to focus on the embassy, not Bagram. That’s how we got Karzai Airport.
I have not heard one military person interviewed, from special forces operator to retired colonels and generals to the current leadership support the Bagram shutdown. That’s Blinken/State and Rice – maybe Obama himself. Pure arrogance.
Drew knows a lot more about Bagram than I do it seems. Ido know it has been the site of a number of attacks in the past. So the idea being tossed around that it was secure is not really true. It is more than an hour south of Kabul. I have no idea how you would safely transport thousands of people there safely and when you have the same lines being processed how they would not be a target for ISIS-K. I have looked and have not found any explanation about why these would not be problems at Bagram. If anyone has a link feel free to post.
As far as the article goes he has some good points. The constant turnover is a problem I think. State has a lot of internal issues but it also doesnt get funded very well. At heart, I dont think we really believe that much in soft power. Bomb it or kill it some other way, we are good with that. Diplomacy? Not so much.
Steve
Seems to me if we were serious about the effort within 6 months to a year we would not be relying on native translators but would have trained our own.
Seriously, steve. That’s your argument? Its been subject to attacks?
It doesn’t matter what I know. It matters what the almost universal reaction is from people who should know, people who obviously know a lot more than you do. Although I must admit and it clouds the issue that its hard to know what you know or don’t know, given your always and everywhere reflexive drooling fool act for all things Democrat.
Report: White House declined Taliban offer to have U.S. troops
From noted rabid Republican ALLAHPUNDIT Aug 29, 2021
Team Joe will have to answer for this but we can already guess what that answer will be. There was no way logistically to get enough American troops into Kabul quickly enough to secure a city with more than four million people, they’ll say. [Well, if you get caught flat footed and start late]
It wouldn’t have taken many soldiers to provide checkpoints for the roads into Kabul, I assume, but how many would it have taken to keep order on the streets as the city fell into a panic over the impending Taliban takeover? And to process evacuees at the airport? And to conduct counterterrorism ops in Kabul? Even if Biden were willing to commit those troops, how soon could they have been deployed? [Well, if you get caught flat footed and start late]
Was it feasible to secure Kabul temporarily? That’s what strategic planners, notably Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley, will be asked at the upcoming congressional hearings over our great Afghan bugout.
Or maybe this was the most costly example yet of Biden’s refusal to insert more troops into Afghanistan, even if only temporarily to ensure a more orderly withdrawal. He ended up having to do that anyway to secure the airport, an operation that ultimately led to tens of thousands of Afghan friendlies being abandoned because they couldn’t be processed in time. [He ended up having to do that anyway? Ooopsy.]
In a hastily arranged in-person meeting, senior U.S. military leaders in Doha — including McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command — spoke with Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban’s political wing. “We have a problem,†Baradar said, according to the U.S. official. “We have two options to deal with it: You [the United States military] take responsibility for securing Kabul or you have to allow us to do it.â€
Throughout the day, Biden had remained resolute in his decision to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan. The collapse of the Afghan government hadn’t changed his mind. [Way to go, stubborn Joe]
McKenzie, aware of those orders, told Baradar that the U.S. mission was only to evacuate American citizens, Afghan allies and others at risk. The United States, he told Baradar, needed the airport to do that.
On the spot, an understanding was reached, according to two other U.S. officials: The United States could have the airport until Aug. 31. But the Taliban would control the city.
Fast-forward two weeks and here’s the message that’s reportedly being received by some NATO helpers in Kabul, three days before the withdrawal is supposed to conclude:
The Taliban established extra checkpoints around the airport perimeter yesterday, partly to provide extra security against ISIS attacks but party too to seal it off so that no more Afghans could depart. France and the UK are now scrambling to propose a resolution at the UN that would establish a “safe zone†in Kabul to get some of those friendlies out. How they plan to enforce that safe zone if the resolution passes and the Taliban says no is anyone’s guess. But *in theory* all of Kabul would have been a safe zone these past few weeks if Biden had accepted the Taliban’s offer to let U.S./NATO troops secure the city. [Way to go stubborn Joe]
Could the outcome have been different? Those 13 fallen American soldiers might still be alive.
……And what would happen at the airport? With hostilities having resumed, there’d be no reason for the Taliban to let the evacuation continue. They’d attack the airport too.
There was a middle-ground option between having the U.S. secure Kabul and the U.S. pulling back to the airport. We could have let the Taliban secure the city in exchange for reoccupying Bagram and conducting the evacuation from there. It’s a bigger airfield so more people could have been airlifted out and it’s easier to secure than an urban facility like Karzai Airport. …………………
But those 13 dead soldiers might still be alive. And we wouldn’t be playing whack-a-mole with inbound car bombers aiming to kill American troops:
I’ll leave you with NSA Jake Sullivan promising that the effort to evacuate people left behind will go on after August 31 and that we’ll use our “substantial leverage†over the Taliban to make it happen. I assume that’s diplo-speak for “we’ll release the billions of dollars in the Afghan government’s bank accounts to them if they play ball on getting our people out.†There’s also been chatter lately about the U.S. leaving behind a diplomatic presence in Kabul to liaise with the Taliban, although Biden seems disinclined to do that right now. Presumably the idea is to continue chatting with the Taliban behind closed doors and see if they cooperate with us. If so, maybe they get rewarded with an official U.S. envoy. Exit question: Is Biden right when he says that tens of thousands of American troops would have been needed to fight the Taliban if he had canceled Trump’s May 1 deadline for withdrawal? [No. He cancelled it anyway, then didn’t get going on the withdrawal until the last moment, feeling certain all would go well. Did you know Joe is a foreign policy expert? You know, what with having all those years of experience. Yeah, just ask him.] Some estimates are that 3-4,000 Americans could have propped up the Afghan army to continue fighting while evacuations proceeded in a more orderly way.
[At least we haven’t stranded anyone. It would be irresponsible to suggest so. We just left them behind, you see. Way big difference don’t you know…………….Mr. Clinton.]
Offended that I note Bagram has been attacked before? Why is that? Have seen number of critiques about closing Bagram. What I have seen claimed is that it was a secure airfield. Maybe it is when it comes to the airfield, but using that metric so is Kabul. What i have not seen is anyone describing how you would safely get thousands of people to Bagram along a long road (remember IEDs?) and how it would be safer there to protect crowds waiting to get into the airport.
For the third time, I dont have any special knowledge about Bagram. You are the one making claims about it so make your case.
“Is Biden right when he says that tens of thousands of American troops would have been needed to fight the Taliban if he had canceled Trump’s May 1 deadline for withdrawal? [No. He cancelled it anyway”
How do you know this? Trump had negotiated a deal when we had 13,000 troops in country to handle Taliban fighting. They agreed to not attack us and we agreed to leave. We had already removed troops down to 2500 and Poppeo negotiated the release of 5000 Taliban out of jail. What leverage would we have if we wanted to stay? How do we protect with 2500 people what needed 13,000 once the Taliban realizes we arent leaving? Do those 5000 agree to back in jail? Again, you have much more special knowledge than do I so please explain.
Steve
Tactics aside, we’ve lost a long war to a primitive enemy whose main advantage was barbarity.
Afghan soldiers we trained have reported that they dropped their weapons because of Taliban threats against their families. Credible threats.
Is that the end of it? Are they sheep?
That’s up to them.
Americans cannot police our own cities, let alone the cities of Afghanistan.
Nah. Their main advantage is that they planned to stay there. They have all the time in the world.
Credible threats against family is common in Mexico and Latin America as well.
What is your response? Acquiescence?
I would retreat to fortifications along with my family. That’s if I couldn’t catch a plane to the good old USA.
Yes, time.
Sixty minutes interviewed some Taliban about a year ago. The men didn’t even seem sure of who their enemy was this time, war, always war.
I guess the way I would look at it is that we didnt really lose a war. We generally did fine in the fighting part. What we did was fail in our efforts to turn Afghanistan into a functional pro-western nation. We asked our military to do something no one knows how to do. Dave is right that time was on their side. They were perfectly willing to take the billions of dollars we gave them until we realized it wasn’t working and left.
Steve