U.S. Mission creep: 20 years of war in afghanistan

Administrator Post in Uncategorized

Introduction:

Following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush immediately declared his war on terror.  With only nine months of Presidential experience, President Bush was thrown into a difficult situation and faced immense public pressure to respond to the attacks. In several emotional speeches, President Bush stated that “we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”[1] Through the rhetoric of good versus evil and us versus them, President Bush declared; “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”[2] Moreover, “our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”[3] Congress consequently passed a Joint Resolution, authorizing the President’s use of all military force President Bush deemed necessary to combat terrorism.[4] Then, when the Taliban refused to hand over the head of al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, President Bush initiated Operation enduring Freedom to terrorist infrastructure and training camps in Afghanistan.[5] Initially, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was successful; within two months al Qaeda training camps had been severely damaged and the Taliban was in retreat. On 22 December 2001, after a mere 78 days of U.S. intervention, an Afghan interim government had been established.[6]

However, after these initial successes, the Afghan War took a turn for the worse as it gradually became to encompass mission creep;  additional tasks and objectives kept getting added to Afghan War so that eventually the original purpose was lost. As a result, the Afghan War lasted 20 years and became the longest war in American history. In April of 2021, President Joe Biden promised that the exit out of Afghanistan would be “responsibly, deliberately, and safely” conducted, yet in reality, complete and utter chaos erupted as the Taliban took control of the country and Americans had to be evacuated in all haste.[7] The very same Taliban that the U.S. defeated years ago, had been brought back from the dead to regain power over Afghanistan within months. This public humiliation of American military power could very well be regarded as a superpower in rapid decline. The widely regarded U.S. failure in Afghanistan was the result of a complex set of decisions, built upon the legacy of different American Presidents and made by various actors who themselves were part of diverse institutions. The American state has always been part of this world of complex systems with diverse and ever-changing elements; if just a few of these elements would change, it could lead to grand consequences elsewhere.[8] These non-linear relationships within complex systems thus result in the law of unintended consequences: unforeseen outcomes of purposeful action that could be considered positive, negative or perverse depending on the actor(s) under observation.[9] Taking this into account, the aim of this essay is to answer the research question: in what ways has the 20 years of war in Afghanistan provided insights into the challenges, successes, and failures of military interventions? This will be done by taking the legacy and lessons of the Anglo-Afghan Wars and the Soviet War in Afghanistan into account. By looking at the long legacy of foreign intervention in Afghanistan, it becomes easier to trace the same mistakes that have plagued various empires before the U.S.

The Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839-42; 1878-80; 1919)

Afghanistan has been the subject of foreign intervention long before it was an independent country. During the Anglo-Afghan Wars, Great Britain sought to oppose Russian influence in the region in what became known as the Great Game.[10] More than a century before the U.S. invasion in Afghanistan, the British learned that Afghanistan was not to be easily taken and controlled by a foreign empire. At the time, Great Britain was arguably the most powerful nation in the world, yet they vastly underestimated their ability to colonize Afghanistan and impose their will on the Afghan people. During the First Anglo-Afghan War, the British army swiftly secured the country but the Afghan resistance managed to gain the upper hand and the British were forced to retreat from Kabul. This retreat ended in a bloodbath and it is estimated that between 16,000 and 18,5000 British soldiers and camp followers died.[11] The mighty British army had been defeated by poorly equipped tribesmen who knew the harsh terrain of the country and were able to use it to their advantage by surrounding the British army.

Great Britain’s failure to consider the geographical limitations of Afghanistan when undertaking their military campaign, was not their only mistake. The Second Anglo-Afghan War led to a victory for the British but not without concessions in the form of the Treaty of Gandamark (1879), which outlined that the British were in control of Afghanistan’s foreign relations but that the Afghan tribes kept control over local law enforcement.[12] Subsequently, Great Britain attempted to install a puppet on the throne but failed to take the time and effort to properly understand the Afghan people and their culture. Islam had been firmly entrenched in Afghan society for centuries and tribal relations along with the ruling Amirs had been based upon Islam teachings. This included a ruler who was part of the ruling dynasty of the house of Amir Dost Mohammad Khan and who would expel the ‘infidel’ invaders from the country.[13] In their colonial mindset, British officials believed in their own superiority and refused to see that political systems across the globe could be as complex as their own, with their own rules and traditions. In the end, the Afghan people did not accept the rule of a foreign nation over their country and they opposed the British at every turn. As a result, Great Britain was unable to install a functional government in Afghanistan and this only changed in the 1930s when Afghanistan became independent and king Zahir Shah stabilized the country.[14]  

The Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-1989)

The willingness of the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan could only be analyzed through the long-standing Afghan-Soviet relations. When the Soviet Union was still in its infancy, Lenin had already promised king Amanullah military aid. For the next few decades, Soviet aid helped modernize Afghanistan and the Kremlin considered Afghanistan to be firmly within its sphere of influence during the Cold War.[15] The Saur Revolution (1978) during which Muhammad Taraki staged a coup and overthrew Daoud Khan, was regarded as a pleasant surprise by Moscow since Taraki installed a socialist Afghan government and Soviet-Afghan relations flourished.[16] However, the new government “lacked a popular base of support, historical precedent, political legitimacy, and administrative experience.”[17] The Afghan government became depended on the Soviet Union for its survival and quickly fell apart during various uprisings, leading to the assassination of Taraki by Hafizullah Amin who assumed control.[18] Amin was prepared to open Afghan’s foreign relations to Soviet enemies like the United States, which triggered the Soviet fear that Afghanistan would fall to the Americans, thereby wasting all the military and financial investments that the Soviet Union had made to Afghanistan since the 1950s. Ultimately, Brezhnev and a few members of the Politburo decided to invade Afghanistan to “save Afghanistan from being overrun by imperialist-backed counter-revolutionary forces.”[19] The Soviet expectation was that the stabilization of the Afghan government would take six to twelve months, after which small number of troops would be left behind to ensure order.[20] In reality, the war took nine years and became a failure with significant consequences at home; the delegitimization of the Communist Party.[21]

A Major General in the Soviet army, Alexander Lyakhovsky, has stated that the Politburo was warned by the Chief of General Staff to solve the issues in Afghanistan by political instead of military means; “the Afghan people … never tolerated foreigners on their soil.”[22] Despite more warnings along these lines and by relying on faulty intelligence, the Soviet Union pressed on with the invasion and was woefully unprepared for what it found in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union expected an easily won war and to be heralded as liberators.[23] Instead, the Afghan people regarded them as invaders and various independent tribes cooperated in several insurgencies to remove the foreigners. In a 1987 letter to the Minister of Defense, Colonel Tsagolov wrote that morale was low and that the number of desertions was growing.[24] Not only did the war take far longer than originally expected but the Soviet army had fight a counter-revolution despite having no prior experience, especially on a mountainous and other hard to traverse terrains. The Soviet Union kept winning the battles but was losing the war; “Huge material resources and considerable casualties did not produce a positive end result – stabilization of military-political situation in the country. The protracted character of the military struggle and the absence of any serious success, … led to the … mistrust in the abilities of the regime.”[25] Colonel Tsagolov also highlighted that social illusions should be rejected and that the real situation in the country should be taken into account.[26] Trough the lens of the Cold War, the leaders of the Soviet Union were under the delusion that an Islamist, tribal society would grow to accept the socialist way of life, which is evident from the Colonel’s belief that the reason for mistrust in the socialist Afghan government originated from the lack of Soviet military success instead of the attempt of a foreign nation to assume control over their society. When the Soviet Union sought to withdraw from the costly commitment in Afghanistan, the “Afghan comrades” of the government warned the Soviets that they feared that a sudden loss of Soviet military troops would destabilize the country as the Afghan military was not ready to take over.[27] Following a civil war, the Mujahideen guerrillas took over the government in the form of the Taliban in 1996.

The U.S. War in Afghanistan (2001-2021)

Mission creep

While the British Empire and the Soviet Union ultimately failed to keep Afghanistan under their thumb, the Americans believed that they were different. American exceptionalism and Fukuyama’s declaration that the end of history and thus the dawn of democracy had arrived, was paired with the need for revenge after the 9/11 attacks. President Bush acted within a month and it showed; at a time when global support for the U.S. was at an all-time high, this hasty decision to enact revenge had a vast array of unintended consequences. From the onset, as Richard Boucher, the longest-serving Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs admits in an Lessons Learned interview, the U.S. did not know what they were doing.[28] “First we went in to get al-Qaeda… the Taliban was shooting back at us so we started shooting at them and they became the enemy.”[29] Like the Soviet Union, the U.S. expected that the Afghan War would be easy, particularly after the initial success of defeating the Taliban. Boucher mentioned that the U.S. militarization of foreign policy led to a “can-do” and “Mr. Fixit” attitude, which was far too naïve and opportunistic.[30] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote in 2003 to his Under Secretary that he “lacks clarity as to who the enemies are,” a chilling account when one takes all the civilian casualties at the hands of Americans into account, in particular the drone attacks ordered under the Obama Administration.[31]

The Afghan government

In time, the U.S. came to learn that building a democratic, functioning government in a country where there is no legacy of democracy, let alone the institutions necessary, was a task that they were unable to carry out. Again, in the same vein as the British and the Soviets, the Americans failed to take the will, culture and traditions of the Afghan people into account. As the Soviets discovered during the Cold War, the Americans realized that this task could not be accomplished, especially whilst the problem of security has not been adequately dealt with. It did not help that the U.S. was essentially undermining their own effort due to the vast sums of cash that were spent during the initial phase of the war, which ended up in the hands of war lords and was distributed among the war lords friendly to the Afghan government.[32] The Afghan government was never popular among the Afghans, primarily due to their strong resistance of foreign intervention in to their way of life and governance.

Invasion of Iraq

At a time when Rumsfeld was still questioning what the U.S. objectives in Afghanistan were, President Bush had already decided upon his next target in the war on terror. Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction and thus needed to be stopped. While the U.S. was entirely convinced of the President’s statements, they turned out to be false as Iraq did not possess these weapons and the link to al-Qaeda that the President proclaimed was there, was tenuous at best.[33] However, the Iraq war had severe consequences for the War in Afghanistan. Precious resources, be it in the form of financial or military aid, was put into the War in Iraq.[34] As a result, the effort to rebuild Afghanistan in any meaningful way was hindered to such an extent that in some divisions it was basically meaningless. For instance, the project to build roads to major Afghan cities became a complete disaster; with an increase in suicide bombings and road attacks, the U.S. military was attempting to rebuild the roads whilst at the same time trying to counter the attacks of the Taliban, which was growing increasingly stronger the longer the Americans stayed and the higher the number of civilian casualties rose.[35]

Evacuation from Afghanistan

One of the signs of mission creep was the constant promise of American Presidents to leave Afghanistan in the capable hands of the Afghan Security Forces. However, after Presidents Obama and Trump, it was not until President Biden that the Afghan War came to its end. The problem was that, like the Soviet example, the Afghan security forces had never been up to the task of defending the Afghan borders and whilst the unpopular Afghan government pleaded for more time, President Biden admitted defeat and vowed to end the War. Like the Soviet Union, the Americans were completely unprepared for the chaos this statement would produce. The Trump administration had left only a date by which the Americans should get out of Afghanistan; no actual plan was put into place or even in the making. Although President Biden could have at least taken the time to come up with an adequate plan to withdraw, the result was far from ideal. With the Taliban at the time taking over vast swathes of the country, the withdrawal of U.S. troops ended in a hasty evacuation which left at least 800 Americans behind and resulted in the complete collapse of the Afghan government.[36]

Conclusion:

Afghanistan could be considered as the country where empires come to die. The British Empire attempted to control the country and install a puppet regime, but soon learned that the Afghans had their own tribal, traditional way of life rooted in Islam and were strongly resistant of foreign occupation. Like the British, the Soviets soon found that winning the war in a country with a harsh geographical layout proved to be almost impossible. The Afghan political system was far more complex and far more different from the Soviet model than was previously thought and this made it far more difficult to impose a government that would look like the Soviet model itself. The United States, in the same vein, could not grasp the intricacies of Afghan political life and society, nor the threat that they were up against. Like the Soviets, the inability to adequately define what the aim of going to war were, resulted in a mission creep that went on for 20 years longer than it should, begging the question if military intervention was the right way to go.

Bibliography:

Primary sources:

Secondary sources:

  • Antonopoulos, Paul. “The ‘Unconquerable’ Afghanistan: A Place where Empires Come to Die and the ‘Third Great Game’?.” Romanian Review of Eurasian Studies 14 no. 2 (2018): 229-252. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/38877533/The_Unconquerable_Afghanistan_A_Place_where_Empires_Come_to_Die_and_the_Third_Great_Game_.
  • Bailey, Beth and Immerman, Richard H. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, New York: NYU Press, 2015
  • Borer, Douglas A. “Soviet Foreign Policy toward Afghanistan 1919-1988,” Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations & Professional Papers (1988). Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6233&context=etd. 
  • Douglas Kellner, “Bushspeak and the Politics of Lying: Presidential Rhetoric in the “War on Terror,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2007), 622-645.  DOI:10.1111/j.1741-5705.2007.02617.
  • Desiderio, Andrew. “Americans evacuated from Afghanistan since Taliban takeover,” Politico, (14 August 2022). Retrieved from: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/14/afghanistan-800-evacuated-taliban-00051525.
  • Reynolds, Michael A.. “1. The Wars’ Entangled Roots: Regional Realities and Washington’s Vision” In Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ed. Beth Bailey and Richard H. Immerman, 21-53. New York, USA: New York University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479809080.003.0005.
  • Kakar, Mohammad Hassan. A Political and Diplomatic History of Afghanistan, 1863-1901. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
  • Kreps, Sarah E. “6. Afghanistan: The Mission Determines the Coalition,” in Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War. New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • Nandita Bose and Jonathan Landay, “Biden Afghanistan report mostly blames Trump for chaotic US withdrawal,” Reuters (7 April 2023). Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-report-afghanistan-withdrawal-blames-trump-2023-04-06/.
  • Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political land Social Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
  • Robert K. Merton, “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action,” American sociological Review 1 no. 6 (1936): 894-904. Retrieved from: https://users.pfw.edu/dilts/E%20306%20Readings/The%20Unanticipated%20Consequences%20of%20Purposive%20Social%20Action.pdf.
  • Savranskaya, Svetlana. “Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War. The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs.” The National Security Archive (9 October 2001). Retrieved from: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html.
  • Saikal, Amin. “Chapter 6. Islamism, the Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War vol. 3, ed. P. Leffler, Melvin and Westad, Odd Arne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  • SIGAR, “What we need to learn: lessons from twenty years of Afghanistan Reconstruction.” August 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf.
  • Zubok, Vladislav M. “Chapter 5. Soviet Foreign Policy from Détente to Gorbachev, 1975-1985.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War vol. 3, ed. P. Leffler, Melvin and Westad, Odd Arne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[1]President George W. Bush, “Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation,” The White House Archives (11 September 2001). Retrieved from: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html#:~:text=The%20pictures%20of%20airplanes%20flying,failed%3B%20our%20country%20is%20strong.

[2] Douglas Kellner, “Bushspeak and the Politics of Lying: Presidential Rhetoric in the “War on Terror,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2007), 626. DOI:10.1111/j.1741-5705.2007.02617.

President George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” The White House Archive (20 September 2001). Retrieved from: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “107th Congress Public Law 40: Joint Resolution,” U.S. Government Printing Office (18 September 2001). Retrieved from:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/html/PLAW-107publ40.htm.

[5] Michael A. Reynolds, “1. The Wars’ Entangled Roots: Regional Realities and Washington’s Vision” In Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ed. Beth Bailey and Richard H. Immerman (New York, USA: New York University Press, 2015), 45. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479809080.003.0005.

[6] Sarah E. Kreps, “6. Afghanistan: The Mission Determines the Coalition,” in Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War (New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2011), 95.

[7] President Joe Biden, “Remarks by President Biden on the Way Forward in Afghanistan,” The White House Archives (14 April 2021). Retrieved from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/04/14/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-way-forward-in-afghanistan/.

Nandita Bose and Jonathan Landay, “Biden Afghanistan report mostly blames Trump for chaotic US withdrawal,” Reuters (7 April 2023). Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-report-afghanistan-withdrawal-blames-trump-2023-04-06/.

[8] Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political land Social Life, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 6.

[9] Robert K. Merton, “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action,” American sociological Review 1 no. 6 (1936): 895-898. Retrieved from: https://users.pfw.edu/dilts/E%20306%20Readings/The%20Unanticipated%20Consequences%20of%20Purposive%20Social%20Action.pdf.

[10] Mohammad Hassan Kakar, A Political and Diplomatic History of Afghanistan, 1863-1901 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 223.

[11] Paul Antonopoulos, “The ‘Unconquerable’ Afghanistan: A Place where Empires Come to Die and the ‘Third Great Game’?,” Romanian Review of Eurasian Studies 14 no. 2 (2018): 232. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/38877533/The_Unconquerable_Afghanistan_A_Place_where_Empires_Come_to_Die_and_the_Third_Great_Game_.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Mohammad Hassan Kakar, A Political and Diplomatic History of Afghanistan, 1863-1901 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 218.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Douglas A. Borer, “Soviet Foreign Policy toward Afghanistan 1919-1988,” Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations & Professional Papers (1988), 31, 46.. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6233&context=etd.  

[16] Vladislav M. Zubok, “Chapter 5. Soviet Foreign Policy from Détente to Gorbachev, 1975-1985,” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War vol. 3, ed. Melvin P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 103.

[17] Amin Saikal, “Chapter 6. Islamism, the Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War vol. 3, ed. Melvin P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 127.

[18] Ibid, 128.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Svetlana Savranskaya, “Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War. The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs,” The National Security Archive (9 October 2001). Retrieved from: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html.

[22] Alexander Lyakhovsky, “Account of the Decision of the CC CPSU Decision to Send Troops to Afghanistan—from The Tragedy and Valor of Afghan (Moscow, 1995), 2. Retrieved from: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB396/docs/Lyakhovsky,%20Decision%20to%20send%20troops%20into%20Afghanistan.pdf.

[23] Svetlana Savranskaya, “Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War. The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs,” The National Security Archive (9 October 2001). Retrieved from: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html.

[24] “Colonel Tsagolov’s Letter to USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov on the Situation in Afghanistan,” National Security Archive (13 August, 1987), 1. Retrieved from: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html.

[25] Ibid, 1-2.

[26] Ibid.

[27] “Minutes of the Session of CC CPSU Politburo” The National Security Archive (23 January, 1989), 1-2. Retrieved from: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html.

[28] SIGAR, “Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Lessons Learned Record Interview, Richard Boucher,” the National Security Archive ( 15 October 2015), 1. Retrieved from: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/24563-special-inspector-general-afghanistan-reconstruction-lessons-learned-record.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid, 4.

[31] “Rumsfeld Lacked Intel on Who The Enemies Were Two Years After Afghanistan Invasion, Newly Published “Snowflakes” Show,” The National Security Archive (9 September 2003). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/foia/2021-02-01/rumsfeld-lacked-intel-who-enemies-two-years-after-afghanistan-invasion-newly-published-snowflakes.

[32] SIGAR, “What we need to learn: lessons from twenty years of Afghanistan Reconstruction,” (August 2021), VIII-IX. Retrieved from: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf.

[33] Beth Bailey and Richard H. Immerman, Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, New York: NYU Press, 2015, 45.

[34] Ibid.

 

[36] Andrew Desiderio, “Americans evacuated from Afghanistan since Taliban takeover,” Politico, (14 August 2022). Retrieved from: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/14/afghanistan-800-evacuated-taliban-00051525.

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