US could have defeated the Taliban...

The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

On August 15, 2021, as India celebrated its 75th Independence day, in our extended neighbourhood, the democratic government of Afghanistan collapsed and the Taliban, a Muslim fundamentalist insurgent group, usurped power.

Without putting any gloss over it, this represents a defeat for the US and a strategic setback to India.

In terms of comparisons, the events of 2021 reminds one of another August 15, in 1975, when a friend of India and the founder of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, was assassinated and an anti-India military regime came to power in our neigbouring country.

Many see the return of the Taliban as a repeat of 1996 when the Taliban entered Kabul and defeated the Najibullah-led government.

This is not strictly true. The Left-leaning government that was ruling Kabul had resisted the Taliban for over seven years.

The Soviets had withdrawn in 1989 and by 1992 the USSR itself had collapsed.

No aid of any kind was available to the Najibullah regime, yet it resisted the Taliban onslaught for four to five years despite the Taliban receiving Pakistani backing.

Compared with the stubborn resistance put up at that time, the present collapse of the American supported Afghan government without offering even a token fight came as a nasty surprise to all.

The Afghan debacle has once again highlighted the age-old military wisdom that it is not the gun, but the man behind the gun that matters.

It is obvious that the Afghan army suffered a total collapse of morale and the will to fight.

On one side was the ideology of 'democracy' and individual freedom (with Coca-Cola) while the Taliban fought for Allah and his divinely ordained (as per their beliefs) Sharia rule.

Ideologically speaking, it was no contest and in a conservative Islamic country like Afghanistan the Taliban who championed Allah were always going to win.

In the 1990s the Afghan government resisted the Taliban for five years because of the genuine popular backing of the cadres of the Kalaq and Parcham, the two factions of the Afghan Communist party.

Obviously, the current Afghan dispensation lacked such dedicated popular support.

There were sound military tactical and strategic reasons that explain the current situation.

In early August, when the Taliban began its campaign of conquest of Afghanistan, they seemed to follow a well-directed strategy.

In the first step itself, the Taliban secured all the border crossings so as to preclude any external help, especially in the northern areas.

In 1996, even when the Taliban captured Kabul, resistance developed in the north of the country, the Northern Alliance led by Ahmed Shah Massoud.

As the Taliban threatened the small towns and hinterland, the Afghan army dispatched small detachments to counter them, thus losing command and control.

It is age-old military wisdom that in a state of low morale, it is unit cohesion and sense of collective security that sustains fighting spirit.

By dispersing the army in penny packets, the Afghan army played into the hands of the Taliban.

It requires no military genius to anticipate that after securing the hinterland, the Taliban were bound to target Kabul, the ultimate strategic prize.

Yet, there seems to have been no military preparations done whatsoever to defend Kabul.

One saw no defences or trenches or even a token attempt to stop the Taliban into the city.

More than conquest, the whole operation appeared as a walkover given to the Taliban.

There are comparisons being made about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the US departure from South Vietnam.

The major difference in the two situations is that the South Vietnamese army did collapse as spectacularly but there it faced a battle hardened regular North Vietnamese army.

To compare the North Vietnamese army with the rag tag Taliban is like comparing apples with oranges!

At the very root of the Afghanistan debacle is American hubris.

Let us not forget that right till the 9/11 attack in 2001, the Taliban were a US favourite.

In fact, the Taliban/Mujahideen were spawned by the US itself (so was Osama bin Laden) with the active and enthusiastic help of Pakistan and funded by Saudi Arabia.

In 2001 when the US decided to punish Afghanistan and eliminate al-Qaeda terrorists located in Afghanistan, it chose the Pakistani route to reach this landlocked country.

The famous threat issued by then US President George W Bush to Pakistan -- 'Either you are with us or against us' -- and the explicit threat to bomb Pakistan to the stone age made Pakistan succumb to the US diktat.

All through the last 20 years, Pakistan successfully followed the policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

Even before al-Qaeda could be vanquished and Afghanistan stabilised, the US shifted focus to Iraq in 2003 and right till 2011, Afghanistan became the 'forgotten war'.

When the US refocused on Afghanistan after 2012, while it paid lip service to 'nation building', its actions were confined to hunting the Taliban.

All this while, it was well known that the Taliban were hiding in plain sight in Pakistan.

The US took no action to eliminate Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.

The US military efforts in Afghanistan were akin to filling a bucket that had gaping holes!

The US could have ended the Taliban threat if it had taken a policy decision to compromise either with Russia, that controlled the northern access to Afghanistan, or Iran that provides entry from the west.

The US refused to make these hard choices and paid the price.

The Americans have still not come to terms that their 'relative' power has reduced and it can no longer re-shape the strategic environment but instead has to modify its strategies to suit the geo-political situation.

This fundamental flaw in American thinking is at the root of its debacle in Afghanistan.

All this while, the US continues to live in the make believe world of the 1950s and 1960s when American power reigned supreme.

Afghanistan is a symptom of this disease.

The Taliban has already declared itself ready to welcome Chinese investment in infrastructure development and Afghanistan will most likely be the next domino to fall in the Chinese lap after Pakistan.

Unless the US and its Western allies take a realistic view and make compromises with Russia and weans away Iran from the Chinese orbit, future historians will mark the Taliban/Chinese takeover of the Af-Pak region as the beginning of the US decline and Chinese ascendency in the coming Cold War between the two nations.

In 1942, when faced with the mortal threat from Hitler's Germany, the Americans chose Stalinist Russia as the lesser evil.

It is time they extend the same consideration to Putin's Russia if they are to successfully deal with Xi Jinping's China.

• The Taliban Return

Military historian Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a former Chhatrapati Shivaji Chair Fellow at the United Services Institute of India.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com