Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Strategic Folly and the Consequences of America's Unending War in Afghanistan

If a recent article published by the Modern War Institute at West Point, "Don't Let Kabul 2020 Look Like Saigon 1975: The Dangers of a Precipitous Afghanistan Withdrawal," represents the prevailing American views on military strategy, then it goes a long way to explain why the United States lost the Afghanistan War.

No. Anyone who has spent any time in Afghanistan beyond the confines of a headquarters or a walled-in facility would know that is a not a valid reason to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan because it is simply not something within our capability either to establish or sustain.

Just like military leaders and policymakers over nearly two decades and through multiple administrations, the authors fail to address or even identify the true nature of the war in Afghanistan.

It is a proxy war being waged by Pakistan against Afghanistan and the United States.

The American counterinsurgency strategy was never winnable as long as Pakistan largely controlled the supply of our troops in landlocked Afghanistan and regulated the operational tempo through its proxy army, the Taliban, which has maintained an extensive recruiting, training, and financial support infrastructure inside Pakistan, all of which has been immune to attack.

New [Chinese] initiatives for peace in Afghanistan are welcome, and may change the scenario in the whole region.... I believe, American think tanks and leadership, especially military leadership has already realized that this war cannot be won.

The subterfuge underlying Pakistani policy was already apparent in the early days of the Afghanistan war.

https://mwi.usma.edu/strategic-folly-consequences-americas-unending-war-afghanistan/

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