No one knows whether the fall of Kabul will mark the beginning of the end of Pax Americana. If so, the world will lose an imperfect but generally well-meaning hegemon and may obtain a more brutal and possibly more effective successor. An America built on the English ideas of individual freedom and liberty couldn’t help believing that the world wanted to adopt the same values. The Taliban – victors in the 20 year conflict in Afghanistan – had other ideas.
Much will be written about the reasons the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001. The proximate reason, to pursue Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, was quickly supplanted by a long process of ‘mission creep’ involving nation-building and investment costing the United States over $978bn and over 2,300 lives. Britain has suffered the loss of 457 service personnel and has spent an estimated £39bn – apparently to little lasting effect.
Yet, despite all that was spent, Afghanistan remains an inept beggar state where foreign aid accounts for 43% of GDP. After 20 years of investment Afghanistan is less self-reliant than it was in 2001. Of all the justifications for intervention the idea that it would reduce terrorist incidents across the West is the perhaps least convincing. If anything, the subsequent migrant wave following our defeat – and the failure to secure effective vetting – will pose a greater long term threat to our domestic security.
The shocking and humiliating scenes from Kabul – as Chinooks hover in the skies above desperate Afghans – inevitably invite comparisons with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Some comparisons are indeed instructive and others are useful if only to illustrate differences. Ken Burns’ monumental 17 hour documentary ‘The Vietnam War’ has become an essential study into both the folly of war and the perils of ‘sunk cost’ thinking as applied to military conflict. By the late 1960s American infantry and the Viet Cong would bitterly contest hill tops in vicious fire-fights only to relinquish these broken hillocks days later once a point had been made. And yet the point itself was unclear. Superficially the war was an ideological conflict between the free world and communism but, at root, Ho Chi Minh and his people sought national liberation and a Vietnam free of foreign domination – be it French or American. This bears similarities to Afghanistan in that foreign powers propping up unpopular kleptocrats invite rejection.
Perhaps the most striking thing about US and NATO intervention in Afghanistan is that, like Vietnam, it ignored the failure of another European power in the same theatre of war just years earlier. The defeat of the French in the first Indochina war and their rout at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 did not dissuade President Kennedy from intervention. Despite being advised in written communication at the outset in 1962 that ‘these people hate us’ and that ‘we cannot win’ Kennedy, along with his successor Lyndon Johnson, was gradually drawn into a conflict which lasted, all told, for 20 years and ended in abject failure. Likewise, nothing of the Soviet experience of armed intervention in Afghanistan seems to have suggested to President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair and the rest of the neocons that a similar experiment might be foolish, far-fetched or even imbecilic. They rolled in anyway.
Whilst Vietnam and Afghanistan are markedly different societies, a profound ignorance of them by American policymakers is a common factor which contributed to failure. Interestingly, cultural remoteness from foreign theatres of war also plays a key role in the ability of US and other forces of intervention to kill innocent non-combatants with impunity. The process of wartime induced de-humanisation is a key observation of countless witnesses in Burns’ documentary. The lightness with which Blair, Bush and subsequent leaders such as Barack Obama have sanctioned bomb and drone attacks which kill ordinary members of the public across the world may have been facilitated by 21st century technology, but it was powered by the same mindset that saw Agent Orange once sprayed across the Vietnamese countryside.
While the biggest cost of such wars is in human life, the extent to which Western leaders have robbed their domestic voters of investment possibilities is truly staggering. It’s difficult to see how the inhabitants of post-industrial US cities such as Pittsburgh or Cleveland – where unemployment and an opioid epidemic has caused thousands of ‘deaths of despair’ – could imagine that their leaders are putting them first, while squandering trillions on foreign adventures.
So what was it all for? As the mission continued to creep, we saw the justification for intervention in Afghanistan fall back on the idea of imposing Western values such as individual freedom, democracy and women’s liberation. Despite it being a truism since John Stuart Mill’s day that democratic values emerge ‘bottom up’ within societies and cannot be artificially imposed, we nevertheless tried to remake Afghanistan in our image. As we should have expected, we failed.
For nearly two decades, the western foreign policy establishment has deluded itself into thinking that, somehow, they could erase the deep networks of tribal, religious, and kinship loyalties among the Afghan people. They thought they could force Afghanistan’s rural and conservative population to abandon their customs, loyalties, and beliefs, and swear allegiance to a small cabal of elites in Kabul. From this delusion, we’ve seen twenty years of death and destruction, both among our own servicemen and among the Afghan people.
The lessons from this? Western powers must now surely see that attempts to impose liberal democracy by intervention and lethal force are illegitimate, naive and morally suspect. Their attempts to do so have failed British servicemen, failed the ordinary citizen and failed Afghanistan.
When politicians call for further interventions of ‘Global Britain’ around the world, they should pause for thought. We should remind them that while the costs of foreign adventures are high and their aims are so often unattainable, priorities also exist at home.
Pedants corner – paragraph 2, sentence 1: “Much will be written about the reasons the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 1991.” The invasion was in 2001. 1991 is also erroneously mentioned further in the same paragraph.
A more meaningful comment, and one which may not be popular, but the British Empire was actually relatively successful at nation-building; the difference is it was in it for the long haul. The recent Afghanistan venture could have been successful, but it would have taken generations, perhaps a century or more. No modern western democracy has the stomach for that, and rightly so. Let’s see how China gets on with it now!
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, once said in the House of Lords:
“Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: “Do not march on Moscow”. Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: “Do not go fighting with your land armies in China”. It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.”
Perhaps if he were around today he might consider that “Do not march into Afghanistan” would be Rule 3, or even vying for top place in “The book of War”?!
Very wise.
Montgomery was always a wise man unlike Eisenhower or buffoon Patton
I’m curious why you are not calling out the shameful behaviour of HMG during the withdrawal. How could the UK have had no prior knowledge of the withdrawal timetable from our close ally the US, and if they really had no idea, who in the intelligence service is going to resign? How can we trust a military where the top brass go on TV to say the Taliban have changed, only to check the other channel to see them shooting people in the street and parading lines of jihadists carrying US weapons. The debate over overseas intervention has been held and won, there are very few who support these overseas interventions. Looking forward we need a complete overhaul of the intelligence service, who seem to have been more devoted to helping get Biden elected as President than protecting British interests.
We should have never got involved in any half-assed American war whatsoever Blair needs to still be held accountable, there is no special relationship and never has been, We need a complete independent foreign policy free of the USA and NATO, We need to rebuild our military capabilities it is idiotic to rely on other countries to protect us
Hard to disagree with any of that (‘What was Afghan War for’).
Harold Wilson was, in my recollection, much maligned when in office but history continues to show what a service he did for this country in keeping us out of Vietnam. Leaders who have experienced war first hand seem to have a better record in avoiding conflict than those who have not.
The reality is Britain lacks the military capability to defend itself against larger states, having run down our armed forces over decades. We rely on the US as a powerful ally to defend us instead. The unfortunate consequence of that reliance is we have to “defend” the US when it perceives itself to be under attack if we want them to continue to defend us. We can’t afford to upset them.
Unfortunately, the US is a nation perceiving itself to be under attack from itself, because Americans have never reconciled themselves since their Civil War 160 years ago. Those in the South who still support the Confederate cause still don’t trust the central government and therefore arm themselves heavily in case the army ever comes against them again. Those in the North who support emancipation are ever seeking new oppressed minorities to champion and will not tolerate the opinions of those armed Southerners who occasionally take the law into their own hands and massacre people they disagree with. They argue the opinions must be censored because they motivate the violence. Both sides perceive themselves to be under attack and in that fear-filled ethos any external threat provides something they can unite against and against which they perceive violence as the most natural response.
It is foolish to think values such as innocent until proven guilty and The Rule of Law can be upheld by summary killing of suspects, many of whom were actually informed against by people with a grudge rather than reliable sources. If Western values are to be copied (probably in modified form) by others they need to be seen to be fairer and better so people actually want them. We must lead by example, not imposition. We might also recognise others have good ideas too and we could learn from them.
Most British people thought the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ill-judged and dangerous, I think, knowing they would damage rather than enhance Britain’s reputation around the world, but the politicians ultimately had to stay in with the US because they couldn’t afford otherwise.
Until we have our own credible forces independent of allies abroad (though those will always be welcome) we will be forced to collude in this folly.
Is one of the lessons from Afghanistan and other failed interventions that when we talk to the inhabitants of these countries in high level meetings, our politicians only speak to westernised, rich elites who want the intervention, never ordinary people, say villagers and rural workers. The local elites of couse rely on the ‘investment’ promised from NGOs the Military-Industrial Complex, and our business leafers so called, wining and dining them, and thus our policy makers are deluded by lobbyists into thinking supra- national intervention is broadly welcomed by the foreign e.g. Afghan population.
Shades of the Remainer/Brexit debate in the UK perhaps?
I fully agree with you. We should have sent Special Forces who are small and can operate undercover to hunt and kill Al Qaeda. Sending ground troops was major error and we learnt nothing from the Soviets. However if we in the west had not armed them like Saddam. Problem would have been easier.
Many problems are the fault of Western Nations selling arms to unstable regimes. Who at the time we are told they are friends of ours. In reality there not. Look at Saudi Araba as another example a nation which sponsors terrorism alongside the Iranians. British and other western weapons are used in Yemen. Which not brings hate for Saudi Araba but for the west in general.