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2026-10-08 Afghanistan
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Lesson Almost Learned: What the US Learned from the War in Afghanistan
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Leonid Tsukanov
[Regnum] October 7 marked 25 years since the US invasion of Afghanistan. Although Washington and its allies managed to quickly overthrow the Taliban regime, they were never able to win the war. After wasting a considerable amount of time, the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan, once again handing the country over to the Taliban.
The Taliban regime had de facto controlled Kabul and much of the country since 1996, but the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) had been subject to fairly severe diplomatic isolation.
At the same time, the civil war continued: the Taliban fought with the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud (known as the Lion of Panjshir), who controlled territories in the northeast – in the provinces of Parwan, Takhar, Baghlan and Badakhshan, with a population of about 2.5 million people.
Also, the IEA territory became a haven for numerous foreign radicals. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his associates found refuge there. The international community was concerned about the unstable situation in the Middle East, but they hesitated to put direct pressure on the Taliban.
On September 9, 2001, two al-Qaeda* militants fatally wounded Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Taliban had no connection to the attack, but the elimination of a dangerous rival played into their hands. On the 10th, Massoud died, and the next day, an event occurred that changed the history of the world in general and Afghanistan in particular.
The point of no return was passed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. George W. Bush issued an ultimatum to the Taliban: hand over bin Laden and the entire al-Qaeda leadership* or face a major war with the United States.
By that time, "terrorist number one" had already managed to organize explosions in the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania from Afghanistan in 1998 and still avoid extradition to American justice.
The Taliban responded with a firm refusal, claiming Washington had provided no evidence of Kabul's involvement in the terrorist attack. Emirati officials claimed they were unaware of bin Laden's plans and did not provide him with support. Unlike Saudi Arabia, the al-Qaeda leader's ties to Saudi intelligence were uncovered in the first days of the investigation.
However, by the time the State Department received the response note on September 21, Afghanistan's fate had essentially been sealed. A month after the terrorist attacks in New York, a US-led international military coalition entered Afghanistan.
THE WAR FADED INTO THE SHADOWS
It took the United States several months to dislodge the Taliban. By mid-November, they had been driven out of Kabul, and by the end of that month, out of Kandahar, where the movement originated in the mid-1990s.
In December, the Tora Bora (Black Cave) cave complex, 10 kilometers from the Afghan-Pakistani border where, according to the CIA, bin Laden was hiding, fell. "Terrorist number one" was no longer there. Osama had moved early to the Pakistani border town of Abbottabad and remained elusive for another ten years. The fall of the mountain fortress seemed to signal the end of the war.
Interestingly, the main US contingent (approximately 1,000 Marines) arrived in Afghanistan only midway through the Battle of Kandahar. Prior to that, ground operations were carried out by Northern Alliance forces, supported by small detachments of US and British special forces. The Pentagon focused primarily on air raids; Taliban air defenses and aircraft were exposed and destroyed within the first hours of the war.
The United States declared victory. Hamid Karzai, the leader of the Popolzai tribe from Kandahar province, took over the "new Afghanistan," proclaimed the Islamic Republic.
NATO countries decided to maintain a temporary presence in the country "until the situation stabilizes" and the Taliban is completely disarmed. However, with rare exceptions, foreign military specialists encountered no resistance during patrols. The Pentagon joked that the Americans "will be home by next Christmas."
But despite their defeat and loss of combat capability, the Taliban never capitulated. They established themselves in a "shadow zone" in the mountains on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
By the fall, targeted operations had become a serious problem for NATO in southern Afghanistan, and by December 2006, the war there had become open. Casualties increased sharply—the coalition was losing an average of 200 people per year (more than in all of 2001).
And although each operation was billed as yet another "final strike" against the Taliban, the insurgents repeatedly found the strength for localized counteroffensives. The war became protracted and required ever more funding from the US.
TO LEAVE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO STAY
Over time, the war in Afghanistan began to weigh heavily on the United States. Many saw grim parallels with Vietnam in the protracted fighting. Democrats in Congress demanded that the Republican Bush administration and the Pentagon shift the burden from American soldiers to the new Afghan army and police as quickly as possible.
Moreover, several tens of billions of dollars from the federal budget were spent on its preparation over the first few years, at the instigation of the Republicans.
Barack Obama was the first to attempt to resolve the issue. At the instigation of the Democratic president elected in 2008, the United States invested financially and technically in training Afghan security forces. However, they could not train and fight simultaneously, and the Obama administration was forced to take an unpopular step: sharply increasing its own permanent contingent.
By the end of 2009, the American corps in Afghanistan exceeded 100,000 troops. In the summer of 2013, President Karzai announced that the Islamic Republic was ready to provide its own security.
However, a significant American military presence remained even after the gradual withdrawal of foreign forces from the republic began.
By 2014, more than 80% of the 13,000 NATO troops remaining in the country were US troops. Subsequently, Washington initiated several more measures to gradually withdraw the contingent. But these plans were always thwarted by the Taliban's increased activity. The Kabul authorities remained incapable of waging war without American bayonets.
"VAGUE AND WASTEFUL"
During President Donald Trump's first term, the United States attempted a comprehensive review of its approach to the Afghan operation, which by then had been ongoing for more than 15 years. Even during the election campaign, Trump criticized Obama's Afghan policy as "incoherent and wasteful."
Since taking office, Trump has sharply increased pressure on the Taliban, threatening to do to them "what Bush Jr. left unfinished." Against this backdrop, the Pentagon's "Afghan" budget has ballooned to $46.2 billion, and total war costs have approached $2 trillion.
Kabul also got its share of criticism from Trump: Karzai's successor, Ashraf Ghani, regularly received reprimands from the White House for the poor distribution of funds, a weak army, and corrupt security forces.
However, just a year later, the White House realized that shouting and threats wouldn't resolve the issue, and decided to negotiate with the Taliban. By then, the movement had grown weary of years of guerrilla warfare and was looking for ways to consolidate the new status quo.
By August 2019, the US and the Taliban had agreed on a timeline and procedure for the withdrawal of foreign troops, as well as security guarantees for Ghani's government. On February 29, 2020, this intention was formalized with an agreement in Doha, Qatar. Washington committed to a 14-month period for a gradual troop withdrawal.
But Trump didn't have time to fully reap the fruits of his victory. After his defeat in the presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden, whose administration had an alternative vision of the situation, came to the White House.
BIDEN'S MISTAKE
Democrats believed the war in Afghanistan had long been won, while Republicans were "dragging out the fun" to continue spending the defense budget. Biden ordered an immediate troop withdrawal beginning May 1, 2021, and to be completed within two to four months.
This was his fatal mistake. As soon as the first American columns left Kabul, the Taliban launched a counteroffensive and, within a few months, routed Ghani's army, which was superior in numbers and equipment and trained to American standards.
The Pentagon sounded the alarm, but the White House deemed it unnecessary to halt the troop withdrawal. By early July, when the last Americans had left, Taliban advance forces were already rushing toward the capital, vowing to "punish the apostates."
By that time, the Pentagon had managed to convince the authorities to organize an urgent Operation Sanctuary for Allies and evacuate 75,000 loyalists and their families (including President Ghani, who was still formally in charge of the country until mid-August).
But this only accelerated the republic's collapse. On August 15, the Taliban entered Kabul, and by early September, they had already formed an interim government and announced the restoration of their Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).
The US Afghan epic ended here.
PARTIALLY TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT EXPERIENCE
The shadow of the Biden administration's strategic miscalculation continues to haunt American policymakers today. Trump, who has returned to the White House, has tried to avoid touching on this aspect of foreign policy, dismissing the accelerated troop withdrawal as Biden's "shameful flight."
The United States has never recognized the IEA as the legal successor to the republic and has tightened immigration regulations for Afghan citizens, but is not exerting military pressure on the Taliban.
The ruling movement is still under UN sanctions on charges of terrorist activity. But Washington is quietly seeking common ground with the Taliban—for example, by attempting to return the strategically important Bagram Air Base near Kabul to American control. Diplomatic moves have so far been fruitless.
At the same time, the United States is generally pleased that the Taliban is trying to fight terrorist enclaves on its own territory, which allows the Pentagon to avoid wasting additional resources.
Trump even tried to project the “Afghan experience” onto Iraq, the withdrawal of troops from which was also initiated and significantly accelerated by Biden.
The Republicans bargained with Baghdad until the very end, demanding the disarmament of pro-Iranian militias, a restructuring of the local government system, and the creation of additional levers of control within the security apparatus. In other words, everything that pro-American Kabul failed to accomplish before the "May exodus" of 2021.
And although the Iraqi partners did indeed do some of this, they still did not fulfill all of the White House’s requests.
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Posted by badanov 2026-10-08 00:00||
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