When President Bush assumed office in January 2001 he aimed to be a domestic reformer, focusing his efforts on changing America’s education and tax systems. When it came to foreign policy, he stated his primary efforts were on improving relations within the western hemisphere, in particular with Mexico. However, the attacks on September 11th his administration was forced to reorientate its priorities to tackling foreign adversaries.
Following several prime time presidential addresses, on the 7th of October 2001 the US military launched operation Enduring Freedom marking the start of the war in Afghanistan. The stated goal was the “destruction of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the government of the Taliban”.
The first two years of the war, until the invasion of Iraq in 2003, were arguably the US’s most successful. The US military’s quick turnaround time combined with better-equipped personnel meant the Taliban was quickly swept from the countries major urban areas, effectively taking the regime out of power. The United States went from invading a country to essentially occupying one.
The US was now left with the task of rebuilding a war-torn middle eastern country. So, the Bush Administration began planning infrastructure projects, education reform, and changes to Afghanistan’s institutions. This period of time was associated with the lowest levels of violence and attacks from the Taliban that the country saw throughout the war.
However, the attention the US government was putting on rebuilding Afghanistan would be soon split because of a new war in Iraq. It took a little over a month for the United States to successfully take over Iraq, but now the US was managing two full-scale occupations in the middle east. It's at this point where two successful invasions began to be overshadowed by poorly planned and executed occupations.
By the time President Obama took office, the once diminished Taliban had begun to recapture territory in Afghanistan. President Obama’s solution was to call for a surge of more troops into Afghanistan; by 2011 there were close to 100,000 US troops in the country. Yet the outnumbered and out-equipped Taliban seemingly continued to hold on.
By the time former president Trump announced his run for the Whitehouse the United States had spent close to two trillion dollars on overseas military operations and lost thousands of lives. The real accomplishments of the war, namely the killing of top terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, were in fact intelligence operations separate from the ground occupation. The mission of the war in Afghanistan was the “destruction of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the government of the Taliban”, we seemingly got preoccupied with taking out the foreign government instead of the terrorists which attacked our nation in the first place.
In February 2020, the US and Taliban signed the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan”. The treaty, negotiated by the Trump administration, pledged the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from the country in exchange for a promise from the Taliban to prevent extremist organizations from operating within the country. Once in office, the Biden Administration promised to uphold the treaty except choosing to delay the full withdrawal by 3 months. Critics argue that by ceding Afghanistan to the Taliban the US has effectively agreed to the collapse of the government it worked so long to set up.
This is not to say the mission of taking out the Taliban and replacing them with a democratic government is an impossible mission, it isn’t. Given enough time, enough soldiers, and enough money the United States could do it. But whether it is worth the money and lives to do so is another question altogether - former President Trump and current president Biden have come to the conclusion it’s not.
Recently, the US military withdrew from the Bagram Air Base, the center of US operations in Afghanistan. The current number of US troops remains close to 600, the lowest number in the war’s history. They are stationed at the US Embassy and Kabul’s International airport, and are likely to be the only remnants of a US or NATO presence. For Pentagon officials, this effectively signifies a completed withdrawal and the ending of the war.
However, the current withdrawal from Afghanistan brings into question the merits of America’s current military presence elsewhere. America’s retains large numbers of troops on the ground in nations such as Germany, Japan, or South Korea. These deployments are from a bygone cold war era, and now cost the taxpayer billions of dollars each year. At the same time, domestically, we lack the proper investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
The United States is not the first nation to venture into Afghanistan. As early as 13th century, the mongols attempted to invade the country. Later in the 19th century, the British aimed to expand their empire - but failed to do so. More recently, the Soviets tried to expand their sphere of influence by invading the country in the 80s. Over time, the country earned the nickname graveyard of empires - lets hope the United States withdrawal insures we were just paying a visit.
Daniel Fourman
