No one could have imagined…

In the fog of confusion, fear and blame that has settled over government-controlled parts of Afghanistan, there is perhaps just one thing that the entire political spectrum can agree on: no one foresaw the scale or speed of the collapse of the Afghan security forces in recent weeks, even those who wanted a strategic retreat.

“There is an acknowledgment on our side that we didn’t foresee this [Taliban] advance, we weren’t comprehensively prepared,” said one official with access to the [President Ashraf Ghani].

I’m sitting on patio in the woods in Pennsylvania and I’m no expert on Afghanistan, but the rapid collapse of the government in Afghanistan is something I pretty much assumed, if ever the Americans left town. Of course, I never thought the Taliban would simply walk into Kabul and restore peace and order. The collapse of the government will be the collapse of all government, and we can see that process unfolding already.

In its desperation to stem the losses, the government has summoned one of the darker spectres from the country’s recent past, urging warlords and regional strongmen to call up militias that fought the Taliban – but also each other – during the all-out civil war of the 1990s. As recently as last year, Ghani had been trying to disband these groups.

One thing that hasn’t changed in Afghanistan since 2001 is its regional factionalism. Even at their strongest, the Pashtun-dominated Taliban could never establish control over huge swaths of the country, especially outside of their southern stronghold in Kandahar. The alternative to Ashraf Ghani’s government isn’t the Taliban but chaos and warlordism.

Twenty years of American occupation failed to change this. Depending on how you look at things, this fact can support the contrasting arguments that we should stay indefinitely or that no amount of time will ever solve the problem.

Of course, both arguments can co-exist. In South Korea, there was never going to be a point where the threat of invasion from the North was eliminated. But, by staying indefinitely, American forces allowed the South to develop politically and economically. So far, this can be considered a good investment and it will remain that way so long as the North doesn’t use its nuclear weapons. The peninsula is an enormous open-ended commitment and everything can still go horribly wrong, but it appears to be a manageable problem.

Perhaps it was just easier in Korea because the lines were ideological instead of ethnic and religious. Afghanistan isn’t split in half, and there are no clear internal borders to defend. But, at least in theory, the Taliban could be kept at bay for decades  allowing government-controlled areas to develop and flourish.

In truth, though, this hasn’t happened because the imperfect security provided by NATO troops takes the fighting spirit out of the beneficiaries. They enjoy the respite from civil war even though the war never ended. To truly win, they have to be willing to engage in combat rather than relying on foreign occupiers.

Vietnam isn’t a perfect analogy, partly because the government forces in Afghanistan have more legitimacy than the government in Saigon ever enjoyed. But some things are very nearly the same, including the way the people of Kabul and Saigon existed in a bubble–a fake security provided by foreigners and a fake and corrupt economy propped up by foreign aid.

Take away that security and money, and there’s no authority that can compel allegiance and no martial spirit that can match the force of the barbarians at the gate.

These are the reasons why I have always expected Afghanistan’s armed forces to fall to the Taliban very quickly once America  steps back. It’s also why I’ve struggled to take a firm position on America’s continued mission in Afghanistan. I’ve never believed it could work and I’ve never wanted to live with the consequences if it failed. But, of course, the real point is that I won’t have to live with the consequences, at least not in a way comparable to the Afghans. I want to spare them misery, but I want a lot of things I can’t have. Ultimately, I support leaving now because I can’t ask NATO forces to put their lives at risk in perpetuity without any realistic prospect that an end point will be reached when they can leave.

Politically, the collapse of the Afghan government will be problematic for Joe Biden and the Democrats. The fall of Saigon happened on the Republicans’ watch, and they still blamed the antiwar left for undermining the country’s resolve. That wasn’t overly convincing or potent, but the right will get more mileage out of this collapse because they can point to Biden’s decision and his poor predictions.

Finally, the reason we spent two decades in Afghanistan is because the 9/11 attacks were planned and launched there. Lawless areas present a danger, which is why the international community shouldn’t be apathetic about countries that fall into complete disrepair. What America has been attempting in Afghanistan didn’t work and was never going to work, but that doesn’t mean that we can walk away completely without keeping a wary eye on how things develop.

Perhaps things won’t deteriorate as swiftly as I fear.

The recently appointed defence minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, another grizzled veteran of Afghanistan’s long wars, believes he can stem the Taliban advance, according to sources familiar with his thinking

But he expects it to take weeks before the tide turns, and he is braced for thousands more soldiers to defect first.

It’s possible that the defense minister is correct, but I think the best case scenario now is a protracted civil war with warlords fighting against the Taliban, or roughly want we experienced in the years leading up to 9/11. I wish we could prevent this, but the evidence strongly suggests that we can’t.