Dont Blink, you'll Miss It

Afghanistan returning to Afghan rule with potentially more reliable partners

Aug 15, 2021

Publication date: 2021-08-15

The speed with which the Taliban has gained dominant control over Afghanistan is mind blowing. The only comparison is the German Blitzkrieg tactics in early WWII. The Taliban are using light to heavily armed infantry, and not tank brigades. Still, they surround their enemy as per Blitzkrieg and confine them to the provincial capital. They then roll out some good old Genghis Khan and via modern communications do the equivalent of the white tent and red tent.

Here is the situation at the time of publication:

[Image from Mapping Taliban Contested and Controlled Districts in Afghanistan, FDD's Long War Journal (Bill Roggio)]

President Ghani, a World Bank bureaucrat and long term USA resident, is still declaring to resist even with now only one of the seven army corps.

There has been excellent coverage of the alarming events of the last two weeks by my usual sources, for which I thank them. I commend Pepe Escobar’s pieces and MoonOfAlabama’s. MoA's recent piece, linked at the top, contains a nice run down of history from the early 70's.

A Little History

The piece by Maryanov is interesting. The USA/Saudi and possibly Pakistani funding and support of the Mujahadeen is the first case of foreign funded religious extremists of which I know. Alexei rightly acknowledges that the USSR made mistakes in fighting this insurgency, but makes a few interesting points. Firstly, there were no historical precedents from which to learn. Secondly, that they saw the threat and were warning the greater west about this type of asymmetric fundamentalist insurgency, to which the west responded "Ha, ha, your problem". Professor Paul Robinson notes that the Russian withdrawal was orderly. The government ruled for several years until 1992 at which point non-military support from the USSR stopped due to the USSR's dissolution.

USA instigated insurgencies in Latin America followed a similar plan of arming and funding groups like the Contras in Nicaragua. In Europe Operation Gladio was a funded covert operations "army" used to devastating effect to prevent any communist political party forming a government in Europe. Meanwhile, both in Europe as with Greece, and all over the world, military dictatorships were supported. The Indonesian case is the textbook example.

Coups in Guatemala, Iran and Chile, lead to a military dictatorship. This methodology is augmented by funding proxy wars. Of course, there be open wars too like the American War, as the Vietnamese call it.

So, the Afghan proxy war in the 80's is just one of many different political control tactics used by the USA, but does amount to War 1 in Afghanistan by them. Following touring a Taliban delegation through the USA, particularly oil production facilities in the south and a photo op in the Whitehouse, War 2 would eventuate after the crimes of 9/11. The USA says "hand over bin Laden", the Taliban say "show use the proofs" (evidence) and the USA says "we don’t negotiate with terrorists". This just shows the belligerent hypocrisy of the USA. It was all really about building a pipeline by UNOCAL through Afghanistan to the huge gas fields on the Caspian Sea's east which in the end turned out to be less vast than predicted. Post invasion, completely illegal War 2, and rapidly killing their al-Qaeda targets, it turns into the occupation, War 3. Hamid Karzai, a previous UNOCAL "consultant" is installed as President, and as any historian would note, the Afghans really don’t like being ruled by outsiders. The "counter insurgency" and "nation building" and "exporting democracy" war commences. Nation building via war is an oxymoron.

One would think that the USA would be good at fighting insurgencies by now, having created and fought against them in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. But, apparently not; the democracy bombs don’t seem to be hitting their targets.

Futures

It is reported that the USA is flying in some thousands of troops to "help evacuate" embassy staff and collaborators. They already had a battalion of 600 odd troops at their embassy. Why the extra several thousand? It looks like "breathing space". They need some more time to finish certain things. This explains the Afghan President not resigning, which is the key goal of the Taliban. What they are trying to "finish" apart from the declared embassy and collaborator withdrawal I know not.

One can be sure that a little group of Brzezinski 2.0s at the CIA are devising plans to destabilize Afghanistan to counter the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This would be War 4, a covert variant.

One can see from the Taliban's tactics of targeting border crossings that they have taken seriously the message from Russia and China (and no doubt Iran, Pakistan and India) to not allow armed fundamentalists to breed in Afghanistan, and even more importantly, to not let them cross into neighboring territories. Of course, it also gives them customs revenues. As MoA details in his most recent report (the first link) they seem to be being respectful to defeated regional leaders which makes a power sharing transitional government more likely. Again, this is following the local power dictates to avoid a civil war at all costs.

When Ghani and entourage are packed on board a plane and have their citizenship revoked, an interim government may be formed. One can guess of a probable direction. The Taliban take control of the Presidency, army, diplomatic core, and internal security. Limited autonomy will be granted to power brokers who have surrendered in their provinces. Russia will get significant influence in the diplomatic core, and internal security, including intelligence. China will get influence in economic planning. You can then see a gradual process of reforming the judiciary and a new constitution, as a more formal government is established. Elections will only need to be rigged in extreme circumstances, because this time foreign investment (read China) can be directed to areas in which political control is essential, and the local leader will be quite certain as to what is required.

It will be a fascinating study in ten odd years for a Ph.D in comparing what was achieved under Soviet Occupation, US/NATO Occupation and Afghanistan joining the SCO (when that happens) in terms of metrics like literacy, child death rate, income levels, life expectancy etc.. I'd put my money on the SCO, with Russia's diplomatic and military strength combined with China's cheque book. It will be very interesting to see how the revenues from increased trade will be allocated in the coming years by the Afghan government.

Recriminations

Whichever power brokers in the USA put their foot down and demanded a withdrawal need to be acknowledged. It has been, and continues to be a haphazard and poorly coordinated withdrawal, but better so than not.

Ignore the political point scoring, it will soon fade to irrelevance. The questions are what can the USA and NATO learn from their boondoggle venture into the Graveyard of Empires?

The sources contain a smattering of recent opinion at the bottom.

Sources

Afghanistan - Taliban Make New Peace Offer And Other Bits, MoonOfAlabama

Afghanistan - This Is The End ..., MoonOfAlabama

A Saigon Moment Looms in Kabul, Pepe Escobar

All Roads Lead to the Battle for Kabul, Pepe Escobar

OK, I Might As Well Say It. Andrei Martyanov

After 20 years & billions of dollars, the American defeat in Afghanistan is worse than the Soviet failure...how has this happened? Paul Robinson

NATO’s “secret armies”: Gladio in western Europe, Daniele Ganzer

What the United States Did in Indonesia, Vincent Bevins

What was U.S. involvement in Vietnam War? Alan Rohn

Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline, BBC