Failure at Every Stage What the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan tells us

In a few weeks, the U.S. military went from being in control of Afghanistan to staging a frantic evacuation of troops and civilians from an isolated, vulnerable airport in the middle of Taliban-occupied Kabul. What went wrong?

The collapse of Afghanistan was quick. In late May, U.S. forces and the Afghan National Army (ANA) controlled Afghanistan, and everything was in place for a late August departure. The Taliban launched an offensive to retake the country. In early July, despite significant losses of territory, President Biden promised that Afghanistan would never fall to the Taliban. On August 10, when the Taliban began taking major cities, U.S. officials estimated that the government could fall in as little as 30 days. Five days later, the entire country fell as Taliban forces entered Kabul unopposed. And by late August, U.S. forces, isolated at Kabul’s international airport and surrounded by Taliban forces and frantic mobs of people trying to flee, conducted an ad hoc evacuation.

We can divide what went wrong into three decision-making failures, each owing to an inability to update operating assumptions. First, a failure to accept that the Taliban had won the guerrilla war and adapt to the situation once it was apparent. Second, a failure to adapt to the speed of the Taliban’s offensive by building contingencies to protect the U.S. evacuation effort. Finally, a failure to appreciate the dangers of being besieged in Kabul and to take steps to protect U.S. troops and civilians. Let’s examine each in detail.

.https://www.city-journal.org/analyzing-the-us-retreat-from-afghanistan?wallit_nosession=1

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Failure at Every Stage What the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan tells us

Failure at Every Stage What the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan tells us

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