By Dr Sharifullah Dorani*
The three-track strategy did not proceed as intended when it was implemented. The Afghan Government remained as corrupt as ever. Its leader, the Afghan President, disagreed with numerous components of the strategy and did not (or could not) fully cooperate. At local levels, in areas cleared by the military, the civilian government either was absent or delivered late. Even then its personnel suffered from corruption, incompetence and criminality.
The military managed to clear the areas they had identified in 2009, though it took longer than had been assumed, but found it difficult to build (because of the lack of governance) and, most importantly, transfer to the Afghan National Security Forces. Like the civil government, the Afghan National Security Forces suffered from incompetence, corruption, and an addiction to drugs. Even though many places were clear of insurgents in the south, the insurgency spread to all corners of Afghanistan, and US forces and the Afghan National Security Forces remained as engaged in fighting as they had ever been. On the positive side, however, the military managed to increase the number of the Afghan National Security Forces and meet the goal it had set out during the Af-Pak review. Weak and incompetent as the Afghan National Security Forces were, they still had managed to take responsibility for the security of many population centres, such as Kabul, and numerous other large cities. Though slow and frustrating, this aspect of the military surge was working, and the Afghan National Security Forces remained the only hope (and tangible accomplishment of the surge) that they would eventually shoulder all security responsibility and allow US forces to responsibly withdraw from Afghanistan.
The main goal that the military in 2009 had requested the surge for was not achieved: McChrystal and Petraeus could not provide security for the Afghans. Those threats to security that McChrystal had set out to remove, such as corruption, criminality, warlordism, the Taliban’s violence and collateral damage, remained untouched in 2011. Security was to provide conditions for other objectives, and since it was not established, other goals therefore remained more or less unachieved. By June 2011, the Taliban momentum might have been halted in the south, but the Taliban had many other gains in other parts of Afghanistan. On the whole, the Taliban momentum was not reversed. The Afghans felt as insecure and unsafe as they had done during 2009.
Likewise, both aspects of the diplomatic effort—reconciliation with the Taliban and the pursuit of a regional solution—were undermined by a series of insurmountable obstacles. The unrealistic conditions set for peace talks, coupled with Pakistan’s deliberate interference, made meaningful negotiations with the Taliban a nonstarter. Similarly, the deep-seated conflicting interests of regional powers such as India, Iran, and Pakistan meant that a unified regional solution was never a viable option: the Great Game was on and in full force.
As demonstrated, almost every assumption made by the Biden camp in the Af-Pak review proved accurate; and almost every assumption the military, as Gates himself would agree,[1] had made proved illusory. Establishing whose assumptions proved accurate or erroneous is relevant to the decision to draw down. Their accuracy or otherwise directly impacted the public debate as well as policymakers’ bureaucratic powers. As the President and all the policymakers made it clear, the drawdown was based on conditions on the ground, which did not seem in the military camp’s favour.
[1] Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, pp. 569-570.
*Sharifullah has a PhD from Durham University in the UK on America’s Afghanistan War. He has authored several articles and two acclaimed books: The Lone Leopard, a novel set in Afghanistan, and America in Afghanistan, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Sharifullah is the founder of CEPSAF and the South Asia and Middle Eastern Editor at CESRAN International.