Afghanistan and the COIN conundrum

Abstract

America's longest war ended unceremoniously in August 2021 amid chaotic scenes of Afghan civilians storming the Kabul airport in a desperate effort to board a flight out of the country. The twenty-year war took the lives of 2,448 U.S. service members, 1,144 allied service members, 66,000 Afghan military and police, 3,846 U.S. contractors, 444 aid workers, 72 journalists, and 47,245 Afghan civilians as well as 51,191 Taliban and other insurgents. It cost the United States an estimated $2 trillion, billions of it spent on an Afghan army that collapsed in a matter of weeks. By any measure the mission was an utter failure bought at a terrible price in blood and treasure. While the current public argument focuses on assigning political blame, a more serious discussion has already begun. Debate rests on a broad fundamental question: Did failure result from mistakes made at crucial junctures during the campaign, or was the war unwinnable at a cost the United States could bear? Many of those analysts who insist that the war was lost rather than unwinnable focus on the early days of the conflict. The invasion of Afghanistan and initial occupation went very well, they note. President George W. Bush sent an ultimatum to the Taliban government of Mullah Mohammed Omar: turn over all al-Qaeda leaders, close terrorist training camps, and give the United States access to the camps to make sure they remain closed. Omar refused, and the U.S. invaded with the full support of NATO, which for the first time in its history invoked article 5 of its founding treaty declaring that an attack upon one member is an attack upon all, in response to 9/11. The bombing campaign began on October 7, by midNovember, coalition forces in cooperation with the Northern Alliance had taken the capital Kabul and all major cities, and by early December, the Taliban had collapsed. It took the coalition about a year and half to pacify the countryside, but bin Laden escaped to the border region of Pakistan.