from TCW Defending Freedom, 17 August 2021
FROM the autumn of 2007 to the end of 2008 I was Deputy Commanding General of all NATO forces in Afghanistan, the first to hold that office. Before that I spent two years as the senior coalition officer in US Central Command. I had, therefore, more than three years of close and direct contact with Afghanistan. During those years I travelled to almost every province in Afghanistan and to the neighbouring states of Pakistan, Khyrgyzstan and Khazakstan. I have a very clear idea of exactly what is going on right now in Afghanistan, and as we see the chaotic scenes from Kabul airport, I fear greatly for anyone who worked with the Afghan government or with Nato, for women and for any non-Pashtun ethnic minorities. Biden’s and Johnson’s failures in Afghanistan have put all those lives on the line and, downstream, will destabilise the region and threaten the West.
We need to understand what went wrong, and why. Critics may say that this is being wise after the event; I have said all that I am going to say many times in recent years. We must understand what went wrong so that if ever there is the need, or the will, to intervene again around the world, we might not get it quite so wrong.
The first thing Western leaders need to develop is strategic patience. Raiding simply will not work – they all took the wrong lessons about that from Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Sending a force is not the solution to a problem, it is merely the beginning of the engagement. Looking at one’s watch to frame the withdrawal conditions, while the other side looks at the calendar, merely allows the other side to wait us out and then overturn all that was done. Dictatorships have the advantage over us here – they can take the long view. Although I will be lambasted for saying so, colonialism was also more far-sighted in this way. Colonialism was essentially about expeditionary operations to seize territory followed by a very long counter-insurgency to hold it. ... CONTINUE READING >>>
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