Four Reasons Why Defeat in Afghanistan was Inevitable: A Reflection on the Failure of American Foreign Policy

To me it has always been one of Shakespeare’s greatest lines — if you ever read Julius Caesar, you might know the line to which I am referring. Mark Anthony, at Caesar’s memorial service, tells the crowd that he has not come to condemn Brutus, because, after all, Brutus is an honorable man. He has come simply to mourn the death of the great Caesar. Well, you probably know what happened. With a few words, Mark Anthony is able to turn the crowd against Brutus and those who assisted him in the assassination of the Great One.

I labor under no such pretense here — just to be clear, concise, and totally to the point. I am not here to bury Afghanistan, after all, its demise was already certain the day the first Americans placed their boots on the ground. I am here to condemn the failed foreign policies that have plagued this country and its allies since the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran, specifically after the election of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, in 1953. We did that, of course, in the name of national security to help an ally, the British, because Mossaddeq threatened to nationalize Iran’s oil supply. Heaven forbid. I mean, the American and British economy forbid.

The fall of Afghanistan comes down to these points — each one is an ongoing theme in American foreign policy:

1. We are either ignorant of history, so we repeat the same failed course of action over and over, or, at some level, we know the facts of history, but fail to see how they apply to us.

2. We don’t learn from past mistakes.

3. We think the rules don’t apply to us.

4. We fail to see that the 19th century model of how human society evolves, ending, of course, in a European-style nation-state at least theoretically democratic, isn’t valid. To make matters worse, we ignore the empirical data that should correct our mistaken vision.

But, let’s start at the beginning, with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The United States aided and abetted the Mujahideen, a collection of various groups that included the nascent Taliban, in their war against Russia. Wikipedia reminds is that we weren’t alone — “The Mujahideen were variously backed primarily by the United States, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and the United Kingdom; the conflict was a Cold War-era proxy war.” Do note, by the way, that near mortal enemies, Iran and Saudi Arabia, found common ground in the war against Russia….

Here we come to the most critical piece of the failure of our foreign policy in Afghanistan: Either we didn’t know that, aside from some self-described “Maoist” groups, the Mujahideen were Islamic fundamentalists, or we knew they were and we elected to look the other way.

I am not sure which is worse.

How could we not know? As much as it pains me to say this, one would think that after View Nam, we would understand the importance of history. The fall of Afghanistan clearly demonstrates that we have still failed to learn that lesson.

Did we simply forget what happened to the Russian Army? How could we? I can’t conceive of the possibility that we did forget, but then, if we really believed our own PR, perhaps we did just that — or we drank the Cool-aid and began to believe we could succeed where the Russians failed?

What if we did know? Well, if we did know, and we went to war anyway, then I don’t even know what to say. Did we somehow think we were different? That the same forces that allied against the Russians wouldn’t ally against us? Hmmmm. Is this the arrogance of power, or the power of stupidity? Say what you want about the ongoing tensions between the Saudis and the Iranians, but, under all those differences there is an unbreakable common bond — Islam. Afghanistan is an Islamic country. The presence of American forces — infidels — would not be taken lightly. American troops on the ground would — and did — evoke a Holy War. We can’t and we won’t ever win a holy war. Well, not unless we are willing to annihilate every Muslim and erase from history any trace of Islam. Good luck with that.

Or, did we believe our own propaganda? After all American Exceptionalism says it all — god gave this world to us to rebuild in our image and likeness. This is, after all, our divinely given destiny. Shockingly worse yet, would be the possibility that we really thought bigger was better. That the big, bad, technology driven, well-trained and disciplined American Armed Forces were more than anyone could handle — especially a rage-tag band of Muslim fundamentalists. Again, after failing to break Hanoi’s will to fight by attempting to bomb them into oblivion, you would have thought we would have learned our lesson.

Which brings me to my next point.

We never learned what we should have learned in Viet Nam. A conventional army can’t win a conventional war against guerrilla forces. As we see in the Afghan Papers, the assumption was that as long as the number of Taliban killed went up while the number of American, allied and Afghani soldiers killed went down, we would win the war. Eventually.

Well, anyone old enough to remember the weekly body count in Viet Nam should quickly see the error of that logic. It isn’t about numbers. It is about the motivation to win — when it is your country, your religion, your way of life, you will fight to the death, generation after generation until time — or the war — ends.

The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total. U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined.

The most powerful military in the world brought to its knees by bearded men on motorbikes. Wow, there you have it.

Whether or not we knew or understood the depth of the resistance we would face, there is, underneath this dilemma, a now quaint 19th century notion — The end of human socio-political evolution is the nation-state. According to this view of human evolution, only when humans live in a nation-state is the full potential of human being realized, and one way or another, we will attempt to build nations, even when we say that isn’t our goal. Democracy is not the domain of a tribal culture. It is the domain of a nation-state, well with the exception of places like Texas and Florida. We should have learned this in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen…. and to some extent, in Viet Nam. Democracy presupposes a very specific culture, a system of values that is not common in human culture. The idea that we can simply descend into a country and declare that we have liberated them so they can be a democracy is not only futile. It is stupid, foolish, and can come to only one end: Failure.

That failure comes at a hefty price — again a lesson we did not learn when we invaded Iraq, or when we followed the French into Viet Nam. People die. Social turmoil and civil war ensue, and after all the bloodshed, turmoil, famine, and refugees, another dictator inevitably seizes control. And what do we do? We quietly tuck our tail between our legs and leave. And as we saw in Viet Nam, and will likely see in Afghanistan, within 5 years, American factories will take their place in Afghan society.

So, what have we accomplished after 20 years in Afghanistan? What do we do with all the bloodshed we have caused? How do we justify the failure? What will we say when women are returned to the captivity of Sharia Law?

Nothing, until we will make the same mistake, somewhere else. Again.

And that is the problem.