Shocking Outcome: The West Leaves Afghanistan a Smoking Ruin

NATO plans to withdraw its soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 because it reasons that the security situation there has decidedly improved. But the reality looks far different. The outcome is disastrous and the situation remains explosive. Indeed, the results in Afghanistan show that the West has learned nothing from past mistakes the United States made in Vietnam.

In making the decision to withdraw, officials in the Pentagon and the German defense ministry had seldom been more in agreement. The West would permanently end its 100,000-man military deployment to Afghanistan by the end of 2014, justified by the firm belief that after 13 years of war the security situation there had markedly improved. The price paid by the West? Some 3,500 soldiers were killed—among them 54 members of the German military—and tens of thousands of soldiers were physically and emotionally wounded. With a total cost of some $900 billion, Afghanistan was probably the most expensive lopsided war ever fought in modern times considering the relatively modest investment of allied manpower and weapons technology as well as the meager military capabilities of the enemy.

More Fatalities Than Ever Before

The conventional wisdom was that it would be enough to station several thousand instructional personnel in Afghanistan for two, or at most, three years. The NATO-trained “disciplined, dependable and highly motivated Afghan security forces” drawn from the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police would be capable of independently providing security in this multiethnic nation of approximately 30 million Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Turkmen and a dozen other ethnic groups. Unfortunately, the reality six months prior to the planned withdrawal in the summer of 2014 looks a lot different. A newly released report by the United Nations Assistant Mission in Afghanistan shows that in the first six months of 2014, more civilians suffered than in all previous years. Approximately 1,200 non-combatants were killed and more than 4,000 civilians were seriously wounded or disabled.

Policeman in Afghanistan: The Most Dangerous Job in the World

The reputation of the Afghan security forces among Afghan citizens has declined dramatically. In a national opinion poll, 80 percent of those asked described their security forces as uneducated, undependable, poorly trained, corrupt and criminal. Despite their highly-touted level of training and superior weaponry, more than 4,000 Afghan policemen were killed last year by the enemy or by friendly fire. Working as an Afghan policeman rates globally as the most dangerous job in the world. The average income for an Afghan family is around two dollars per day. In contrast, the war has cost the West $900 billion, or $30,000 per Afghan citizen. That is more than the average family of 10 will earn in a lifetime. As for reconstruction and repair, the West has invested only $50 billion to date, most of which has gone directly into the pockets of corrupt politicians.

The first person to complain about Afghanistan was Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Müller, who described the situation there as a crass “imbalance between military aid and money for civilian development.” Moreover, as if the desolate security situation in the face of a NATO withdrawal weren’t enough, now there is a dispute over the winner in last month’s presidential election in Afghanistan. Although the candidates’ dispute is only political at the moment, such events have the potential to get out of control and lead to armed confrontation. The two candidates who claim they won the presidential election represent the two principal ethnic entities in Afghanistan: Pashtuns and Tajiks. Indeed, warlords of these two factions engaged in protracted combat over power in Kabul after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, a battle that eventually destroyed the city and enabled the Taliban takeover of the country.

Nothing Learned in Vietnam

After the defeat of United States military forces in Vietnam, one of the most intelligent young American officers, David Petraeus, published an article while at Princeton University entitled “Lessons of History and Lessons of Vietnam.” Petraeus concluded, among other things, that the two main reasons for U.S. failure were : 1) insufficient training and the motivation of South Vietnamese troops; and 2) the failure to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. Petraeus contended that both these factors were essential to victory in asymmetrical warfare. Neither factor was present in Vietnam, and Petraeus concluded that the U.S. could not afford to repeat those failures in future wars. But 40 years later, the main reasons for U.S. failure in Vietnam were repeated in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the commander in chief of the International Security Assistance Force was a four-star general named David Petraeus .

The German Army Must Learn From Mistakes

It will be interesting to see whether another “highly intelligent” German officer conducts a study about lessons learned in Afghanistan after NATO completes the withdrawal. If so, neither I nor anyone else will be surprised if the German high command publishes these findings as the U.S. did when it published the Petraeus study from Princeton. Release of such a study would be significant if for no other reason than to see whether German President Joachim Gauck, still a controversial figure among the German people, is inclined toward greater global military engagement on Germany’s behalf and whether our government expects such increased engagement would succeed.