Taliban benefited from billions US spent on Afghan army

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• The $83 billion investment of US to the Afghan government over the two decades of training and capability building was turned into waste.
• The Taliban forces had accumulated US-powered military equipment following their Afghan invasion.
• US officials believed that the Afghan forces lacked the “will to fight.”

Amid the $83 billion military investments and capability training from the US for two decades, the Afghan government’s forces bowed down swiftly and easily to the Taliban forces. In a quick turn of events, the insurgent group seized control of the nation’s capital Sunday as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was forced to flee out of the country.

It has now become evident that the militant group is the one who really benefited from the US investments. The Taliban had now both gained political and military firepower, which they have gotten from the Americans.

The Taliban was able to steal a bunch of modern military equipment after a successful conquest of several Afghan district centers. In recent weeks, they invaded other provincial capitals and military bases which gave them more leverage.

On Monday, a US defense official who wished to remain anonymous confirmed the Taliban’s swift and massive accumulation of US-powered equipment.

Military analysts will surely study and analyze the US fallout to provide a viable Afghan government force, as well as the factors that paved the way for their downfall.

The destabilization was a testament to the failed investment and support to the Afghan security forces, who in some situations have just opted to give up their weapons and vehicles instead of fighting back.

Despite the Afghan government was far more equipped with weapons, it became evident that they did not embody the will to compete and fight against the Taliban.

“Money can’t buy will. You cannot purchase leadership,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Monday.

Even though the Afghans were able to obtain tangible resources, retired US Army lieutenant general Doug Lute, who worked in the Afghan war strategy during the Bush and Obama administrations, said that they did not have the needed “intangibles.”

“The principle of war stands — moral factors dominate material factors,” he said. “Morale, discipline, leadership, and unit cohesion are more decisive than numbers of forces and equipment. As outsiders in Afghanistan, we can provide material, but only Afghans can provide the intangible moral factors.”

In another note, former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, who also participated in the Afghan conflict in 2001, said that the drawdown made a chilling impact on the Afghan government.

“If we wouldn’t have used hope as a course of action, we would have realized the rapid drawdown of U.S. forces sent a signal to the Afghan national forces that they were being abandoned,” he said.

“The problem of the U.S. withdrawal is that it sent a nationwide signal that the jig is up — a sudden, nationwide signal that everyone read the same way,” International and public affairs  Prof. Stephen Biddle also noted.

Source: The Associated Press