Leaving the Graveyard Redux (#151)
Things have moved pretty quickly on the ground in Afghanistan this last week as the government collapsed, the Taliban took control of the country, and the United States worked desperately to get its people and Afghan citizens out of the country. Today, approximately 6,000 US and UK troops are defending the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (By the way, Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post is doing a phenomenal job reporting on the situation). The United States now joins the Great Britain and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as other super powers who fought and lost in the Graveyard of Empires.
I am by no means an Afghanistan expert, but like most of us who fought there, I am trying to sort through some conflicted feelings that have come to the surface over the last several days. I fought in Afghanistan from February 2010 to February 2011. I am proud of the hard work, partner building, and tough combat that our battalion, 3rd Battalion, 187 Infantry, the Iron Rakkasans, did in Paktika and Ghazni Provinces during that year. Our battalion had 3 soldiers killed and over 100 wounded during the deployment. Dozens of our Afghan partners were killed and wounded, as well. Later, I worked on Afghanistan in the Pentagon from June 2012 to June 2014. Like others who fought there my emotions have run the gamut. Pride. Anger. Denial. Bargaining. Depression. Frustration.
After the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1989, Mohammad Najibullah’s government lasted until 1992. I had hoped that President Ashraf Ghani’s government would have lasted three years as well. Unfortunately it didn’t, but I thought I might add a few ideas to the conversation on the end in Afghanistan. I tried to take the emotion out of the article and focus on a few facts.
Iron Rakkasan Patrol, the Omna Mountains, Afghanistan
In 2012 I wrote “Leaving the Graveyard: The Soviet Union’s Withdrawal From Afghanistan“ which was published in the Army War College’s Quarterly Magazine, Parameters. I argued then that the US needed to have engaged strategic political leadership, expand the National Directorate of Security (an Afghan combination of the FBI and CIA), train and equip an air force, and secure commitments from donors past our withdrawal to keep the Afghan government functioning. You can read the full article here. My friend, Jason Dempsey, has been writing on the need to leave Afghanistan for the past several years. Here is one of his most illuminating articles.
The Good
It’s helpful to review a few of the milestones of the 20 year commitment to Afghanistan. The United States began Operation Enduring Freedom on October 7, 2001. Major combat operations were over by December 17, 2001. Operation Anaconda (see Post #126 for more) happened between March 2-6, 2002. From 2009 to 2011 the United States and the coalition surged troops to Afghanistan to try to defeat the Taliban on the battlefield while buying time for the Afghan government and forces to grow and develop. Since 2013, the remaining US and coalition forces have been advising, training and assisting Afghan security forces. During that same time (2013-2020) the Taliban grew and expanded. The Taliban Final Offensive began in earnest in March 2021. Province after province fell to the Taliban in the spring and summer. Kabul eventually fell to the Taliban on August 15, 2021. Over 775,000 US service members served in Afghanistan over our 20 year commitment.
Over the two decades there are many positive things that our service in Afghanistan gave us. Most aspects of rural Afghanistan, other than cars, motorcycles, and cell phones, have been unchanged for decades. US and NATO soldiers were exposed to an incredibly beautiful country that was extremely tribal, rural, and archaic. Afghanistan’s mountains are imposing and its’ night sky reveals the most stars I’ve ever seen (both with and without night vision devices!) Those of us that served there learned to like the naan bread and tea. I found the Afghan people to be extremely friendly and easy to like. The soldiers that served in Afghanistan bonded with our fellow soldiers — the rough living conditions, the emotions of combat, the altitude, the commitment to something larger than ourselves, and the long days — brought the small groups of us together tighter than we had ever been before or will be ever since. We fought shoulder-to-shoulder and made life long connections with our fellow soldiers in the high desert and mountains of Afghanistan.
The US and NATO also brought things to Afghanistan over the two decades. On the positive side, the people of Afghanistan were exposed to the NATO way of problem solving, the NATO approach to counterinsurgency/combat (this wasn’t all positive — we fought differently than the Afghans), elections, and capitalism. Literacy rates increased (28% to 43%), life expectancy increased, the number of university students increased, almost everyone now has a cell phone, and women gained a greater measure of equality. Unfortunately, the NATO, US, and Non-Governmental Organization presence and money brought Afghanistan rampant corruption and graft.
The Bad
First, Afghanistan is a tribal society that lacks a national identity. Most people don’t identify with the government in Kabul whether it is a king, a communist dictator, the Taliban, or an elected official. Instead they identify with their tribe or village. The challenges of building a national government and a national military in this environment were enormous.
Second, from the get-go, there were never enough troops in Afghanistan to build safety and security for the Afghan people. Historically, in a counterinsurgency, there needs to be 20 security forces for every 1,000 residents. Afghanistan is 252,071 square miles in size with a population of 38,000,000. To get to that 20:1,000 counterinsurgency ratio, there would need to be 760,000 security forces in Afghanistan. At the height of the surge in 2011, there were only 454,300 security forces (90,000 US, 41,300 coalition, and 323,000 Afghan) or a ratio of 11.95 security forces for every 1,000 residents. The ratio was even worse in 2015 (8.74:1,000) and 2019 (7.6:1,000). For comparison, in Iraq at the height of the Surge in 2008 there were 182,000 US, 170,000 coalition, and 589,054 Iraqi forces. With an Iraqi population of 28,280,000, this was a ratio of 33 security forces for every 1,000 residents (and didn’t include the 100,000 Sons of Iraq as well). Looking at the troop numbers is depressing to realize that Afghanistan was always a secondary effort, even during the Surge.
Finally, the Afghan Security Forces bore the brunt of the fight over the last five years. From 2015-2020 the number of US forces and Coalition forces in Afghanistan fluctuated between 15,000 and 20,000 troops. In 2019, the Afghan Security Forces totaled 272,500 people with 180,900 in the Army and 112,400 in the Afghan Police. From the Brookings Institute’s Afghanistan Index, here are the number of Afghan Security Forces Killed in Action (no numbers are available for wounded) and the US, coalition, and contractor fatalities by year:
US+Coalition+Contractor
Year ANSF KIA KIA
2015 7,000 84
2016 8,000 63
2017 7,000-9,000 54
2018 7,000-9,000 46
2019 10,900 (4% of the force KIA). 64
2020 10,900 (4% of the force KIA) 8
From 2015-2020, Afghan Security Forces had 52,800 people killed. US, Coalition, and its contractors lost 319 people. The Afghan Security Forces, with support of coalition air power, carried the fight for the last five years. The ANSF may have crumbled at the end, but there was five years of hard fighting prior to August 2021.
The Ugly
There are many ugly things about our two decades in Afghanistan, but the one that has bothered me the most over the last 10 years revolves around our efforts to build the Afghan Air Force. During our year in Afghanistan the fights between American forces and the Taliban would last until the US military was able to get attack helicopters or fixed wing aircraft overhead that could employ bombs or rockets against the enemy. This type of air support is called close air support, or as FM 1-02.1 states, “air action by aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and that require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces in contact.” It was a fair fight in Afghanistan until that happened. It isn’t an easy task to accomplish — you have to have planes that can fly, pilots that can hit their target, and folks on the ground that can direct the pilots to a target. Think of a 3-dimensional problem that happens at 200+ miles per hour while your emotions are at the highest level because you are under fire.
US Air Strike, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, 2010
My biggest critique of our last decade in Afghanistan is that the US military always had an unspoken assumption that it would be available to provide close air support to the Afghan Army, the Afghan police, and the NDS forces when they were in combat with the Taliban. For example, in 2019, the US dropped 7,423 bombs on Afghanistan — the most weapons it had ever dropped on the country! As the US withdrew in 2021, the close air support went away and it became a fair fight between the Taliban and the Afghan government forces. As the US started downsizing, some people even advocated out sourcing the close air support to a private military contractors as an interim solution. This contractor solution would potentially have continued to buy time for the Afghan Security Forces on the ground until a more robust Afghan Air Force could be brought on-line.
We (and I say WE because we (the soldiers, politicians, and the voting public) all own the problem) had a decade to get an Afghan air force together that could provide close air support to Afghan troops in contact across the entire country. This was a big challenge, but one, in retrospect, that could have been done over 10 years of work. For a variety of reasons (challenges training Afghan pilots, delays in deciding on/purchasing aircraft, little interest in close air support in counterinsurgencies, and politics over which type of aircraft to buy) that didn’t happen. Building an air force from scratch is not without precedent. Comparing the United States’ efforts in South Vietnam, to the USSR’s progress in Afghanistan, to the United States efforts in Afghanistan is revealing.
Republic of Vietnam, 1973 — In 1973, South Vietnam was approximately 67,108 square miles with a population of 19 million people. The Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) Air Force strength in 1973 was approximately 61,147 people and 2,232 aircraft. The aircraft included:
191 Fighter Aircraft (F-5s)
590 Attack Aircraft (A-1s, A-37, and AC-47s)
792 Transport Aircraft (Mainly C-47, C-119, C-123, and C-130s)
659 Helicopters (Mainly UH-1s and CH-47s)
Afghanistan, 1989 — Afghanistan is 252,071 square miles with a population of 11,870,00 people in 1989. At its peak after the Soviet Union’s withdrawal, the Afghan Air Force had at least 7,000 personnel and ~390 aircraft. The aircraft included:
90 Fighter Aircraft (MiG-17/-19s)
105 Attack Aircraft (45 MiG-21s and 60 Su-7s and Su-17s)
45 Il-28s Transport Aircraft (IL-28s)
150 Helicopters (Mi-24 and Mi-8)
Afghanistan, 2020 — Afghanistan is 252,071 square miles with a population of 38,000,000 people in 2020. Before the collapse, the Afghan Air Force had approximately 6,800 personnel and ~352 aircraft. The aircraft included:
29 Attack Aircraft (19 A-29 Super Tucanos and 10 Cessna 208s)
47 Transport Aircraft
76 Attack Helicopters (8 Mi-24 and 68 MD-500)
200 Utility Helicopters (Mi-17 and UH-60)
Our two decade long effort failed to produce an Afghan air force that could support Afghan troops in the fight against the Taliban continuously 24/7 in a country as large as the state of Texas. The Soviet Union was able to build an effective Afghan Air Force in a decade that provided CAS for three years and made it an unfair fight. Using my rough, back of the envelope math, to have a continuous presence above Afghanistan the Afghan Air Force would need a fleet of at least 100 A-29 Super Tucanos. Our inability to build an Afghan Air Force made it an even fight for the Taliban against the Afghan Security Forces in late 2020 and 2021 and contributed to the rapid collapse of the government.
Conclusion
There was goodness, badness, and ugliness from our two decades in Afghanistan. I am proud of my time in Afghanistan and the soldiers that I fought alongside. The rest of it, I’m still sorting out and will probably be at it for another decade.