I would expect that a group that has been hunted for 2 decades to be only just barely managing to survive - how do they have weapons, transportation, logistics etc to be able to basically get their act together like the past 20 years never happened?
* Because everybody can see which way the balance of power is tipping. The US is too weak to stay, and unlikely to ever come back. The Talibans are right there, hungry for blood.
* Because many would rather have Sharia law than US backed corruption. Mullah Omar was publicly executing bacha bazi perpetrators. 'One of the original factors mobilizing the rise of the Taliban was their opposition to the practice.' The US was turning a blind eye if not actively protecting them. In an infamous case, they pushed out a SOF captain and almost fired a decorated SOF sergeant for doing something about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar#Forming_the_Tali...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/green-beret-who-beat-u...
Every soldier is also 100% certain their government is unbelievably corrupt, which can't help. If you read about Castro and his men taking over Cuba, they got people to give up military outposts just by firing at them few times. They had no real interest in fighting for their leadership.
Aid from Pakistani Pashtuns. Different country, same tribe.
They got their asses kicked in 2001-02, retreated to relatively safe territory in Pakistan. And then have been fighting for the past 20 years. They've occupied territory in Afghanistan for over a decade. It's just never included cities before now.
While their land in Pakistan isn't totally safe, it's their refuge. They have to worry about drone strikes and hush-hush raids, but they are relatively safe there.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/afghanistan-taliban-s...
The rest of the population just isn't strong enough and coordinated enough to beat a highly motivated and organized minority.
While I didn't support continuation of the war because I don't see how it benefits the USA, it wasn't an unjust war. Quite the opposite. We were allies of the democratically elected Afghan government, fighting against the tyranny of a small group of religious fanatics.
2. The Taliban come in and promise a return back to old times, and no drone strikes any more, which means they at least don't get resistance any more.
3. The government is corrupt as hell, the army soldiers don't see anything worth fighting for, and they don't have working heavy arms (planes, tanks). That drastically reduces how much resources the Taliban need to take over.
That's true if you don't think adding the female half of the nation to the pool of available talent helps build a nation.
There is more to sustainably help women than just building schools.
You don't have to convince the other guy to die for his.
The easiest way to win is to convince the other guy not to die for his country.
Very loosely paraphrasing Sun Tzu.
I'm not really sure I can make Russia funding the Taliban work. Do you have any actual evidence because this would be like the CIA funding Al queda, in many ways..
There are a few enough Russians in Afghanistan, but afaik, the Taliban are mostly ambivalent to them now. The Taliban mostly targets 3 types of folks - US and NATO people, Afghan government people, and open allies of the Afghan government (countries like India). Uzbekistan and Iran maintain very tight borders with Afghanistan so that the fighting doesn't spill over.
For a very interesting tidbit, even very recently, Taliban was fighting ISIS near Badakhshan and Nuristan.
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> Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply. As of 2017, opium production provides about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan, more than the Afghan National Security Forces [0]
> In 2020, the area under opium cultivation expanded to 224,000 hectares from 163,000 hectares - overwhelmingly in areas under Taliban control. [1] [2]
> Meth is even more profitable than heroin—and is turbocharging the insurgency.
> The officials described the Taliban as the world’s biggest drug cartel and said the group is using heroin transshipment routes to push methamphetamine into new markets in Australia, Asia, North America, Europe and Africa.[4]
> Later, a NATO report, accessed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, claimed that Taliban's annual budget had increased to USD 1.6 billion in the financial year 2019-20. It said that the militant group had increased its profits through illicit drug trade, illegal mining, and exports. [3]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista...
[1] https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/current-affairs-tre...
[2] https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-what-the-conflict-me...
[3] https://english.jagran.com/world/explained-how-do-the-taliba...
[4] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-...
This is a truly historic fuck-up. It's not about it being right to withdraw (it is), but how it's done. We've wasted unfathomable money and time, not to mention lives. Now we have truly nothing gained, we're embarrassed and humiliated, and our enemies emboldened. It's pathetic.
1. https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-08-12...
2. https://nationworldnews.com/china-has-taken-new-steps-with-a...
My pet theory is Russia is playing both sides of this. The SCO has been around for 20 some odd years. But recently China and Russia have been fucking with each other and it primarily involves inviting India and Pakistan to join the pact. Anyhow, I imagine Putin is arming and possibly coordinating funding to the Taliban. Once in power the Taliban will become China’s problem in the region and may very well have some excursions past their border with China. So Putin will be able to swoop in to assist with additional military might. It may even become a showcase for the SCO as a NATO-like coalition.
It’ll achieve two objectives: showing that China now is a regional military influence in a former US sphere of influence, and that Russia is still itself a military power that can throw its weight around. And just like the US in Afghanistan and the Soviets before it, this will become China’s problem to deal with long term.
No one in the US agencies who planned the pull-out and advised the Biden administration, apparently.
every major war since WWII has been a proxy war between the US and Russia/China. Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, Latin America stuff, etc.