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Comment by TekMol | Hacker News Reader

Why did the US leave Afghanistan in one big step?

Shouldn't they have left some part of Afghanistan, see what happens, go back and fix it, repeat until they know how to leave the country in a stable situation?

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The point is to not then escalate back into having more troops once the taliban inevitably regained control. The ANA had 20 years to prepare for the countrys defenses. The US has spent 100s of billions propping this government up, and it has become clear today (and frankly for years) that it couldn’t stand on its own. It wouldnt matter if the us left in 5, 10 or 20 more years

> and it has become clear today (and frankly for years)

Decades. The US already did this in the 1980s.

And before that the Soviets, British, and others for centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan

Afghanistan is never going to have a "stable situation" because it's not a single country with a single national identity. The various ethnicities (and tribal identities) are far more important to the people there [0]. It only has national borders because its neighbors enforce their national borders. Its border with Pakistan is another in a long line of the British Empire's poorly considered border delineations [1].

As for retaking areas, it takes a much larger force to take a defended region than to hold it. The same force holding that area doesn't have the strength or supplies to retake it once it's lost. The only reason the Taliban has moved in so easily is the ANA has folded at every encounter leaving regions effectively undefended once the US pulls troops out.

[0] https://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/photos/000/329/3...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line

> Afghanistan is never going to have a "stable situation" because it's not a single country with a single national identity.

This applies to USA and it's a single country

Large parts of the country have been handed back over to the Taliban for years. I just read an article an article from 2017 talking about daily life in a Taliban controlled region. The American government has known exactly what was going to happen for years, but had no remaining political will to continue occupying the country. There was also no political will in Afghanistan to continue the "western style" government the Americans has put in place without the continued support and payments from the US. This is just the final step in a years long surrendering process.

The US didn't leave Afghanistan in one big step. The US ended its combat mission in Afghanistan is December of 2014. That's 6.5 years ago now.[1][2]. This was widely covered by the international news media. At the time there was a big ceremony in Kabul to mark the occasion of turning security of the country over to the Afghan armed forces who were ~350k strong at that point. The drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan has been going on for over a decade now and began in 2010. By 2015 there were only 10K troops left and their role since then has been non-combat(advisory and training.)[3] More recently under Trump that number of troops was drawn down to just 3K.

[1] https://time.com/3648055/united-states-afghanistan-war-end/

[2] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/1...

[3] https://www.npr.org/2016/07/06/484979294/chart-how-the-u-s-t...

"The US ended its combat mission in Afghanistan is December of 2014"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_War_in_Afghanis...

The U.S. military carried out at least a dozen operations, including commando raids and airstrikes,

in early March 2017, American and Afghan forces launched Operation Hamza to "flush" ISIS-K from its stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, engaging in regular ground battles.

"In January 2015, United States Forces began conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan under the direction of the administration of the United States President Barack Obama against Taliban militants".

American forces have increased raids against "Islamist militants"

Throughout 2015, the US launched about one thousand bombs and missiles at targets in Afghanistan

"Despite US airstrikes"

"U.S. forces have been carrying out operations with Afghan forces"

"According to Defense Department statistics 9 U.S. service members were killed in action"

"US aircraft conducted around 30 air strikes in Helmand Province"

You get the point.

You might want to look closer at your own link which clearly points out that post 2014 the US and Afghanistan began coordination on Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. The purpose of that mission was solely assisting the Afghan security forces with counterterrorism operations against local ISIS and Al-Queda affiliates as well as the Haqqani networks. All of your copy/pasted quotes are actually in support of these facts.

Further, your link also explains that in 2015 began the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission whose purview was solely training, advising, and assisting the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.

So yes, pretty much what I said above.

I think that’s exactly what they did. Both Obama and Trump removed significant numbers of troops from Afghanistan, and now Biden is removing what’s left. Obama went with the above approach, putting troops back in as needed (with surges and such) but we’d always come back to the same point. This just us finally giving up.

The superpowers never understood the war they were fighting here or how to fight it. This country, it’s terrain, history, and culture are just different from what western politics is willing to understand or have the stomach to address.

Not just western. The soviets and the Chinese have suffered similar problems throughout history. And the Indians, Persians, etc… basically, no one is really good at conquering unless they simply colonize what they conquer (eg the normans in England, or the Europeans in America).

Everyone knew what would happen.

But if we can't create a stable Afghanistan in 20 years, would we have any success in 40?

It was done the way it was to please domestic voters.

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