By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-23/-Vietnamization-in-Afghanistan-METL4YuGnS/index.html
This year, the US war in Afghanistan entered in 19th year since it invaded the landlocked country in October 2001. Afghan war is currently the longest international military campaign in the American history, unseating the prior Vietnam War that lasted for more than17 years.
Nixon administration’s “Vietnamization” policy, which sought to end the US overseas armed engagement in Vietnam through “expand, equip and train” the South Vietnamese forces – is being tailed by Washington in Afghanistan by way of US Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) or NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission “to train, advise and assist” the Afghan security forces and institutions to shawl the offensive intent.
In December 2014, former US President Barrack Obama and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced the “completion” of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or Afghanistan war and leaned into the non-combat OFS/RS operations.
Though OEF was capped five years ago – in a humongous blow to the US, the world’s prevalent military power continues to ensnare in the grief-stricken country and suffer heavy fatalities. During OFS/RS, the US troop casualties had reached 622 by December 16 including 82 deaths in the face of squandering about $1 trillion in Afghanistan.
Virtual collapse of the US to elude its military losses is pretty embarrassing for the globally dominant defense equipment exporter, notwithstanding it relocated its troops from a showdown with Afghan Taliban to relatively a placating role to lift Afghan forces’ warfare capabilities and focus on counter-terrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaeda.
In the middle of Obama’s tenure, the US had unequivocally realized that Afghan war is invincible. National Security Council (NSC) staffer’s disclosure in 2014 “Your job was not to win, it was not to lose” typified that Washington had long succumbed to the Afghan insurgent group that was consolidating its foothold and preparing to expand the operations and influence all over Afghanistan.
NSC operative revelation and Taliban outstretched control in the battle-scarred country lobbed the US claim “to help secure and build-upon the hard-fought gains of the last 13 years” and alluded that it was shambolically in search of a restorative transit to flee Afghanistan while circumventing to be derided internationally over its military gaucherie.
As the US had covertly decided to leave Afghanistan in line with the “Vietnamization” strategy to withdraw the American forces and foreign troops within 60 days of signing the agreement with North Vietnam – Taliban divined the US plan.
Armed faction moved aggressively in many districts of the country and redoubled its terminal suicide attacks including the deadliest stretch in Kabul. On the other hand, the US was unlucky in a sense that it could not forsake Afghanistan, citing its national security concerns. The US, therefore was enmeshed in the republic.
Whereas the US President Donald Trump snapped off the peace talks with Taliban by his scorching tweets on September 8, accusing the militant group was trying “to build false leverage” and to “strength their bargaining position” through attacks – he turned his back on coalition's airstrikes to target the combatants across Afghanistan to tighten his grip on peace dialogue.
In July and August, the alliance’s aircraft released 613 and 753 weapons respectively – higher than many months from OFS launch in 2015 – to dial up military pressure on Taliban militias to “shape the political environment” and keep their interlocutors on the negotiation table. After the consultations were stalled in early September, some 948 weapons were dropped on Taliban – largest monthly total since RS mission was propelled.
So while Trump imputed Taliban for tapping armed attacks on Afghan and US forces as a bullying tactic to seek comparative influence on Afghan peace discussions – in actuality, both the sides wrought the assault ploys to overawe each other in the crucial exchanges.
But in this abysmal fray to dominate the rival, Afghan civilian casualties hit the roof and swelled to 4,009 including 954 killings in the third quarter of 2019 – an increase of 130% from last quarter and 60% more as compared to last year’s three-month period.
Since peace continues to become extinct in Afghanistan, it could readily be plumbed that the US widespread military, strategic, economic, social and political objectives in the God’s Acre of global superpowers would never decipher into existentialism and eventually head toward dead end.
Amid stark issues of rampant corruption, growing poppy fields, Afghan forces’ incompetence to protect their own country and shriller differences among the political parties – the US bilateral Afghanistan Compact and Geneva Mutual Accountability Framework (GMAF) to promote trade, stability, enhance capacity of the civilian institutions and improvement of justice system are blighted.
For years, several US administrations have overstated their visibly-invisible feats to cover up the defeat and massive defense spending in Afghanistan. Once the US sensed that it won't be able to dupe its nation over ghost triumphs for too long, it picked the Vietnam-like troop retraction strategy through a peace dialogue with Taliban.
The US has lately relinquished nearly all its Afghan-centered initiatives. At present, the fundamental US objective in Afghanistan is to “preventing any further attacks on the United States by terrorists enjoying terrorist haven or support in Afghanistan.” Thus resumption of talks in Doha had to commence as part of the US “Vietnamization” in Afghanistan.
However, it doesn't mean that the US will completely check out of Afghanistan. Washington seeks an intelligence-based military presence in Kabul to monitor adversaries and regional developments, certainly at a much lower cost than it is paying now.
So five years after the introduction of “Vietnamization” in Afghanistan, Trump’s last month surprise thanksgiving visit to Kabul was an assurance to the US troops that Taliban “want to do a ceasefire” and they were coming home soon.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-23/-Vietnamization-in-Afghanistan-METL4YuGnS/index.html
This year, the US war in Afghanistan entered in 19th year since it invaded the landlocked country in October 2001. Afghan war is currently the longest international military campaign in the American history, unseating the prior Vietnam War that lasted for more than17 years.
Nixon administration’s “Vietnamization” policy, which sought to end the US overseas armed engagement in Vietnam through “expand, equip and train” the South Vietnamese forces – is being tailed by Washington in Afghanistan by way of US Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) or NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission “to train, advise and assist” the Afghan security forces and institutions to shawl the offensive intent.
In December 2014, former US President Barrack Obama and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced the “completion” of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or Afghanistan war and leaned into the non-combat OFS/RS operations.
Though OEF was capped five years ago – in a humongous blow to the US, the world’s prevalent military power continues to ensnare in the grief-stricken country and suffer heavy fatalities. During OFS/RS, the US troop casualties had reached 622 by December 16 including 82 deaths in the face of squandering about $1 trillion in Afghanistan.
Virtual collapse of the US to elude its military losses is pretty embarrassing for the globally dominant defense equipment exporter, notwithstanding it relocated its troops from a showdown with Afghan Taliban to relatively a placating role to lift Afghan forces’ warfare capabilities and focus on counter-terrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaeda.
In the middle of Obama’s tenure, the US had unequivocally realized that Afghan war is invincible. National Security Council (NSC) staffer’s disclosure in 2014 “Your job was not to win, it was not to lose” typified that Washington had long succumbed to the Afghan insurgent group that was consolidating its foothold and preparing to expand the operations and influence all over Afghanistan.
NSC operative revelation and Taliban outstretched control in the battle-scarred country lobbed the US claim “to help secure and build-upon the hard-fought gains of the last 13 years” and alluded that it was shambolically in search of a restorative transit to flee Afghanistan while circumventing to be derided internationally over its military gaucherie.
As the US had covertly decided to leave Afghanistan in line with the “Vietnamization” strategy to withdraw the American forces and foreign troops within 60 days of signing the agreement with North Vietnam – Taliban divined the US plan.
Armed faction moved aggressively in many districts of the country and redoubled its terminal suicide attacks including the deadliest stretch in Kabul. On the other hand, the US was unlucky in a sense that it could not forsake Afghanistan, citing its national security concerns. The US, therefore was enmeshed in the republic.
Whereas the US President Donald Trump snapped off the peace talks with Taliban by his scorching tweets on September 8, accusing the militant group was trying “to build false leverage” and to “strength their bargaining position” through attacks – he turned his back on coalition's airstrikes to target the combatants across Afghanistan to tighten his grip on peace dialogue.
In July and August, the alliance’s aircraft released 613 and 753 weapons respectively – higher than many months from OFS launch in 2015 – to dial up military pressure on Taliban militias to “shape the political environment” and keep their interlocutors on the negotiation table. After the consultations were stalled in early September, some 948 weapons were dropped on Taliban – largest monthly total since RS mission was propelled.
So while Trump imputed Taliban for tapping armed attacks on Afghan and US forces as a bullying tactic to seek comparative influence on Afghan peace discussions – in actuality, both the sides wrought the assault ploys to overawe each other in the crucial exchanges.
But in this abysmal fray to dominate the rival, Afghan civilian casualties hit the roof and swelled to 4,009 including 954 killings in the third quarter of 2019 – an increase of 130% from last quarter and 60% more as compared to last year’s three-month period.
Since peace continues to become extinct in Afghanistan, it could readily be plumbed that the US widespread military, strategic, economic, social and political objectives in the God’s Acre of global superpowers would never decipher into existentialism and eventually head toward dead end.
Amid stark issues of rampant corruption, growing poppy fields, Afghan forces’ incompetence to protect their own country and shriller differences among the political parties – the US bilateral Afghanistan Compact and Geneva Mutual Accountability Framework (GMAF) to promote trade, stability, enhance capacity of the civilian institutions and improvement of justice system are blighted.
For years, several US administrations have overstated their visibly-invisible feats to cover up the defeat and massive defense spending in Afghanistan. Once the US sensed that it won't be able to dupe its nation over ghost triumphs for too long, it picked the Vietnam-like troop retraction strategy through a peace dialogue with Taliban.
The US has lately relinquished nearly all its Afghan-centered initiatives. At present, the fundamental US objective in Afghanistan is to “preventing any further attacks on the United States by terrorists enjoying terrorist haven or support in Afghanistan.” Thus resumption of talks in Doha had to commence as part of the US “Vietnamization” in Afghanistan.
However, it doesn't mean that the US will completely check out of Afghanistan. Washington seeks an intelligence-based military presence in Kabul to monitor adversaries and regional developments, certainly at a much lower cost than it is paying now.
So five years after the introduction of “Vietnamization” in Afghanistan, Trump’s last month surprise thanksgiving visit to Kabul was an assurance to the US troops that Taliban “want to do a ceasefire” and they were coming home soon.