Why have the Taliban taken Afghanistan so quickly?
It seems as though, for the first time in 43 years, Afghanistan will no longer be in a state of perpetual warfare. Unfortunately, the ending has not been ideal. Following President Joe Biden’s accelerated withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, the infamous Taliban, a radical Islamist faction that oppressively ruled the country for five years before the U.S. and allies invaded in 2001, have rapidly made gains. At the time of writing, the Taliban have captured every major city in Afghanistan and have entered the presidential palace in Kabul to negotiate a peaceful transition of power, as president Ashraf Ghani has fled to Tajikistan. (President Biden seems to have no regrets, stating that Afghans must “fight for themselves”) While the aforementioned quote may seem quite harsh, it is honestly shocking that two decades of support and billions upon billions given to the Afghan government could not buy them the competence necessary to predict or prevent such an expected series of events. Since 2002, the U.S. has given the Afghan government over $147 billion for “reconstruction activities”, around half of which was designated for the Afghan National Army. [1] In light of this, one may be surprised at how quickly and effectively the Taliban are taking over. But those familiar with Afghan affairs have all but expected these worrying developments. In reality, there are a myriad of reasons as to why the Taliban are so formidable and intimidating, whereas the government forces are rapidly disintegrating.
#1 : Endemic Corruption
American General John R. Allen has previously stated that ”The existential threat to the long-term viability of modern Afghanistan is corruption” rather than the Taliban or Pakistani interference. [2] This isn’t just semantics; corruption infects each and every sector of Afghan society and practically prevents anything effective being done in terms of state building. To demonstrate how utterly severe the problem is, the Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Afghanistan 165th out of 179 countries in a report on transparency. [3] Nepotism is rampant throughout the country. What is considered “favouritism” in most countries is heavily ingrained in the political culture of Afghanistan. Giving positions of power to fellow clan members is merely seen as the right thing to do, rather than a violation of an oath to serve the state objectively. This leads to a lack of competence in a range of institutions from public services to the military, meaning that many officials simply do not have what it takes to deal with the intense Taliban onslaught. Afghanistan’s unbridled corruption also affects material aspects of state-building. Take the Ring Road as an example. The goal of this project was to connect Afghanistan’s capital with three other major cities, that in turn would drastically improve the Afghan economy and make it far easier to defend Afghanistan’s population centres from the Taliban. America started the project shortly after it invaded in 2001, and while it initially showed promise, the United States sidelined the project, leaving it in the hands of Afghan officials, who, you guessed it, were oftentimes notoriously deceitful. Despite billions of dollars spent on the project, a 2018 report found that the road immediately needed repair, and if it became impassable, the central government would collapse. Say an official responsible for building a portion of the road was given $20 million to do so, he may spend less than half of that on the project and pocket the rest for himself. While you might feel as though the official is a horrible person (and what he did certainly was not a moral act) it is merely a product of the situation. If you are in a country as volatile and unpredictable as Afghanistan, you are going to want to ensure your loved ones are safe and secure in case a massive collapse occurs (as is happening right now). Despite the fact that the circumstances push officials to skim off the top, this does not change the fact that many Afghans rightfully view those who are meant to lead them as dishonest officials unworthy of their loyalty, which brings us to the next reason the Taliban were able to take control in such an unopposed manner.
#2 : Will to fight
The Afghan National Army is said to boast around 300,000 soldiers, but this is just a guesstimate. In reality, many soldiers defect, or commanders fill in names of non-existent troops to collect a paycheck. Loyalties to warlords and tribal chiefs often trump allegiance to the state, and the state’s treatment of soldiers often makes it difficult for government soldiers to justify their sacrifices. Take the example of Abdullah Mohammadi. A commander of eighteen soldiers, he and his team were dropped off in a grape field in a Taliban stronghold, five kilometres away from the nearest base. They were surrounded, but the brave troops fought tooth and nail against their enemies. That is, until Mohammadi stepped on a mine. The higher-ups had neglected to inform the soldiers that the Taliban had littered the road to the base with explosive devices. After a year spent recovering in hospital, he was given two wooden legs and a plastic arm to replace his lost limbs. Despite his courageous sacrifice, Mohammadi hasn’t received his veteran’s pension in a year. It is easy to imagine that these infuriated troops feel tempted to simply abandon their posts rather than risk death for a state that does not seem to care the slightest bit about their well-being. This is probably why recently, the major city of Jalalabad on Afghanistan’s Eastern border was given up without a fight. On the other hand, the Taliban have been fighting an insurgency for decades, which indicates that they do have the determination and patience to take over Afghanistan. Although anyone with a level of familiarity with Islam would argue that the Taliban’s actions do not represent the Islamic religion, their religious motivations defintiely give them a certain degree of commitment that other fighting forces lack. An anonymous commander during the Soviet-Afghan war desperately asked ”How do you defeat an enemy who looks into the barrel of a gun and sees paradise?”. Simply put, the Taliban fighters firmly believe they will be compensated by God Almighty, whereas the government soldiers don’t even know if they will be paid next month.
#3 : Smart Politics
Although the Taliban of the ’90s were experts in guerilla warfare, they did not play their cards very well when they actually ruled the country for close to six years. For one, thousands who even remotely opposed their movement were brutally, and oftentimes, publicly executed. Political Parties were banned, and important positions were exclusively given to ethnic Pashtun, the largest ethnicity in Afghanistan, even in areas where no ethnic Pashtun lived. Religious minorities faced overwhelming persecution, and Afghan women went through everything from forced marriage to a ban on attending school and working. Essentially, the Taliban had angered so many people that they formed a united front that worked with the United States to violently overthrow their regime. It appears that the Taliban have learned their lesson from their last rodeo and will become a lot more diplomatic about seizing power. For one, the Taliban’s leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, has given a general amnesty to those who worked with the government [4]. Captured soldiers are no longer beheaded, the vast majority are simply let go back to their homes after capture. Previously, the imminent threat of execution by the Taliban motivated Afghan soldiers to fight against the Taliban. Now, with an easy route to safety, and the other option being fighting for no pay, defecting seems like the most viable option for most government soldiers. Furthermore, in a recent interview with the BBC, a Taliban spokesperson has claimed that no one will be harmed and that women will be able to go to school. Media and technology will be permitted as well. How true is this? We can not determine that as of yet. However, it goes to show that the Taliban has been planning this for quite some time, and the calculated fashion in which they have done this shows that this is a different Taliban than the rogue and wanton group that the world came to know decades ago.
#4 : Pakistani Support
One should avoid speaking authoritatively about the extent to which Pakistan directly or indirectly assists the Taliban, since this is extremely difficult to determine accurately. However, almost all observers and experts have agreed that certain members of Pakistan’s political and military establishment lend support to the Taliban. For one, back when the Taliban first ruled, Pakistan was one of only four countries who recognized their government [5] [6]. During this era, the Pakistan ISI (inter-service intelligence) provided training and equipment to the Taliban. As many as thirty trucks a day filled with armaments would cross in from Pakistan to Afghanistan, and Pakistani veterans were seen instructing at Taliban training camps [7] More recently, much of the Taliban leadership lived in Pakistan following their defeat at the hands of the United States, and Taliban ally Osama Bin Laden’s compound was just 800 yards away from the largest military academy in Pakistan. For Pakistan to not have captured him meant, as the former US secretary of defense Leon Panetta stated, “they were either involved or incompetent.” It is well known that Pakistan’s military, who some consider the de facto leaders of the country, is not at all incompetent. Just today, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the return of the Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate”. [8] But to even go as far as assist the Taliban, there must be a significant motivator. The motivator in name is the “Durand Line”, specifically, maintaining it. In 1893, the British administration in India and their ally, the Emir of Afghanistan, decided to make a boundary to properly determine their spheres of influence. This boundary split the ethnic Pashtun people across two states. The line remained even after the British left, and the westernmost part of British India became Pakistan. Although the fifteen million Pashtun in Afghanistan constitute a larger fraction of their country’s population, a nationalistic and hostile Afghan government may inspire the 43.5 million Pathan in Pakistan to engage in seperatism. It is for this reason that Pakistan must ensure that the Afghan government is friendly as to make sure they will not push forth irredentist claims regarding the Durand Line. Furthermore, the recently collapsed government of Afghanistan had close ties with India, Pakistan’s arch-nemesis. Being surrounded by an enemy on one side and a potential proxy on the other is a strategic disaster. Surely, those in Pakistan’s war room are overjoyed that the Taliban’s radical emirate has once again come to fruition.
It is with deep sadness that the world watches the project for democracy and tolerance in Afghanistan fall to a brutal faction that consistently tarnished the reputation of Muslims worldwide. Great worry should arise for the fate of Afghanistan’s women and minorities, but as history has taught us, it is unlikely that anything will be done to alleviate their situation at this point. That being said, a lesson that any policy analyst must take from the last two weeks is that spouting out aid money and flexing muscles is not enough to build a stable and successful state. Namely, a concerted effort must be made to remove socio-political issues such as corruption, hearts and minds have to be won, foreign countries have to be kept in check, even if it requires some appeasement, and most importantly, don’t give the enemy something to bite on. The errors and faults of the Afghan government gave the Taliban something to motivate their fighters with, while also having the effect of demoralizing those who were ready to fight against them. Finally, it must be stressed once again that Afghanistan is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. If you are interested in helping those in need, I urge you to check out the links below.
