WEBVTT - We Lost The War in Afghanistan. Now What? 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:24.116 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show 0:00:24.116 --> 0:00:27.716 where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:28.356 --> 0:00:32.996 I'm Noah Feldman. This week, no story is more pressing 0:00:33.356 --> 0:00:37.236 in the United States and elsewhere than the fall of 0:00:37.316 --> 0:00:40.636 Kabul in the aftermath of the US announcement that it 0:00:40.756 --> 0:00:45.196 is imminently withdrawing from Afghanistan. As this story broke, I 0:00:45.316 --> 0:00:48.356 knew that the person I wanted most to hear from 0:00:48.396 --> 0:00:52.436 about it was doctor Emil Simpson. Emil is a former 0:00:52.476 --> 0:00:56.036 British Army officer who served three tours of duty in 0:00:56.076 --> 0:01:00.636 Afghanistan with the Royal Gurkha Rifles. He is a scholar 0:01:00.676 --> 0:01:03.716 who wrote an extraordinary book, War from the Ground Up, 0:01:04.036 --> 0:01:08.756 twenty first Century Combat as Politics, that described new forms 0:01:08.796 --> 0:01:11.396 of war fair both from the standpoint of the soldiers 0:01:11.436 --> 0:01:14.316 on the ground and from the big picture perspective of 0:01:14.436 --> 0:01:18.156 military strategy. He's also a scholar of international law and 0:01:18.196 --> 0:01:22.316 international relations, and currently is a barrister in London working 0:01:22.356 --> 0:01:26.676 on international and commercial matters. Emil, thank you so much 0:01:26.756 --> 0:01:34.796 for joining me, especially on short notice. Emil. Let's start 0:01:34.836 --> 0:01:39.036 with the immediate question of the evacuation, which we're all 0:01:39.116 --> 0:01:43.836 watching in real time. How is it going, and how 0:01:43.836 --> 0:01:48.556 would you compare it to other instances of evacuation from Afghanistan, 0:01:48.676 --> 0:01:52.156 since eventually, it seems any power that decides that it 0:01:52.196 --> 0:01:57.996 wants to govern Afghanistan ends up evacuating inner hurry. Yes, well, 0:01:58.076 --> 0:02:01.916 from what I understand the evacuation, the plan is to 0:02:01.996 --> 0:02:05.476 complete it in two or three days. The Nazi evacuation 0:02:05.516 --> 0:02:07.596 of our forces, it's a question mark as to how 0:02:07.596 --> 0:02:10.236 we're going to get out inter as others who helped 0:02:10.316 --> 0:02:13.156 us who are not part of that evacuation. And that's 0:02:13.236 --> 0:02:17.796 clearly a severe problem in terms of the kind of 0:02:17.876 --> 0:02:20.956 very near term situation. The basic problem is that because 0:02:21.196 --> 0:02:25.196 the US evacuated Background air Base sometime ago, there's only 0:02:25.236 --> 0:02:27.876 one airfield effectively in Afghanistan that we can use, and 0:02:27.876 --> 0:02:31.236 that's that's the Comble Airport, which only has one runaway 0:02:31.356 --> 0:02:34.236 and is overlooked by high ground. So it's clearly very vulnerable. 0:02:34.596 --> 0:02:37.476 So you could have, you know, an accident. So regards 0:02:37.476 --> 0:02:39.796 to what Taliban leaderships say, a kind of unit on 0:02:39.836 --> 0:02:42.236 the ground that doesn't follow them might decide to take 0:02:42.276 --> 0:02:44.796 a pot shot at a plane that clearly would be disastrous. 0:02:44.836 --> 0:02:47.276 That that's the kind of flash point that could happen, 0:02:47.556 --> 0:02:49.756 but short of that, it looks like we're just going 0:02:49.756 --> 0:02:54.356 to get out without further do really, as long as 0:02:54.356 --> 0:02:59.036 there's no accident, you know, for me personally, I do 0:02:59.756 --> 0:03:04.196 remember vividly the expect not just the interpreters but of 0:03:04.236 --> 0:03:08.156 cause them too, but also just the ordinary Afghan soldiers 0:03:08.356 --> 0:03:10.596 and especially you know, their officers who are basically the 0:03:10.596 --> 0:03:14.836 people I was working with on a daily basis. Who 0:03:14.836 --> 0:03:17.196 are my age. These aren't the kind of high level 0:03:17.556 --> 0:03:19.476 officials in Kabul who are cr up. These are guys 0:03:19.516 --> 0:03:24.996 who and women too, who were very brave and very hopeful, 0:03:25.116 --> 0:03:28.836 very idealistic. They'd grown up really with this new government 0:03:28.916 --> 0:03:30.476 or at these they didn't remember the had a bands, 0:03:30.476 --> 0:03:35.636 they're too young, wanted a sort of better Afghanistan, and 0:03:36.236 --> 0:03:39.916 they really were putting their lives on the line for 0:03:39.996 --> 0:03:44.596 this project. And those are the people who have basically 0:03:44.636 --> 0:03:47.676 been abandoned, you know, unlike US, I mean, Western Force 0:03:47.756 --> 0:03:50.756 is obviously for extremely hard too. These guys were deployed 0:03:50.756 --> 0:03:52.556 constantly on the ground. You know, they were in Hell 0:03:52.636 --> 0:03:55.076 Mount for ten years without relief. I mean maybe a 0:03:55.116 --> 0:03:57.876 week back in Kabul or whatever, but basically they were 0:03:57.916 --> 0:04:01.476 just constantly there. This was their life. This wasn't at all, 0:04:01.556 --> 0:04:04.396 This was their life, and they didn't have the option 0:04:04.396 --> 0:04:07.916 to leave Afghanistan. I don't know whether it crossed their 0:04:07.916 --> 0:04:11.116 mind that day they might have to evacuate, but that's 0:04:11.156 --> 0:04:13.556 the position we're in now, and we absolutely have a 0:04:13.596 --> 0:04:17.116 moral obligation to evacuate these people. You know, regardless of 0:04:17.116 --> 0:04:19.076 whether we leave Ghanistan, we should be ashamed of banding 0:04:19.116 --> 0:04:21.196 these people because this isn't These aren't kind of numbers. 0:04:21.196 --> 0:04:23.796 These are real people. And personally, I think it's not 0:04:23.836 --> 0:04:27.036 good enough just to evacuate the interpreters, because yes, we 0:04:27.076 --> 0:04:29.956 shouldn't evacuate those people, but there's a whole bunch of 0:04:30.196 --> 0:04:34.156 very brave Afghan junior officers and you know, equivalent in 0:04:34.196 --> 0:04:37.876 the government who have served us, and we should evacuated 0:04:37.876 --> 0:04:41.316 them and their families too. That that is absolutely moral responsibility. 0:04:41.476 --> 0:04:45.356 The West bears at the moment in terms of historical comparisons, 0:04:46.116 --> 0:04:49.996 the evacuation of Kabal in eighteen forty two after the 0:04:49.996 --> 0:04:52.796 First Afghan War, when the entire British army was destroyed, 0:04:53.596 --> 0:04:56.876 so that that clearly is an instant of an evacuation 0:04:56.916 --> 0:04:59.316 that went far worse. But you know, an example that 0:04:59.396 --> 0:05:02.516 evacuation that went better is that would be the Soviet experience, 0:05:02.596 --> 0:05:06.716 in which the Soviet main force left Afghanistan in nineteen 0:05:06.756 --> 0:05:10.556 eighty nine having trained a Naska forces of roughly the 0:05:10.596 --> 0:05:14.956 same size, about three hundred thousand, and those Afghan forces 0:05:14.956 --> 0:05:19.076 fought on for another two years until the Soviet Union 0:05:19.156 --> 0:05:23.556 itself collapsed in nineteen ninety one. And the Soviet force 0:05:23.636 --> 0:05:28.116 also counterattacked critically. So when the Mujadin massed immediately after 0:05:28.156 --> 0:05:32.476 the Soviet withdrawal, the Soviet main force withdraw the Mujadin 0:05:32.596 --> 0:05:35.876 tried to attack Jaulalabad in a conventional kind of attack. 0:05:36.596 --> 0:05:39.876 The Afghan Soviet Army, with Soviet air support and some 0:05:40.116 --> 0:05:45.796 artillery support, counterattacks and severely defeated the Mujadin, who basically fragmented, 0:05:46.476 --> 0:05:49.476 and that brought them more time. So there are important 0:05:49.636 --> 0:05:53.836 comparisons being made in terms of the historical analogies. Another 0:05:53.876 --> 0:05:56.876 analogy that's foremost in the minds of Americans, of course, 0:05:57.156 --> 0:06:00.596 is the American withdrawal from South Vietnam in the wake 0:06:00.636 --> 0:06:04.516 of the fall of Saigan. As we know, in that instance, 0:06:05.196 --> 0:06:07.516 some people who had been allied with the United States 0:06:07.556 --> 0:06:10.356 and have helped the United States were able to get out, 0:06:10.396 --> 0:06:14.716 but the great majority were essentially left to their fates, 0:06:14.756 --> 0:06:18.876 some to be oppressed or even killed by the North Vietnamese, 0:06:19.036 --> 0:06:23.716 others to desperately get onto boats and hope that the 0:06:23.996 --> 0:06:26.236 rafts or barely see where the vessels they were on, 0:06:26.276 --> 0:06:29.316 would take them somewhere. And certainly from news reports, it 0:06:29.396 --> 0:06:32.356 sounds as though there may be a significant number of 0:06:32.876 --> 0:06:36.436 people who worked with the Allies in Afghanistan who don't 0:06:36.476 --> 0:06:39.436 manage to get out. I was wondering whether when you 0:06:39.516 --> 0:06:41.916 were on the ground now a bit more than a 0:06:41.916 --> 0:06:46.876 decade ago as an officer, whether the locals who worked 0:06:46.956 --> 0:06:50.796 with you were already thinking about what would happen if 0:06:50.796 --> 0:06:54.356 the war were lost and they were left to their fates. 0:06:54.756 --> 0:06:57.356 Was that on their minds? Was it something you discussed 0:06:57.356 --> 0:06:59.196 with them, or was it something that nobody wants to 0:06:59.196 --> 0:07:02.036 talk about because it was too terrible a prospect. It 0:07:02.076 --> 0:07:04.036 depended on where you were in the country. I think 0:07:04.156 --> 0:07:07.876 in southern Afghanistan people did not think that the army 0:07:07.916 --> 0:07:10.036 would hold out in the country side, at least not 0:07:10.076 --> 0:07:13.276 in the whole countryside. Because the Taliban is predominantly a 0:07:13.516 --> 0:07:16.476 Christian movement from the south and east to Afghanistan. People 0:07:16.516 --> 0:07:18.676 did not think that the north to Afghanistan, or the 0:07:18.716 --> 0:07:21.556 center or the big cities would fall to the Taliban, 0:07:21.676 --> 0:07:25.076 because that's that's the Soviet analogy in nineteen eighty eight, 0:07:25.196 --> 0:07:28.396 that the Majudin took the countryside, especially in the south 0:07:28.396 --> 0:07:30.716 and east, they did not take the north, or the 0:07:30.756 --> 0:07:34.076 center or the big cities. It is heartrap heart rendering 0:07:34.156 --> 0:07:38.636 seeing or hearing about the experience of those who worked 0:07:38.676 --> 0:07:42.516 with us who couldn't get out, And indeed it's particularly 0:07:42.556 --> 0:07:46.636 poignant when one has oneself given those assurances, not necessarily 0:07:46.636 --> 0:07:49.916 in absolute terms, but certainly implied. You know, when you're 0:07:50.236 --> 0:07:51.716 leading to platoon of soldiers and you go to from 0:07:51.716 --> 0:07:55.316 Afghan village you're based there for six months, and the 0:07:55.396 --> 0:07:57.876 local elder or you know that their people are trying 0:07:57.916 --> 0:07:59.796 to make decisions about whether to support you or not, 0:08:00.076 --> 0:08:03.076 and you're trying to encourage them. You are implicitly giving assurances. 0:08:03.396 --> 0:08:05.636 And sure you're not giving insurances and your personally, it's 0:08:05.636 --> 0:08:08.196 not you're personally making the promise. You're a you're acting 0:08:08.196 --> 0:08:12.716 as a representative channeling national policy. But they are nonetheless 0:08:12.756 --> 0:08:15.756 real promises, and there are real life and death. Effectually 0:08:15.796 --> 0:08:18.956 decisions and risk calculations made on the base of those assurances, 0:08:19.036 --> 0:08:21.076 and so when those people are sold out, which they 0:08:21.076 --> 0:08:23.476 absolutely have been, you know, you can say, well, that's 0:08:23.476 --> 0:08:25.636 not a national interest. That doesn't change the fact that 0:08:25.636 --> 0:08:27.636 promises have been given. And if you're the one who 0:08:27.676 --> 0:08:30.996 actually gave the promises, as you know thousands of Western 0:08:30.876 --> 0:08:34.476 military personnel and diplomats and aid workers would have done, 0:08:34.796 --> 0:08:39.836 that's a very different moral proposition. That's very tough, and 0:08:39.876 --> 0:08:43.356 I can imagine what you're feeling around it. What went 0:08:43.436 --> 0:08:47.116 wrong in the most recent period of time, I mean, 0:08:47.716 --> 0:08:51.556 the US, the UK, other actors spent upwards of a 0:08:51.596 --> 0:08:57.956 trillion dollars on trying to shore up, train and essentially 0:08:58.036 --> 0:09:02.396 buck up an Afghan military, and yet it seemed that 0:09:02.516 --> 0:09:06.116 once the final withdrawal was announced, the response of the 0:09:06.116 --> 0:09:09.836 Afghan military effectively was to lose more. I think that 0:09:09.876 --> 0:09:14.436 it couldn't win and give up the ghost relatively quickly. 0:09:15.116 --> 0:09:20.276 Why what's happening here? The first thing to say, I 0:09:20.356 --> 0:09:22.916 think this is not a story that's really cut through 0:09:23.556 --> 0:09:25.036 in the last couple of days, but even in the 0:09:25.076 --> 0:09:28.276 last five years, frankly is the number of Afghan casualties. 0:09:28.596 --> 0:09:32.156 So the basic message from President Biden is the Afghans 0:09:32.476 --> 0:09:36.676 won't fight for themselves, therefore Western soldiers should not fight 0:09:37.276 --> 0:09:40.756 for them when they won't fight for themselves. Were that true, 0:09:40.796 --> 0:09:43.396 that would be a good argument. But that's not the case, 0:09:43.436 --> 0:09:47.036 at least in a five year time frame. So although 0:09:47.116 --> 0:09:50.676 the country numbers are estimates, it's roughly a ballpark figure. 0:09:50.716 --> 0:09:53.636 So if you look at the Brookings Institution Afghan Index, 0:09:53.636 --> 0:09:58.436 which is most reliable source, they've estimated forty five thousands, 0:09:58.516 --> 0:10:02.556 so that's forty five thousand Afghan security forces. That's police 0:10:02.556 --> 0:10:07.116 an army deaths between two thousand and fourteen and two twenty, 0:10:07.236 --> 0:10:10.916 so just over five six years. So you compare that 0:10:10.956 --> 0:10:14.356 to US forces which are just under two thousand, five 0:10:14.476 --> 0:10:17.196 hundred deaths, and then coalition deaths of another two thousand 0:10:17.236 --> 0:10:20.156 and another two roughly contractors, So about five or six 0:10:20.196 --> 0:10:23.916 thousand Western death if you liked, the Afghan forces have 0:10:23.996 --> 0:10:27.476 taken about eight times more dead and then you're going 0:10:27.516 --> 0:10:29.276 to have a factor of about three in terms of 0:10:29.276 --> 0:10:32.716 wounded from that. So the idea that the Afghan army 0:10:32.836 --> 0:10:35.316 have not fought is it is not right. Forty five 0:10:35.356 --> 0:10:38.036 thousand of them if that estimate is right, or even 0:10:38.036 --> 0:10:41.556 close to being right have for and died doing exactly that. 0:10:42.156 --> 0:10:45.036 Were they fighting for their government? No, their government is 0:10:45.036 --> 0:10:47.396 crupt and rotten, and everyone knows that they're fighting for 0:10:47.436 --> 0:10:50.716 their families, who, unlike their leadership, don't have the option 0:10:50.876 --> 0:10:55.116 of leaving Afghanistan. They were fighting in remote provinces with 0:10:55.196 --> 0:10:57.476 their backs to the wall for the last five years, 0:10:57.476 --> 0:11:01.196 basically getting hammered and taking a lot of Catholics. Granted 0:11:01.316 --> 0:11:05.596 they weren't fighting completely independently. They had crucially Western logistical 0:11:05.636 --> 0:11:08.396 support the Afghan army mainly because of massive corruption at 0:11:08.396 --> 0:11:11.276 the higher levels of government, and the army was unable 0:11:11.316 --> 0:11:15.556 to do logistics. You put to you put those two 0:11:15.556 --> 0:11:17.636 factors together, and you've got an army that's basically being 0:11:17.676 --> 0:11:20.276 hammered in terms of catalties and has fought bravely, but 0:11:20.676 --> 0:11:24.516 it's morale's very low. The Taliban attack right at the 0:11:24.596 --> 0:11:28.156 very moment at which that Afghan force has to adapt 0:11:28.236 --> 0:11:30.156 to having no logistics support, so they can't get their 0:11:30.196 --> 0:11:33.316 couches out, they can't get ammunition and other supplies forward, 0:11:34.236 --> 0:11:36.836 and at the same time they see various members of 0:11:36.876 --> 0:11:40.956 their government at the cabinet level basically tweeting oh, I've resigned, 0:11:40.956 --> 0:11:44.156 I'm leaving my leaving combolts Jordan, my family in Dubai 0:11:44.236 --> 0:11:48.116 or whatever, and finally enough morale collapses. You know, query 0:11:48.156 --> 0:11:50.676 whether a Western force would be an indifferent You know, 0:11:50.916 --> 0:11:54.916 it's entirely understandable why the Afghan regular forces, isolated and 0:11:54.916 --> 0:11:59.236 abandoned in these provinces basically gave up. It is also 0:11:59.276 --> 0:12:02.716 clever as the final point of the Taliban to attack 0:12:02.796 --> 0:12:06.116 the southern towns first, because they basically attacks and the 0:12:06.116 --> 0:12:09.036 southern the big southern towns, and that triggered the Afghan 0:12:09.196 --> 0:12:11.756 government to deploy its reserves special forces kind of the 0:12:11.916 --> 0:12:14.316 unit they went south, and then the Taliban switched they 0:12:14.356 --> 0:12:17.036 main effort and sat the north. In conjunction with clever 0:12:17.036 --> 0:12:19.476 political tactics from negotiating strends and stuff, and you put 0:12:19.516 --> 0:12:22.636 that together, it's not surprising that the whole thing fell 0:12:22.676 --> 0:12:26.916 apart emil. A question that's really very pressing for a 0:12:26.956 --> 0:12:30.836 lot of listeners, myself included, is do you think this 0:12:30.996 --> 0:12:34.236 withdrawal was correct? Was it the right thing to do? 0:12:34.316 --> 0:12:36.956 Because part of what you're saying in terms of the 0:12:36.956 --> 0:12:40.836 directionality of the war suggests that there wasn't really a 0:12:40.956 --> 0:12:44.676 viable way either for the security forces to beat the 0:12:44.676 --> 0:12:47.956 Taliban or even to just hold them off indefinitely. And 0:12:47.996 --> 0:12:50.236 that starts to contribute to the idea that withdrawal was 0:12:50.876 --> 0:12:53.396 the right thing to do. But of course the alternative 0:12:53.396 --> 0:12:56.436 picture would be one in which there were ways to 0:12:56.556 --> 0:12:59.756 withdraw eventually, but to do it in a different way 0:12:59.756 --> 0:13:02.436 that would have a chance of stopping the country from 0:13:02.476 --> 0:13:04.756 falling into the hands of the Taliban in this way. 0:13:04.796 --> 0:13:06.756 So what is your view on that was the withdrawal 0:13:06.756 --> 0:13:10.156 the right thing to do? Now well as the military side, 0:13:10.196 --> 0:13:12.556 on the political side. On the military side, the US 0:13:12.676 --> 0:13:15.356 could in theory have stayed there indefinitely. Had a force 0:13:15.396 --> 0:13:17.756 of roughly two thousand, five hundreds by the end, spending 0:13:17.836 --> 0:13:20.916 roughly three billion dollars a month on a military budget 0:13:20.956 --> 0:13:23.476 of around just under eight hundred billion dollars a year. 0:13:24.036 --> 0:13:26.636 That's a significant but it's not a huge cost objectively, 0:13:26.756 --> 0:13:28.836 so you could just carried on. I should mention that 0:13:29.236 --> 0:13:31.916 eight US soldiers died in twenty twenty, so that's a 0:13:31.916 --> 0:13:34.676 serious number, but it's pals a comparison to the Afghan 0:13:34.676 --> 0:13:38.396 categies at numb As I mentioned. Politically, clearly, there was 0:13:38.436 --> 0:13:40.276 an appetite for that, So how do you square that. 0:13:40.996 --> 0:13:42.756 On the one hand, you've got this fact that when 0:13:42.796 --> 0:13:46.836 the US is there as a backstop, providing sport, providing logistics, crucially, 0:13:46.916 --> 0:13:49.916 the Afghan forces can carry on. You could have maintained 0:13:49.916 --> 0:13:52.676 the stalemate indefinitely, but there's no political wealth of the 0:13:52.676 --> 0:13:56.036 indefinite presence. Answer. You have to get a peace deal, 0:13:56.196 --> 0:13:59.796 So you have to use the stalemate as leverage to 0:13:59.796 --> 0:14:02.436 get a pace deal with the Taliban. That PCAL wasn't coming. 0:14:03.316 --> 0:14:05.916 I think a mistake was not to counterattack in the 0:14:05.996 --> 0:14:08.676 last two weeks. The Taliban attack kind of paralyzed us. 0:14:08.796 --> 0:14:13.996 They too fast. We appeared unable to move almost I mentioned, 0:14:14.076 --> 0:14:17.236 you know, in nineteen eighty nine the Soviets did counter 0:14:17.236 --> 0:14:22.636 attack at Lalabad. And when a gorilla force changes from 0:14:22.676 --> 0:14:24.716 being a gorilla force to being a conventional force, as 0:14:24.756 --> 0:14:26.836 they must do to take a country, that's their most 0:14:26.876 --> 0:14:29.076 vable moment. That's when you can really fight them for 0:14:29.116 --> 0:14:31.716 once conventionally, and it wouldn't have been very hard to 0:14:31.756 --> 0:14:35.276 inflict serious losses on them and basically forced them into 0:14:35.356 --> 0:14:38.236 you know, at least at least give the peace deal 0:14:38.236 --> 0:14:40.956 a chance. That's how Aban I think will surprised themselves 0:14:40.996 --> 0:14:42.796 are how easily they took Kaba, And indeed, you know 0:14:42.836 --> 0:14:46.236 you're talking about Sigon earlier. Note how in seventy two 0:14:46.356 --> 0:14:48.476 in the East to seventy two the North Vietnamese also 0:14:48.516 --> 0:14:52.036 tried to attack the Easter Offensive, and the Americans did 0:14:52.076 --> 0:14:56.036 counter attack. And I'm surprised North Etnams with their political 0:14:56.076 --> 0:14:58.636 will and bought more time, and he bought time for 0:14:58.676 --> 0:15:01.116 the peace deal. And I mean, obviously it collapsed in 0:15:01.156 --> 0:15:03.276 the end, but bought more time. So you know, a 0:15:03.276 --> 0:15:05.436 counter attack would have helped to get that peace deal. 0:15:05.476 --> 0:15:09.116 What it happened, who knows. It's impossible to be certain 0:15:09.116 --> 0:15:13.316 about these things. But I think we should have counter 0:15:13.316 --> 0:15:16.596 attack in terms of the wider decision. You know, it's 0:15:16.636 --> 0:15:19.596 for the US president's judge, US natural interest. I'm not American. 0:15:19.676 --> 0:15:21.636 It's not made to say that the Americans should or 0:15:21.636 --> 0:15:24.796 shouldn't bear that cost. That's President Biden. And if he 0:15:24.836 --> 0:15:28.116 thinks that that cost is too much, it I mean, 0:15:28.156 --> 0:15:30.796 I think people in the Biden administration would probably respond 0:15:30.796 --> 0:15:33.196 to that by saying that there was effectively a counter 0:15:33.276 --> 0:15:37.236 attack in the second term of the Obama administration, and 0:15:37.276 --> 0:15:40.996 that that was the effort that they hoped would be 0:15:41.076 --> 0:15:44.156 able to turn the tide, but that it failed. That 0:15:44.276 --> 0:15:46.916 then the Trump administration was just in a holding pattern, 0:15:46.956 --> 0:15:49.356 and that Biden had already decided himself. And this is 0:15:49.356 --> 0:15:53.036 pretty clear he had already decided, now seven years ago 0:15:53.116 --> 0:15:57.076 or eight years ago, that this wasn't worth continuing. And 0:15:57.196 --> 0:16:00.876 once he had that view, the possibility of motivating a 0:16:00.876 --> 0:16:04.476 counter attack would have been pretty difficult because the Talbin 0:16:04.556 --> 0:16:06.236 would have just tried to wait it out. You know, 0:16:06.236 --> 0:16:07.916 they would have said, listen, you don't really mean it. 0:16:08.076 --> 0:16:09.996 So if he had said, listen, we're just counterattacking in 0:16:10.116 --> 0:16:12.636 order to change the strategic calculus and make the Taliband negotiate, 0:16:12.796 --> 0:16:14.636 which was a version of what the United States had 0:16:14.636 --> 0:16:17.836 already said between twenty twelve and twenty fifteen, it just 0:16:17.876 --> 0:16:20.996 wouldn't have worked. Yeah, you put your finger on the 0:16:21.036 --> 0:16:23.316 pulse of the master. If you like, the key is surprised. 0:16:23.356 --> 0:16:25.156 You've got to make the Taliban think it's in the 0:16:25.196 --> 0:16:30.036 minds of the enemy. That's where victory lies. It's psychological state, 0:16:30.076 --> 0:16:34.436 if you like, and surprised works in Afghanstan. The surgery 0:16:34.476 --> 0:16:37.596 was not surprised. It was telegraphed the idea was we'll 0:16:37.596 --> 0:16:39.796 search for three years and then we'll draw down. So 0:16:39.836 --> 0:16:42.636 it was all very predictable, very telegraphed, no surprise, and 0:16:42.716 --> 0:16:44.836 indeed this points to a broader failing in the West 0:16:44.916 --> 0:16:48.436 approach strategy, at least in my view, whereby we think 0:16:48.436 --> 0:16:50.956 strategy is a kind of form of project management. It's 0:16:50.956 --> 0:16:53.476 a kind of strategy taught in business scopes where you know, 0:16:53.556 --> 0:16:55.756 if you want to build a house or something, you 0:16:55.796 --> 0:16:57.676 get your workers, your money, and your materials and you 0:16:57.996 --> 0:17:00.516 put put them in a spreadsheet, and you know, things 0:17:00.596 --> 0:17:02.596 might go wrong, like you might get some bad weather 0:17:02.676 --> 0:17:04.796 or something for a month, but and that might delay you. 0:17:04.836 --> 0:17:06.956 But ultimately you can get from A to B through 0:17:06.956 --> 0:17:10.716 the pretty kind of techno crash approach where you just 0:17:10.756 --> 0:17:14.036 put resources on a spreadsheet and your project manage with 0:17:14.156 --> 0:17:16.596 no account of the enemy, no account of the enemy whatsoever, 0:17:16.636 --> 0:17:19.156 as if wres some kind of scientific endeavor, and that's 0:17:19.156 --> 0:17:22.276 just completely wrong. War is all about getting into the 0:17:22.316 --> 0:17:24.756 mind of the enemies, about initiative, seizing the initiative, and 0:17:24.796 --> 0:17:28.156 holding the initiative, and it's much more psychological than that. 0:17:28.196 --> 0:17:31.116 And in Afghanistan, actually, you know, in retrospect, maybe we 0:17:31.116 --> 0:17:33.436 shouldn't urge in two thousand and nine, maybe we should 0:17:33.436 --> 0:17:35.596 actually have researched and actually put some pressure on n 0:17:35.636 --> 0:17:38.636 Fan government to do more themselves. But ultimately, if you 0:17:38.716 --> 0:17:41.476 step away from all this, it's not about these kind 0:17:41.516 --> 0:17:44.276 of set template approaches. You know, does a surge work 0:17:44.276 --> 0:17:46.476 in the abstract? You can't tell. The question is can 0:17:46.556 --> 0:17:50.316 you use surprise to regain the initiative so doubt in 0:17:50.316 --> 0:17:53.356 the minds of your opponent, such as to get them 0:17:53.356 --> 0:17:55.556 to at least think, oh, maybe it is my interest 0:17:55.636 --> 0:17:57.236 to do a PCE deal because I don't know what 0:17:57.276 --> 0:17:59.116 the outcome is going to be. That wasn't the case here. 0:17:59.156 --> 0:18:02.036 The Taliban could totally plan around the US and Western 0:18:02.076 --> 0:18:06.436 plan and then hit the forces Afghanic horses extremely hard 0:18:06.476 --> 0:18:08.556 when we took the justic support away and basically with 0:18:10.116 --> 0:18:21.916 we'll be back in a moment. I mean, I'm really 0:18:21.956 --> 0:18:26.916 fascinated by what you've just said, the idea that somehow 0:18:26.956 --> 0:18:30.516 the US in particular maybe Western forces more generally tended 0:18:30.556 --> 0:18:33.116 to think about Afghanistan as though it were a war 0:18:33.196 --> 0:18:36.076 without an enemy, you know, a war you're fighting in 0:18:36.076 --> 0:18:38.716 your own head, where you think that logistics are really 0:18:38.716 --> 0:18:41.596 about what you're going to do. Seems to fit into 0:18:41.996 --> 0:18:46.356 a kind of systemic failure throughout this war, maybe deriving 0:18:46.396 --> 0:18:49.356 from the fact that in the early invasion the Taliban 0:18:49.796 --> 0:18:53.716 ran away relatively quickly and were then not treated as 0:18:53.836 --> 0:18:56.796 a serious opponent, a serious enemy who had to be 0:18:57.276 --> 0:19:00.796 surprised and engaged, but were rather thought of almost as 0:19:00.796 --> 0:19:03.316 though they were the drip drip drip of a body 0:19:03.356 --> 0:19:06.516 of water, and the question was could we hold out 0:19:06.516 --> 0:19:09.636 against that drip, drip drip, rather than could we actually 0:19:09.756 --> 0:19:12.476 conceptualize the enemy as a set of human beings, as 0:19:12.476 --> 0:19:15.196 another who needed to be engaged, which, as you say, 0:19:15.276 --> 0:19:17.756 is crucial to warfare. Why do you think, I mean, 0:19:17.796 --> 0:19:20.156 when we turn to lessons learned here, one of the 0:19:20.156 --> 0:19:22.996 crucial ones is surely that's no way to fight a war. 0:19:23.076 --> 0:19:24.156 You know, if you're going to fight a war, you 0:19:24.236 --> 0:19:26.356 have to conceptualize the enemy. You have to put your 0:19:26.396 --> 0:19:28.516 mind inside the mind of the enemy, and you have 0:19:28.556 --> 0:19:32.476 to do the things that will defeat the enemy. And why, 0:19:32.716 --> 0:19:35.876 why why did the United States approach war in this way? 0:19:35.956 --> 0:19:38.956 Is it something about our training? Is it's something about 0:19:38.996 --> 0:19:41.476 how we conceptualize war. Is it's something about the tremendous 0:19:41.476 --> 0:19:45.516 disparity between our resources and the resources of the enemy. 0:19:45.596 --> 0:19:47.756 What what put us in a position to make these 0:19:47.796 --> 0:19:51.276 mistakes which to me as you depict them, sound rather fundamental. Yes, 0:19:51.356 --> 0:19:53.596 well it's I mean, the term war is a good 0:19:53.596 --> 0:19:55.556 place to start. I mean, clearly, Afghana stands war in 0:19:55.556 --> 0:19:58.716 a sense that there is at a high level of 0:19:58.756 --> 0:20:00.636 violence going on on the ground, and that the kind 0:20:00.636 --> 0:20:03.796 of combat tactics are not this similar across different kinds 0:20:03.836 --> 0:20:06.516 of wars. But really there is a fundamental difference between 0:20:06.596 --> 0:20:09.356 interstate war, which our finite in the sense that that 0:20:09.396 --> 0:20:13.276 there are two governments with whom you can negotiate a pcedal. 0:20:13.356 --> 0:20:16.716 So effectively you've got two kind of hierarchies fighting each other. 0:20:16.796 --> 0:20:18.636 You know, you use military force against the base of 0:20:18.676 --> 0:20:20.556 the hierarchy of the army, and that sort of tingles 0:20:20.636 --> 0:20:22.596 up the nerve system of the state the other side 0:20:22.716 --> 0:20:24.876 to a government, and that government kind of gets the 0:20:24.876 --> 0:20:28.156 message and it is defeated. That's completely different when you're 0:20:28.196 --> 0:20:30.396 dealing with a network. A network is flat and loose, 0:20:30.476 --> 0:20:32.356 there's no real leadship structure. So how are you going 0:20:32.436 --> 0:20:34.076 to how are you going to win? In the kind 0:20:34.076 --> 0:20:37.196 of political sense, you can't. Actually you're managing an ongoing 0:20:37.236 --> 0:20:40.276 security problem without trying to escalate and without getting sucked 0:20:40.276 --> 0:20:42.316 into things like nation building. Really just trying to deal 0:20:42.356 --> 0:20:46.596 with the security side of things, and war is not 0:20:46.676 --> 0:20:49.636 often that even that appropriate label. So it's much more 0:20:49.716 --> 0:20:53.116 often sometimes akin to policing operations, where you know, in 0:20:53.116 --> 0:20:55.396 a western city, no one expects the police to defeat 0:20:55.436 --> 0:20:58.636 crime in a decisive sense. Rather you manage it. Now, 0:20:58.676 --> 0:21:01.316 clearly it's not exactly policing, but there is a spectrum 0:21:01.356 --> 0:21:05.516 of activity and treating these conflicts as war with these 0:21:05.596 --> 0:21:08.356 kind of expectations of decisive outcomes where you have surgies 0:21:08.396 --> 0:21:11.196 for like three years and somehow expect the military to 0:21:11.316 --> 0:21:13.476 deliver you a decisive outcome in three years. That's that's 0:21:13.516 --> 0:21:18.756 not helpful. Actually, you need to have lower intensity but 0:21:18.836 --> 0:21:21.276 longer term presence with lower expectations of what you can 0:21:21.276 --> 0:21:25.356 achieve in order to manage risk over longer time frames, 0:21:25.516 --> 0:21:29.956 without these kind of fantastic expectations of decisive victories. And 0:21:29.996 --> 0:21:33.036 so there's a spectrum in terms of political outcomes. Is 0:21:33.036 --> 0:21:35.076 there even an enemy or are you dealing with a 0:21:35.196 --> 0:21:39.116 kind of kaleidoscopic bunch of factions who can change depending 0:21:39.156 --> 0:21:41.756 on how you define the enemy. I think in Afghanistan 0:21:41.836 --> 0:21:43.996 that was an issue. You know, we started off defining 0:21:44.036 --> 0:21:47.476 an enemy narrowly as aar Qaida, and that was broadly 0:21:47.476 --> 0:21:49.836 even the position still two thousand and five, and then 0:21:49.876 --> 0:21:52.476 in two thousand and five we went into the South 0:21:52.556 --> 0:21:55.196 and the east in bulk. There are already some forces, 0:21:55.316 --> 0:21:58.156 but really very few forces before that, especially in the South, 0:21:58.836 --> 0:22:01.156 and we started sort of treating everyone who short at 0:22:01.236 --> 0:22:03.436