We Lost the War in Afghanistan Long Ago | Disaster in Afghanistan Will Follow Us Home | Why the Taliban Won, and more

We Lost the War in Afghanistan Long Ago  (Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post)
As we watch the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan, let us first dispense with the fantasy that the United States was maintaining the peace there with just a few thousand troops and that this situation could have been managed with this small commitment. For the past couple of years, it looked that way to Americans because Washington had made a deal with the Taliban and, as a result, the Taliban was deliberately not attacking U.S. and coalition forces.
For the Afghans themselves, the war was intensifying.
The United States spent 20 years, $2 trillion, commanded at their peak 130,000 coalition troops, built up an Afghan security force of 300,000 (at least on paper), and used the world’s most sophisticated and lethal air power. Still, it was unable to defeat an ill-equipped Taliban force of perhaps 75,000. 
The United States had been watching the Taliban gain ground in Afghanistan for years now. It is rich and powerful enough to have been able to mask that reality through a steady stream of counter-attacks and air, missile and drone strikes. But none of that changed the fact that, despite all its efforts, it had not been able to achieve victory — it could not defeat the Taliban. Could it have withdrawn better, more slowly, in a different season, after more negotiations? Certainly. This withdrawal has been poorly planned and executed. But the naked truth is this: There is no elegant way to lose a war.

Why the Taliban Won, and What Washington Can Do About It Now  (Vanda Felbab-Brown, Foreign Affairs)
In the end, it took astoundingly little time after U.S. forces left Afghanistan for the Taliban to bring down its government: ten days. On Friday and Saturday, hour by hour, some of Afghanistan’s biggest provinces surrendered to the Taliban as the Islamist insurgent group carried out a terrifying blitz. And on Sunday, as the Taliban entered Kabul, the U.S.-backed government fled, leaving the Taliban in charge of the entire country.
Perhaps no one predicted that the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces would fold so quickly. But for several years, there had been signs that the Taliban were becoming militarily ascendant and that the ANDSF suffered from critical deficiencies that the Afghan government ignored and was itself exacerbating. All the problems that allowed the Taliban to defeat the army so quickly in 2021 were on display in 2015, when the group temporarily seized Kunduz, a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan: poor morale, desertion, attrition, corruption, ethnic factionalism, bad logistics, and an overreliance on backup from Afghan special operations forces. And for years, it was no secret that ANDSF units were making deals with their supposed enemy—warning the Taliban of forthcoming offenses, refusing to fight, and selling the group weapons and equipment.
In other words, the dramatic meltdown of Afghanistan’s army only exposes the rot that had been festering in Kabul’s halls of power for years. No wonder the Afghan population trusted its government so little, and no wonder one Afghan city after another surrendered to the Taliban this week.

Criticizing Biden’s decision

America’s Withdrawal of Choice  (Richard N. Haass, CFR)
The swift fall of Kabul recalls the ignominious fall of Saigon in 1975. Beyond the local consequences—widespread reprisals, harsh repression of women and girls, and massive refugee flows—America’s strategic and moral failure in Afghanistan will reinforce questions about US reliability among friends and foes alike.

America’s Global Standing: Biden and the World (Editorial, The Times)
The Taliban’s seizure of power after the US president’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan damages international confidence in American leadership.

Joe Biden’s Bungled Afghan Exit Is a Calamity for America and the West  (John Bolton, The Telegraph)
There was an alternative to following Trump’s policy. Now our enemies will look to exploit our weakness.

America May Pay Dearly for Defeat in Afghanistan  (Economist)
Joe Biden defends his decision, but it could haunt his presidency.

Disaster in Afghanistan Will Follow Us Home  (Bret Stephens, New York Times)
The war in Afghanistan isn’t just over. It’s lost. A few Americans may cheer this humiliation, and many more will shrug at it. But the consequences of defeat are rarely benign for nations, no matter how powerful they otherwise appear to be.