Austin, Milley on what we need to understand about Afghanistan

The six hours of senior Pentagon leaders’ public testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday "were at times acrimonious and at times verging on political theater,” says The New York Times.

 

"Republican senators who had in the past defended President Donald J. Trump’s desire to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan demanded resignations from military leaders who carried out a Democratic president’s orders to withdraw,” says the Times. "Democrats, who are traditionally tougher on military leaders, on this occasion, provided solace in the form of softer questioning and traced flaws back to the Trump administration.”

 

Media get clicks by focusing on the theater. Let’s focus instead on the military's assessment of what happened in Afghanistan and the lessons to be explored.

 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: "We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation. The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise. It would be dishonest to claim otherwise. 

"We need to consider some uncomfortable truths: that we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks, that we did not grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that Taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the Doha [peace] agreement, that the Doha agreement itself had a demoralizing effect on Afghan soldiers, and that we failed to fully grasp that there was only so much for which – and for whom – many of the Afghan forces would fight.”

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said: “Over the course of four Presidents, 12 Secretaries of Defense, seven Chairmen, ten CENTCOM Commanders, 20 Commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of Congressional Delegation visits, and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned. 

"Some of the key ones that require thoughtful examination are the decisions to reduce forces in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. We need to fully examine the role of Pakistan 
sanctuary. We need to completely understand the degree to which corruption contributed to the collapse of the Afghan government. We need to fully understand the mission creep 
where we transitioned from a Counter Terrorism mission to nation building. And on the military side we need to understand how we developed, trained, and equipped the ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] and why they collapsed in only 11 days.”