On December 24th, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan in order to prop up the faltering communist government they had helped install. Smelling an opportunity to make its ideological
enemy bleed, the United States covertly began a process of funding and arming a resistance
to the Soviet invasion. The clandestine operation would prove crucial
in defeating the Soviet Union's efforts in Afghanistan, and as the Red Army pulled out
of the nation in defeat in 1989, Americans cheered their great success. They had no idea that their 'victory' had
planted the seeds of America's own defeat just thirty years later. To understand what went wrong in Afghanistan,
first one has to understand recent Afghan history. In 1953, Afghanistan's king, Mohammed Zahir
Shah, wished to modernize his country. Zahir Shah recognized that he lacked the expertise
to lead a major modernization effort, and that his country needed an expanded government. To that end, he relinquished some of his own
power and made his cousin, General Mohammed Daoud Khan, prime minister, with a focus of
expanding government with the recruitment of economic and policy experts, further relinquishing
his own absolute power. The move was a popular one with the Afghan
people, who saw it as a selfless act. Next though, the nation would need international
aid, so the new Afghan government reached out to both Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union
and the United States. Zahir Shah however did not wish to be a client
state to either nation, and feared what had happened to the eastern bloc nations as they
were one by one swallowed up by the Soviet Union. Therefore he sought a careful balance of aid
from both the Americans and Soviets, allowing neither absolute influence. The Americans provided great economic aid
and expertise, but in what would prove to be a disastrous move, Zahir Shah allowed Daoud
Khan to seek Soviet aid in the training of Afghanistan's military. This meant that every year hundreds of senior
Afghan officers left for the Soviet Union to undergo months of training- and inevitable
indoctrination into Stalin's version of communism. The effect wasn't immediate, but gradually
over time, these senior officers began spreading their communist ideals throughout the military
ranks, resulting in a military that had a dramatically different vision for Afghanistan
than Zahir Shah- who wished neither Soviet-style socialism or cutthroat American capitalism. Zahir Shah eventually forced Daoud Khan to
resign from his post as Prime Minister as his pro-communist ideals began to interfere
with the king's own progressive agenda for the nation. By 1973, Zahir Shah was more popular than
ever with the Afghan people, given his great leaps forward in modernization and liberalization
of Afghan society, including the equality of women. However, Khan had long been building support
amongst the military elite, all indoctrinated into communism thanks to the Soviet Union. In 1973, as Zahir Shah was abroad on a trip
to Italy, Daoud Khan staged a coup, forcing the king into exile. At first the coup was widely supported as
Khan continued the king's liberalization of women and other segments of Afghan society,
however behind the scenes Khan was purging potential opponents from positions of power,
ensuring his own autocratic rule. This caused major schisms within the communists,
and the creation of multiple opposing communist groups. Inevitably, Khan is killed in a communist
coup in 1978, leading to Nur Mohammad Taraki being named president and Babrak Karmal as
prime minister. Growing rivalries between opposing communist
groups however severely weaken Kabul's ability to govern the countryside, and sensing an
opportunity, Islamic fundamentalists, long unhappy with liberal policies changing Afghan
culture, begin their own uprising- the mujahideen are born. The struggle for power sparked bitter infighting
between Taraki and Amin, splitting the Afghan government at the highest level and further
weakening its ability to fight the growing insurgency. Just a year after taking power, Amin supporters
murdered Taraki, as Amin implemented more and more brutal measures. The Amin-led communist government was now
a stain on the Soviet Union, who believed that if Amin was left in power he would create
a bad name for communism on the world stage. The Soviets thus opt to remove Amin from power,
and invade the nation in force on December 24th, 1979. They prop up Babrak Karmal as prime minister,
but only succeed in painting the national government as a puppet state controlled by
the hostile Soviet invaders- exactly what the Zahir Shah and the Afghan people had worked
so hard to avoid. The result is inevitable, and a massive insurgency
begins. This is where America begins to lay the groundwork
for its own defeat. Stinging from its loss in Vietnam, largely
due to its own ineptitude but helped along by Soviet support, America was looking for
payback. The invasion of Afghanistan was the perfect
theater for extracting that payback, and not long after the Red Army first crossed the
border into Afghanistan, a major movement to supply the Afghani insurgency began. In order to facilitate the arming and financing
of the mujahideen however, the US needed a way into the nation. With hostile Iran on one side, America was
forced to work with Pakistan- yet the Pakistani government was ill-equipped to handle the
clandestine nature of the work that needed to be done. Only one agency was well suited to the effort,
the Interservices Intelligence Agency, or ISI. Up to this point, the ISI had been a small
organization struggling for legitimacy, but the influx of American support was exactly
the booster shot that it needed. This would come back to haunt the US. Facilitating the transfer of millions of dollars
of equipment and funds to the mujahideen, the ISI quickly grew in power and influence
in the Pakistani government, eventually rivaling that of the military itself. Unknowingly, the US had just created its own
worst enemy, as thirty years later the ISI would actively double-cross the United States
in its efforts against the Taliban. Even worse, the US government didn’t bother
to vet who was receiving aid, allowing the ISI to directly control who would rise to
power in Afghanistan- largely religious fundamentalists indoctrinated into extremist views by Saudi
Arabian clerics. The future Taliban. Not long after the start of the war in 2001,
it became clear that the ISI had its own agenda concerning the Taliban. For Pakistan, the Taliban could provide a
strong buffer between itself and rival Iran, and under its autocratic rule some semblance
of border security with its shared Afghan border could be achieved. If America defeated the Taliban, this would
completely undermine its own national security strategy, as well as potentially give the
US staging grounds for interference in Pakistan itself. It was no secret that the United States had
stationed quick reaction forces in Afghanistan not just to respond to Taliban aggression,
but to cross the border into Pakistan to secure Pakistani nuclear weapons in case of a national
emergency. With rampant corruption in Pakistan, including
the discovery of several senior officials tasked with securing Pakistan's nuclear weapons
having ties to terror networks, there was an ever-present threat of Pakistan being stripped
of its nuclear arms by the US. In order to ensure that the Taliban was not
defeated, the ISI facilitated the covert funding, training, and medical treatment of wounded
Taliban fighters, even going so far as to invite them into its northern border areas
to use as sanctuary. The agency also worked to spin American drone
attacks on Taliban and other terror targets in Pakistan's northern regions in order to
put international pressure on the US to cease such attacks. For example, the Pakistani government forbade
the US from verifying casualty reports from drone attacks, and instead relied on the personal
testimony of victims of said attack. This allowed the ISI and Taliban to spin casualty
figures in a way that favored them, greatly exaggerating civilian casualty counts while
diminishing the presence of legitimate military targets- who often used civilians as willing
human shields anyways. But the ISI would go even further. When American troops put pressure on Taliban
forces, the ISI allowed them to cross the border into Pakistan where US soldiers could
not follow. When senior Taliban and other insurgent or
terrorist officials were targeted for destruction or arrest, the ISI leaked America's plans
in order to ensure their survival. Lastly, while it was never proven, it's almost
certain that the ISI had helped Osama Bin Laden evade American efforts to capture him,
even going so far as to permit him residency in the heart of one of Pakistan's military
enclaves- a place they never believed the US would risk a raid into. While 1980s America could not have known that
the ISI would turn out to be one of its worst enemies, it also made no effort to police
where hundreds of millions in weapons and funds were actually being channeled, leaving
the effort almost entirely to the Pakistanis. This directly led to the bulk of these weapons
and money going straight into the hands of groups with extremist ideologies, including
displaced Afghans who had been indoctrinated by Saudi clerics into fundamentalism. Rather than carefully vet who could eventually
be left in power after a Soviet withdrawal, America simply turned on the money hose and
let the chips fall where the ISI wanted them to, possibly one of the worst policy mistakes
ever made by the United States. Had the US been directly involved in the dissemination
of funds and equipment, it could have empowered groups favorable to US interests in Afghanistan,
avoiding the 2001 invasion altogether. With the invasion well into its planning phases
however, modern America continued to blunder in critical ways. First, the United States was warned by the
Northern Alliance seeking to overthrow the Taliban that it should wait on using military
force. By 2001, the Taliban was pulling itself apart
at the seams, as internal struggles for power and public dissatisfaction led to major infighting. It was believed by Afghan insiders that given
a few years, and international political and economic pressure, the Taliban would simply
implode. However, President Bush and his administration
was not interested in a political, long-term strategy to defeat the Taliban. America had been attacked by Al-Qaeda, which
the Taliban directly supported and allowed to operate in Afghanistan, and the US rightly
wanted blood. Military action was inevitable- but even here
the US could have acted without sowing the seeds of its own inevitable defeat. Rather than an invasion of Afghanistan, America
should have carried out punitive attacks against Al Qaeda using its long range striking power. While these would not have been enough to
erode Al Qaeda's power completely, it could have had a significant effect on the terror
group. Even more importantly, it would send a clear
message to the Taliban- continue supporting our enemies and you'll be next. In 2001 there was already major friction between
the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who had begun to operate across parts of Afghanistan as if
they were in control. This was a continued source of friction between
the Taliban factions, and a campaign of shock and awe against Al Qaeda targets could have
capitalized on that friction, spurring the Taliban to end its support for the terror
group- which was supposed to be the entire point of the 2001 invasion in the first place. If the Taliban had refused, then punitive
actions could be taken, once more using long-range striking power, against the Taliban itself,
pummeling it into submission. The mistake was trying to remove the Taliban
from power altogether. By attacking it, America only succeeded in
causing the Taliban to join ranks in common purpose, eliminating the chance of its inevitable
collapse due to infighting. Military power however may not have been necessary
at all, and another option would have been to use economic power. Remember, the goal was to eliminate Al Qaeda's
ability to launch attacks against the US. A much simpler way to achieve this would have
been to simply pay off the Taliban. The Taliban itself was not inherently ideologically
opposed to the US the way Al Qaeda was, and by that time had already been receiving tens
of millions of dollars from the US to curtail the cultivation of poppies for heroin. The US could have simply turned the cash hose
on and bribed the Taliban to turn against Al Qaeda entirely- cash has always spoken
louder within the Taliban than ideology, and there were numerous factions that would have
gladly accepted American money in order to strengthen themselves. By making the Taliban, and the severely economically
challenged Afghanistan, reliant on US aid, it would have been even more compliant to
US interests as time, and money, went on. The best way to fight a battle after all is
to have someone else fight it for you. The influx of cash would have staved off an
inevitable collapse of the Taliban, as the Northern Alliance had warned would happen
if the US simply waited, but the US should never have invested itself in regime change
in the first place. It should have set off to achieve its one,
singular goal of defeating Al Qaeda. Instead, it allowed itself to get sucked into
a quagmire of conflicting goals and strategies that quickly had nothing to do with the defeat
of the terror group that attacked America on September 11th. Once the invasion was underway however, even
more blunders were to come. First, the US became entirely too reliant
on Pakistan in its efforts to plug up the Pakistani-Afghan border. As American troops fought and defeated the
Taliban, the enemy would simply slip past the border into safe areas that US troops
couldn't follow. With the ISI's treachery well-known by American
military commanders early in the war, the United States should have done more to put
pressure on Pakistan to correct its bad-actor attitude, even to the point of outright economic
sanctions if necessary, leveraging global partners to do the same. Overly reliant on Pakistan to defeat insurgent
and terror strongholds in the lawless border regions however, the United States was fearful
to put too much pressure on the nation. Without Pakistan's full cooperation in the
elimination of the Taliban, it could never achieve victory, as the Taliban and allied
insurgents always had a safe haven where to recuperate and rearm in Pakistan. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq for reasons that
continue to be questioned today- and let's be clear, the nation had no weapons of mass
destruction. Whatever the reason, the sham directly led
to the inevitable defeat in Afghanistan, as it split US forces between two insurgencies. The dual wars also led to a loss of focus
in both conflicts, inevitably leading to disaster in both wars. The thinning of manpower and resources however
had perhaps the greatest effect, as modern counterinsurgency doctrine states that friendly
forces should outnumber insurgents ten to one in order to establish a large enough security
presence to make it difficult or impossible for insurgents to operate. In Afghanistan, at its height of US involvement
that ratio was 5 to 1. In order to achieve even that losing ratio
however, the United States blundered yet again. With the onset of the Iraq war, it was clear
that the US did not have the manpower to secure both Iraq and Afghanistan against national
insurgencies, and America was left with two choices: either institute a national draft,
which would be political suicide for any administration, or hire mercenaries. The United States opted for the latter, single
handedly resurrecting a career that had almost completely died out in the modern Westphalian-order
age. Eventually the US had as many mercenaries
in Afghanistan as it did its own troops, and while mercenary use can be a very effective
force multiplier, to the Afghan people it simply looked like even more foreign invaders
were taking over their country. To make matters worse, most of these mercenaries
quickly grew a bad reputation for treating the Afghanis with great disrespect, either
through outright hostility and abuse or cultural insensitivity. The US had so many mercenary outfits working
in the region that it quickly lost the ability to effectively police their behavior, seriously
undermining its own 'hearts and minds' efforts. Of course this lack of cultural sensitivity
spread to US forces themselves, with many of them treating the local Afghan population
as potential adversaries at all times. Simple things like not removing sunglasses
to allow for eye contact, a sign of respect in Afghanistan, to US troops constantly conducting
security patrols in heavy vehicles and fully armored, only added to mistrust and dislike
of the Americans as invaders. British forces eventually began to conduct
'dressed down' patrols, with soldiers in minimal equipment, and the results were immediately
favorable amongst the locals. Perhaps the greatest reason why the US failed
in Afghanistan however is because of its failure to transition from military action to police
action. Combating an insurgency is not a military
action, but rather a long-term police action requiring specialized training and an enduring
presence and investment not just in physical security, but political stability. The United States military may be the world's
finest fighting force, but it- just like the mighty Red Army before it- is poorly suited
for police actions. There is one simple reason why colonial powers
were able to quash insurgencies in every nation they invaded and controlled- they didn't leave. Britain, Portugal, France, Germany, and other
colonial powers faced insurgencies in nearly every territory they brutally exploited, but
it was their permanent presence with superior firepower in those territories that led to
the inevitable exhaustion of the insurgency. From the on-set, the Taliban knew that the
best way to beat the United States was to follow the example set by the Viet Cong- make
America bleed and simply wait it out. Eventually political will and money will run
out. To defeat the Taliban, the United States needed
to have a long-term, semi-permanent presence in the nation, but keeping troops overseas
on long and constant deployments is wildly unpopular. That is why as noted by National Defense University
professor Sean McFate, the United States needs to borrow a page from an ally's playbook. The French Foreign Legion is a branch of the
French military that recruits from all over the world, offering salary and French citizenship
in return. An American Foreign Legion would allow the
US to project long-term forces without the inevitable public backlash caused by constant
deployments of its troops from the homeland. In exchange, the American Foreign Legion would
open up a pathway to citizenship for many who may try to gain entry through illegal
means. But that's not the only benefit. Long term service in Afghanistan by the American
Legion would also result in legionnaires that are well-steeped in Afghan culture and customs,
as opposed to deployments of American troops who likely can't even find Afghanistan on
a map, or recognize the significant insult that holding a conversation with an Afghani
while keeping your sunglasses on is. By learning, even adopting Afghan customs,
American Legionnaires would more quickly win the battle for hearts and minds, but also
be even more effective in spotting and eliminating insurgent forces and their support networks. The ingratiation of American Legionnaires
into Afghan culture through long-term deployments lasting years would also help shift the perspective
of American security forces from invaders to locals, lessening the effectiveness of
one of the Taliban's most powerful recruitment enticements. Even more importantly however, the American
Foreign Legion's permanent presence in the region would eliminate the 'brain drain' that
happens every time an experienced troop is replaced by a freshly deployed one. Without a permanent presence, America's defeat
was inevitable. We don't need a space force, we need an American
Foreign Legion, which would have benefits in conflicts around the globe. In the end, the United States moved from blunder
to blunder in its 20 years in Afghanistan, often ignoring the advice of locals- such
as a call to establish the still-popular King Mohammed Zahir Shah as ruler after the invasion
which could have provided some level of national unity. Instead, the US chose to prop up a series
of corrupt presidents, only making the national government even more unpopular with the people
and engendering support for the Taliban's return. The wildly unpoliced influx of aid grants
from the US only served to further drive political corruption, and undermine the US's efforts
to create a stable national government. The seeds of America's defeat were planted
in 1979, with its lack of accountability for the hundreds of millions of military aid it
provided to the mujahideen. However, the entire twenty year war could
have been completely avoided in the first place if the US had simply listened to the
Taliban's own enemies, who warned that the group was in danger of imminent collapse. Instead, the US invasion led to the Taliban
joining ranks in opposition to foreign invaders. Even once committed to military action though,
America continued to fight in ways that only undermined its own goals- while all the time
failing to identify and pursue strategic, rather than simply tactical goals. While today many look to pin the blame, the
truth is there is no one figure that can bear that blame. President Donald Trump is not to blame for
negotiating the exit of US troops with the Taliban anymore than President Joe Biden isn’t
to blame for sticking to that negotiated deal- both were simply carrying out the inevitable
defeat of US goals in the nation due to 20 years of complete mismanagement. Now go check out Surviving Actual Military
Combat, a true story from one of our staff writers- or click this other video instead!
Something that I can't physically comprehend is how Pakistan blamed for "Double-crossing" the Americans when it came to Afghanistan. You are somehow telling me that Pakistan was actively able to fund, support and give intelligence to Taliban 'while' the Americans were fighting in Afghanistan without them noticing, despite them having one of the world's best intelligence agency working there. Or are they trying to convince us that the American's knew and did nothing? And how the hell do "Sources" have this information but the upper people in the US don't. And how was Pakistan not sanctioned to smithereens. Then why was Pakistan giving the US logistics and bases. Why were we catching Al-Qaeda operatives? Money maybe? We lost the most cash from our economy after the years of the war in Taliban. Also the fact that Pakistan wasn't exactly "rosy" with the Taliban when we joined the US on "The War on Terror". That also created the TTP, a big pain in our behind.
Saw this on my YouTube feed and scrolled right past. Already knew it would be endless coping
i feel like its one of those indian IT fake news sector
what drugs is he on? I used to watch this channel
"Greatly exaggerating civillian casualties" What kind of copium are these westroids on?They just cant accept their humiliating defeat can they?
Kuch to log kahenge
Logo ka kaam hai kehna
Choro bhi in baato ko
These guys used to make interesting videos back in the day but now.... oh boy... they are not doing well after the American loss in Afghanistan. They have really gone off the deep end.
They legit advocate for an American foreign legion that will be an invasion force that can stay in countries forever.
In another one of their videos they, with a straight face, say that India is a free and democratic country.
They are just trying to cope.
Fake news
This guy made quite interesting videos untill he gained like 9 million subs, he got hella bias