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| Afghanistan |
| Requiem For The Afghan ‘Fabergé Egg’ Army: Why Did It Crack So Quickly? |
| 2021-11-07 |
| [Modern War Institute - West Point] Over the course of two decades and at a price tag of over $88 billion, the United States and its NATO partners built a modern and well-equipped Afghan military—one that, like a Fabergé egg, boasted a glossy exterior but shattered under stress after US military advisors departed. Confronted by a smaller, technologically outmatched military, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) rapidly disintegrated, in most cases avoiding major battles and negotiating their surrenders to Taliban commanders instead of fighting. Within weeks of the US withdrawal, the Taliban had seized the majority of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals with little to no bloodshed. If the United States ever wants to build a partner military again, it had better learn the lessons of Afghanistan—and overhaul how it plans and implements US security assistance programs. The long and thorough analysis ends with this thought: The next time the United States decides to build a foreign army, success will largely depend on avoiding the issues that afflicted the Afghan military. But in places like Mali and Somalia, armies built by Western forces exhibit many similar tendencies. Without serious reform, the United States will continue building expensive militaries—ones whose viability is only surface deep, contingent on advisors babysitting partner forces indefinitely. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #8 Per the late great political scientist Sam Huntington, there are societies that have effective governance, and a much larger number (at least 5x as many) societies where the government does not govern. In Huntington's day, he placed the USSR in the former category along with the USA. His point was that we could not think about rallying the chaotic, ungoverned world to the cause of democracy. The term is simply irrelevant to the main challenge those societies face, which is simply to establish political order defined largely in terms of effective governance that is not shambolicly inept and corrupt. We Are Ruled By Morons ...who never read or learned from Huntington and 2,000 years of history |
| Posted by: Merrick Ferret 2021-11-07 11:51 |
| #7 They were there (those that actually were there, there was supposed to be a lot of 'ghosts'), for a paycheck. Not because they wanted to do it. And they had to kick back to the boss. When things went south, they went home. This is what happens when you treat the military as jobs program. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2021-11-07 11:16 |
| #6 The problem is, upper echelon military people and upper level gummint people gravitate towards the corrupt wherever we go. They are merely seeking out kindred spirits. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2021-11-07 08:43 |
| #5 They're savages. Stupid, brutal, cowardly, greedy, no ability to delay gratification. Any other q's? |
| Posted by: Merrick Ferret 2021-11-07 08:26 |
| #4 If it wasn't viable on its own, no country's army or government will suddenly become so just because dollars are showered on them. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2021-11-07 08:12 |
| #3 I'm awaiting General Milley's comment. Hopefully he's not busy looking for the....egg. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-11-07 07:50 |
| #2 You mean the rise of ISIS and overrunning Iraq didn't give you a hint? It's all those happy and glad reports you demanded of the trainers that you could pass upward for your careerist track. It's what happens when you blind yourselves to social anthropology and what makes up a population. They're tribal. Period. Now about indoctrinating your own troops to hate themselves and America... |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2021-11-07 07:19 |
| #1 MWI used an interesting Russian Fabergé egg analogy. A pity Russian 'Lessons Learned' in Afghanistan could not have been given an in-depth study as well. But perhaps it was, and the concept of "Endless Wars" was given the MIC stamp of approval. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-11-07 04:10 |