Why did the Afghan Army Evaporate?

Of the approximately US$145 billion that the U.S. government spent trying to rebuild Afghanistan over 20 years, about $83 billion went to developing and sustaining its army and police forces, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

And yet when put to the test, the Afghan Army ultimately disintegrated. The day after Kabul fell to the Taliban, President Joe Biden stated “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves”.

The reality, of course, was more complex. There were certainly military factors that contributed to the Afghan Army’s rapid collapse. But perhaps more important was the web of political circumstances, in Kabul, Washington DC and elsewhere, that led to the loss of the authority of, and trust in, the Afghan Government of the Ashraf Ghani; with a corresponding loss of authority and trust within the Army built to protect it.

Why did the USA so peremptorily abandon its allies of the past twenty years? To what extent was the defeat due to the Taliban; due to internal politics; or as a result of international abandonment? Will a Taliban Government be a disaster for Afghanistan and the West? What can we learn from all this?

AIIA Victoria invites you to watch Richard Iron in conversation with Tim Willasey-Wilsey.

Richard Iron CMG OBE is President of AIIA Victoria. He previously served in the British Army in Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands, Oman, the Balkans, Sierra Leone and Iraq. He was a visiting fellow at the Changing Character of War programme at the University of Oxford and was lead editor of British Generals in Blair's Wars.

Tim Willasey-Wilsey CMG is a Visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and a former senior British diplomat. After a year teaching in Ethiopia and a spell with an international packaging company Tim served for 27 years with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, latterly as a Director. He served in four overseas posts; Angola (1983-86), Central America (1986-89), Pakistan (1993-96) and at the UK Mission to the United Nations in Geneva (1999-2002). From 1993 until he retired from the FCO in 2008 Tim’s main focus was on Asia. Apart from serving in Pakistan, he worked closely on India and Afghanistan and was a frequent visitor to the region.