🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 99 (from laksa038)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa099.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld","crawl_time":1775016851,"first_indexed_time":1628797302,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,theguardian!www,\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld s443","src_root_hash":"4161074618625082499","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"US deserves big share of blame for Afghanistan military disaster | Afghanistan | The Guardian","meta_descriptions":["Analysis: White House accused of unfairly pointing finger at Afghan military after decades of mismanaging war effort"],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"As\none\nprovincial\ncapital\nafter\nanother\nhas fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that\ntheir survival is in their own hands\n.\n“They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,”\nJoe Biden\nsaid. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.”\nBut despite more than $80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is\ncollapsing with greater speed\nthan even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks.\nInterviews with former officials who have been intimately involved in US policy in\nAfghanistan\npoint to an interconnected webs of factors behind the implosion, some of them long in the making, some a result of decisions taken in the past few months.\nWhile there is consensus that a failure of leadership and unity in Kabul has played an important part in the domino-fall of defeats, there is also agreement that the attempt to put all the blame on the Afghans obscures the share of responsibility of the US and its allies for the military disaster.\nThe candid assessments of US and allied officials and soldiers recorded in congressionally mandated “lessons learned” reports obtained by the\nWashington Post\nmake clear some of the problems so evident today had their origins at the onset of the US-led military presence in the country.\nIn the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loth to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention.\nLater, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding.\nOut in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised.\n“We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,”\nDouglas Lute\n, a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war tsar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.”\nThroughout the 20 years of the US war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ANSF’s capabilities were consistently oversold by a succession of US defence secretaries and military commanders, who enthused over progress made.\nRetired Gen Joseph Votel, who led US central command from 2016 to 2019, admitted that in some cases the charge of overselling the ANSF was “fair criticism”. But he added that many individual Afghan units, particularly special forces, were impressive. The main problem, he argued, was unevenness in the quality of the troops and the lack of integration on a strategic, national scale.\n“The challenge of leadership at scale has always been a significant one for them – to not just have good tactical commanders, but also to have good leaders at all levels,” Votel told the Guardian.\n“National government has always had a challenge with exercising authority, particularly in far-flung provinces of the country.”\nVali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani.\n“He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.”\nGiven all these structural weaknesses in the security apparatus the US and its allies helped build, many military analysts argue the abruptness of the US withdrawal, begun by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, has contributed to the speed of the collapse.\n“The core of the problem is the way President Biden made and announced this decision and its timing,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian who served as an adviser to US commanders in Afghanistan.\n“The president announced the order to withdraw right at the start of fighting season. That was unnecessary,” Kagan, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued. “The president could perfectly well have ordered withdrawal to occur after the completion of the major fighting this year, and allowed the Afghans to continue to have the support that they had expected and prepare themselves for a world without US support.”\nWithout US soldiers on the ground directing precision airstrikes in the midst of the battle, US air support to Afghan troops is of limited help and is due to cease altogether at the end of the month. Afghanistan has its own air force but it is dependent on\nUS military\ncontractors to service it, and the contractors were among the first to leave. Bringing them back after the US withdrawal would require a new agreement that could take months to negotiate.\n“Very few of America’s allies, even including Nato allies, actually have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets,” Kagan said.\nIn view of the sudden US and allied departure at the very start of a mass Taliban offensive, he argued it was deeply unfair to demonise the Afghan forces for the military rout they are enduring.\n“They have taken horrific casualties over the course of this war. Their families have been targeted, and yet they’ve continued to volunteer,” he said. “It is in fact offensive not to recognise the determination that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have shown up to fight against our common enemies and their willingness to die and run risks to their families to do so. It is part of a story that is not being told.”","attrs_markdown":"![](https:\/\/sb.scorecardresearch.com\/p?c1=2&c2=6035250&cv=2.0&cj=1&cs_ucfr=0&comscorekw=world)\n\n[Skip to main content](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld#maincontent)[Skip to navigation](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld#navigation)\n\nClose dialogue\n\n1\/1\n\nNext image\n\nPrevious image\n\nToggle caption\n\n[Skip to navigation](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld#navigation)\n\n[Print subscriptions](https:\/\/support.theguardian.com\/subscribe\/weekly?REFPVID=mnfj7d2qxxygpj8p5mvu&INTCMP=undefined&acquisitionData=%7B%22source%22%3A%22GUARDIAN_WEB%22%2C%22componentId%22%3A%22PrintSubscriptionsHeaderLink%22%2C%22componentType%22%3A%22ACQUISITIONS_HEADER%22%2C%22referrerPageviewId%22%3A%22mnfj7d2qxxygpj8p5mvu%22%2C%22referrerUrl%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2021%2Faug%2F12%2Fafghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld%22%7D)\n\n[Search jobs](https:\/\/jobs.theguardian.com\/)\n\n[Sign in](https:\/\/profile.theguardian.com\/signin?INTCMP=DOTCOM_NEWHEADER_SIGNIN&ABCMP=ab-sign-in&componentEventParams=componentType%3Didentityauthentication%26componentId%3Dguardian_signin_header)\n\nInt\n\n- [International edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/int)\n- [UK edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/uk)\n- [US edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/us)\n- [Australia edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/au)\n- [Europe edition](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/preference\/edition\/eur)\n\n[The Guardian - 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Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/AP\n\n[View image in fullscreen](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld#img-1)\n\nThe Pentagon spokesman John Kirby speaks during a briefing on Thursday in Washington. Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/AP\n\n[Afghanistan](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/afghanistan)\n\nThis article is more than **4 years old**\n\n[Analysis](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/analysis)\n\n# US deserves big share of blame for Afghanistan military disaster\nThis article is more than 4 years old\n\n[Julian Borger](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/profile\/julianborger) in Washington\n\nAnalysis: White House accused of unfairly pointing finger at Afghan military after decades of mismanaging war effort\n\nThu 12 Aug 2021 20.37 BST\n\nLast modified on Fri 13 Aug 2021 17.20 BST\n\nShare\n\nAs [one](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/06\/taliban-captures-provincial-capital-in-afghanistan) [provincial](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/07\/taliban-seize-second-afghan-provincial-capital-in-two-days-sheberghan) [capital](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/08\/taliban-seize-symbolic-victory-with-capture-of-kunduz) [after](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/09\/taliban-capture-aibak-sixth-provincial-capital-northern-afghanistan) [another](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/10\/taliban-fighters-capture-afghan-city-at-strategic-junction-north-of-kabul) has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that [their survival is in their own hands](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/10\/us-says-afghans-must-defend-their-country-as-taliban-takes-more-ground).\n\n“They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” [Joe Biden](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/joebiden) said. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.”\n\nBut despite more than \\$80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is [collapsing with greater speed](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-taliban-lashkar-gah--army-chief-is-replaced) than even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks.\n\nInterviews with former officials who have been intimately involved in US policy in [Afghanistan](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/afghanistan) point to an interconnected webs of factors behind the implosion, some of them long in the making, some a result of decisions taken in the past few months.\n\n[![Afghan soldiers on patrol](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/2c764264432cc437991c240d891643ff83a5c3fb\/0_240_3224_1936\/master\/3224.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=1e5efd246dca4d9f0c1ef7fae2ef87ef)Afghanistan stunned by scale and speed of security forces’ collapse Read more](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/13\/afghanistan-stunned-by-scale-and-speed-of-security-forces-collapse)\n\nWhile there is consensus that a failure of leadership and unity in Kabul has played an important part in the domino-fall of defeats, there is also agreement that the attempt to put all the blame on the Afghans obscures the share of responsibility of the US and its allies for the military disaster.\n\nThe candid assessments of US and allied officials and soldiers recorded in congressionally mandated “lessons learned” reports obtained by the [Washington Post](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2019\/investigations\/afghanistan-papers\/afghanistan-war-army-police\/) make clear some of the problems so evident today had their origins at the onset of the US-led military presence in the country.\n\nIn the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loth to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention.\n\nLater, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding.\n\nOut in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised.\n\n“We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,” [Douglas Lute](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2019\/investigations\/afghanistan-papers\/documents-database\/?document=lute_doug_ll_01_d5_02202015), a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war tsar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.”\n\nThroughout the 20 years of the US war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ANSF’s capabilities were consistently oversold by a succession of US defence secretaries and military commanders, who enthused over progress made.\n\nRetired Gen Joseph Votel, who led US central command from 2016 to 2019, admitted that in some cases the charge of overselling the ANSF was “fair criticism”. But he added that many individual Afghan units, particularly special forces, were impressive. The main problem, he argued, was unevenness in the quality of the troops and the lack of integration on a strategic, national scale.\n\n“The challenge of leadership at scale has always been a significant one for them – to not just have good tactical commanders, but also to have good leaders at all levels,” Votel told the Guardian.\n\n“National government has always had a challenge with exercising authority, particularly in far-flung provinces of the country.”\n\nVali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani.\n\n“He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.”\n\nGiven all these structural weaknesses in the security apparatus the US and its allies helped build, many military analysts argue the abruptness of the US withdrawal, begun by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, has contributed to the speed of the collapse.\n\n“The core of the problem is the way President Biden made and announced this decision and its timing,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian who served as an adviser to US commanders in Afghanistan.\n\n“The president announced the order to withdraw right at the start of fighting season. That was unnecessary,” Kagan, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued. “The president could perfectly well have ordered withdrawal to occur after the completion of the major fighting this year, and allowed the Afghans to continue to have the support that they had expected and prepare themselves for a world without US support.”\n\nWithout US soldiers on the ground directing precision airstrikes in the midst of the battle, US air support to Afghan troops is of limited help and is due to cease altogether at the end of the month. Afghanistan has its own air force but it is dependent on [US military](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/us-military) contractors to service it, and the contractors were among the first to leave. Bringing them back after the US withdrawal would require a new agreement that could take months to negotiate.\n\n[![American troops landing in Khost province, Afghanistan, in 2008. US forces withdrew from Bagram on Friday.](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/9bd631379ed021a1e5abaceaedfbc0bf0da54dce\/0_245_3888_2333\/master\/3888.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c565b67d8fd10f97f5723a65ef415125)After the retreat: what now for Afghanistan? Read more](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/04\/after-the-retreat-what-now-for-afghanistan)\n\n“Very few of America’s allies, even including Nato allies, actually have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets,” Kagan said.\n\nIn view of the sudden US and allied departure at the very start of a mass Taliban offensive, he argued it was deeply unfair to demonise the Afghan forces for the military rout they are enduring.\n\n“They have taken horrific casualties over the course of this war. Their families have been targeted, and yet they’ve continued to volunteer,” he said. “It is in fact offensive not to recognise the determination that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have shown up to fight against our common enemies and their willingness to die and run risks to their families to do so. It is part of a story that is not being told.”\n\nExplore more on these topics\n\n- [Afghanistan](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/afghanistan)\n- [US military](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/us-military)\n- [South and central Asia](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/south-and-central-asia)\n- [Joe Biden](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/joebiden)\n- [Biden administration](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/biden-administration)\n- [analysis](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/analysis)\n\nShare\n\n[Reuse this content](https:\/\/syndication.theguardian.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2021%2Faug%2F12%2Fafghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld&type=article&internalpagecode=world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld \"Reuse this content\")\n\n### Most viewed\n- [![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/67598ca3a0cb302ce908ac51dda1dfb43cda597e\/0_0_1200_960\/master\/1200.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Human remains found on California beach in 2022 identified as missing man](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/mar\/31\/human-remains-california-beach-identified-missing-man)\n- [![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/1d444ca55c89e7fe3988d2846ffbca6f4c5b13a9\/546_0_5208_4169\/master\/5208.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Hegseth says suspensions lifted for helicopter crews who hovered over Kid Rock home](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/mar\/31\/hegseth-kid-rock-army-helicopter-video)\n- [![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/a3bac6622ae791d475ed68043af7763c84bffac3\/131_0_4080_3264\/master\/4080.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) At least 29 dead after Russian military plane crashes in Crimea](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/01\/russia-military-plane-crash-crimea-ukraine)\n- [![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/e91896bb63964b9cc501f89a2c31fd482cdd6962\/250_0_2500_2000\/master\/2500.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Judge orders University of Pennsylvania to provide list of Jews to federal agency](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/mar\/31\/judge-penn-jewish-employees-list-trump)\n- [![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/39dc945e17fc3a4ca6f1e3032f1f47e75251dbe3\/415_31_2606_2084\/master\/2606.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine calls Hungary ‘a disgrace’ after leaked calls with Moscow emerge](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/01\/ukraine-war-briefing-ukraine-calls-hungary-a-disgrace-after-leaked-calls-with-moscow-emerge)\n\n## Related stories\n## Related stories\n- ![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/301d5e9f19133d00b657c0603ce7d711581e8d73\/0_0_5461_3277\/master\/5461.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4)\n  \n  ### Biden ‘privately defiant’ over chaotic 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, book says\n  16 Feb 2024\n- ![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/591cc0ef3bb74eb01513787d908497b13d9a2c2f\/0_362_5433_3260\/master\/5433.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4)\n  \n  ### The Biden doctrine: Ukraine gaffe sums up mixed year of foreign policy\n  23 Jan 2022\n- ![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/cf4c75b123475bf5b4d13ed5ba3c7e77af7e6d03\/0_267_4000_2400\/master\/4000.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4)\n  \n  ### US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley says\n  28 Sept 2021\n- ![](https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/451a5d5ffacfef3ee45a7ec8ebe277157bf372ed\/0_0_3297_1978\/master\/3297.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4)\n  \n  ### The media is lambasting Biden over Afghanistan. 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[Merz criticised after calling for Syrians in Germany to ‘go back’ home](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/31\/friedrich-merz-criticised-syrians-germany-return)\n\n- [World](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world)\n- [Europe](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/europe-news)\n- [US news](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news)\n- [Americas](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/americas)\n- [Asia](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/asia)\n- [Australia](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news)\n- [Middle East](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/middleeast)\n- [Africa](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/africa)\n- [Inequality](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/inequality)\n- [Global development](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development)\n\n- [News](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/)\n- [Opinion](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree)\n- [Sport](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport)\n- [Culture](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/culture)\n- [Lifestyle](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle)\n\nOriginal reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning\n\n[Sign up for our email](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global\/2022\/sep\/20\/sign-up-for-the-first-edition-newsletter-our-free-news-email)\n\n- [About us](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/about)\n- [Help](https:\/\/manage.theguardian.com\/help-centre)\n- [Complaints & corrections](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/complaints-and-corrections)\n- [Contact us](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/contact-us)\n- [Tip us off](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tips)\n- [SecureDrop](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/securedrop)\n- [Privacy policy](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/privacy)\n- [Cookie policy](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/cookies)\n- [Tax strategy](https:\/\/uploads.guim.co.uk\/2025\/09\/05\/Tax_strategy_for_the_year_ended_31_March_2025.pdf)\n- [Terms & conditions](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/terms-of-service)\n\n- [All topics](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/index\/subjects\/a)\n- [All writers](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/index\/contributors)\n- [Newsletters](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?INTCMP=DOTCOM_FOOTER_NEWSLETTER_INTERNATIONAL)\n- [Digital newspaper archive](https:\/\/theguardian.newspapers.com\/)\n- [Bluesky](https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/theguardian.com)\n- [Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theguardian)\n- [Instagram](https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/guardian)\n- [LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/theguardian)\n- [Threads](https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@guardian)\n- [TikTok](https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@guardian)\n- [YouTube](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheGuardian)\n\n- [Advertise with us](https:\/\/advertising.theguardian.com\/)\n- [Search UK jobs](https:\/\/jobs.theguardian.com\/)\n- [Tips](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tips)\n- [Accessibility settings](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/accessibility-help)\n- [Work with us](https:\/\/workwithus.theguardian.com\/)\n\nSupport the Guardian\n\nAvailable for everyone, funded by readers\n\n[Support us](https:\/\/support.theguardian.com\/?INTCMP=footer_support&acquisitionData=%7B%22source%22:%22GUARDIAN_WEB%22,%22componentType%22:%22ACQUISITIONS_FOOTER%22,%22componentId%22:%22footer_support%22%7D)\n\n[Back to top](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld#top)\n\n© 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.\n\n(dcr)","attrs_readable_markdown":"As [one](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/06\/taliban-captures-provincial-capital-in-afghanistan) [provincial](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/07\/taliban-seize-second-afghan-provincial-capital-in-two-days-sheberghan) [capital](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/08\/taliban-seize-symbolic-victory-with-capture-of-kunduz) [after](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/09\/taliban-capture-aibak-sixth-provincial-capital-northern-afghanistan) [another](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/10\/taliban-fighters-capture-afghan-city-at-strategic-junction-north-of-kabul) has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that [their survival is in their own hands](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/10\/us-says-afghans-must-defend-their-country-as-taliban-takes-more-ground).\n\n“They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” [Joe Biden](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/joebiden) said. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.”\n\nBut despite more than \\$80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is [collapsing with greater speed](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/afghanistan-taliban-lashkar-gah--army-chief-is-replaced) than even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks.\n\nInterviews with former officials who have been intimately involved in US policy in [Afghanistan](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/afghanistan) point to an interconnected webs of factors behind the implosion, some of them long in the making, some a result of decisions taken in the past few months.\n\nWhile there is consensus that a failure of leadership and unity in Kabul has played an important part in the domino-fall of defeats, there is also agreement that the attempt to put all the blame on the Afghans obscures the share of responsibility of the US and its allies for the military disaster.\n\nThe candid assessments of US and allied officials and soldiers recorded in congressionally mandated “lessons learned” reports obtained by the [Washington Post](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2019\/investigations\/afghanistan-papers\/afghanistan-war-army-police\/) make clear some of the problems so evident today had their origins at the onset of the US-led military presence in the country.\n\nIn the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loth to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention.\n\nLater, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding.\n\nOut in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised.\n\n“We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,” [Douglas Lute](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/2019\/investigations\/afghanistan-papers\/documents-database\/?document=lute_doug_ll_01_d5_02202015), a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war tsar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.”\n\nThroughout the 20 years of the US war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ANSF’s capabilities were consistently oversold by a succession of US defence secretaries and military commanders, who enthused over progress made.\n\nRetired Gen Joseph Votel, who led US central command from 2016 to 2019, admitted that in some cases the charge of overselling the ANSF was “fair criticism”. But he added that many individual Afghan units, particularly special forces, were impressive. The main problem, he argued, was unevenness in the quality of the troops and the lack of integration on a strategic, national scale.\n\n“The challenge of leadership at scale has always been a significant one for them – to not just have good tactical commanders, but also to have good leaders at all levels,” Votel told the Guardian.\n\n“National government has always had a challenge with exercising authority, particularly in far-flung provinces of the country.”\n\nVali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani.\n\n“He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.”\n\nGiven all these structural weaknesses in the security apparatus the US and its allies helped build, many military analysts argue the abruptness of the US withdrawal, begun by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, has contributed to the speed of the collapse.\n\n“The core of the problem is the way President Biden made and announced this decision and its timing,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian who served as an adviser to US commanders in Afghanistan.\n\n“The president announced the order to withdraw right at the start of fighting season. That was unnecessary,” Kagan, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued. “The president could perfectly well have ordered withdrawal to occur after the completion of the major fighting this year, and allowed the Afghans to continue to have the support that they had expected and prepare themselves for a world without US support.”\n\nWithout US soldiers on the ground directing precision airstrikes in the midst of the battle, US air support to Afghan troops is of limited help and is due to cease altogether at the end of the month. Afghanistan has its own air force but it is dependent on [US military](https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/us-military) contractors to service it, and the contractors were among the first to leave. Bringing them back after the US withdrawal would require a new agreement that could take months to negotiate.\n\n“Very few of America’s allies, even including Nato allies, actually have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets,” Kagan said.\n\nIn view of the sudden US and allied departure at the very start of a mass Taliban offensive, he argued it was deeply unfair to demonise the Afghan forces for the military rout they are enduring.\n\n“They have taken horrific casualties over the course of this war. Their families have been targeted, and yet they’ve continued to volunteer,” he said. “It is in fact offensive not to recognise the determination that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have shown up to fight against our common enemies and their willingness to die and run risks to their families to do so. It is part of a story that is not being told.”","meta_canonical":null}

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URL	https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld
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Meta Title	US deserves big share of blame for Afghanistan military disaster \| Afghanistan \| The Guardian
Meta Description	Analysis: White House accused of unfairly pointing finger at Afghan military after decades of mismanaging war effort
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Boilerpipe Text	As one provincial capital after another has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that their survival is in their own hands . “They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” Joe Biden said. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.” But despite more than $80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is collapsing with greater speed than even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks. Interviews with former officials who have been intimately involved in US policy in Afghanistan point to an interconnected webs of factors behind the implosion, some of them long in the making, some a result of decisions taken in the past few months. While there is consensus that a failure of leadership and unity in Kabul has played an important part in the domino-fall of defeats, there is also agreement that the attempt to put all the blame on the Afghans obscures the share of responsibility of the US and its allies for the military disaster. The candid assessments of US and allied officials and soldiers recorded in congressionally mandated “lessons learned” reports obtained by the Washington Post make clear some of the problems so evident today had their origins at the onset of the US-led military presence in the country. In the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loth to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention. Later, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding. Out in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised. “We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,” Douglas Lute , a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war tsar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.” Throughout the 20 years of the US war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ANSF’s capabilities were consistently oversold by a succession of US defence secretaries and military commanders, who enthused over progress made. Retired Gen Joseph Votel, who led US central command from 2016 to 2019, admitted that in some cases the charge of overselling the ANSF was “fair criticism”. But he added that many individual Afghan units, particularly special forces, were impressive. The main problem, he argued, was unevenness in the quality of the troops and the lack of integration on a strategic, national scale. “The challenge of leadership at scale has always been a significant one for them – to not just have good tactical commanders, but also to have good leaders at all levels,” Votel told the Guardian. “National government has always had a challenge with exercising authority, particularly in far-flung provinces of the country.” Vali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani. “He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.” Given all these structural weaknesses in the security apparatus the US and its allies helped build, many military analysts argue the abruptness of the US withdrawal, begun by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, has contributed to the speed of the collapse. “The core of the problem is the way President Biden made and announced this decision and its timing,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian who served as an adviser to US commanders in Afghanistan. “The president announced the order to withdraw right at the start of fighting season. That was unnecessary,” Kagan, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued. “The president could perfectly well have ordered withdrawal to occur after the completion of the major fighting this year, and allowed the Afghans to continue to have the support that they had expected and prepare themselves for a world without US support.” Without US soldiers on the ground directing precision airstrikes in the midst of the battle, US air support to Afghan troops is of limited help and is due to cease altogether at the end of the month. Afghanistan has its own air force but it is dependent on US military contractors to service it, and the contractors were among the first to leave. Bringing them back after the US withdrawal would require a new agreement that could take months to negotiate. “Very few of America’s allies, even including Nato allies, actually have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets,” Kagan said. In view of the sudden US and allied departure at the very start of a mass Taliban offensive, he argued it was deeply unfair to demonise the Afghan forces for the military rout they are enduring. “They have taken horrific casualties over the course of this war. Their families have been targeted, and yet they’ve continued to volunteer,” he said. “It is in fact offensive not to recognise the determination that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have shown up to fight against our common enemies and their willingness to die and run risks to their families to do so. It is part of a story that is not being told.”
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Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP [View image in fullscreen](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld#img-1) The Pentagon spokesman John Kirby speaks during a briefing on Thursday in Washington. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP [Afghanistan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/afghanistan) This article is more than 4 years old [Analysis](https://www.theguardian.com/tone/analysis) # US deserves big share of blame for Afghanistan military disaster This article is more than 4 years old [Julian Borger](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/julianborger) in Washington Analysis: White House accused of unfairly pointing finger at Afghan military after decades of mismanaging war effort Thu 12 Aug 2021 20.37 BST Last modified on Fri 13 Aug 2021 17.20 BST Share As [one](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/06/taliban-captures-provincial-capital-in-afghanistan) [provincial](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/07/taliban-seize-second-afghan-provincial-capital-in-two-days-sheberghan) [capital](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/08/taliban-seize-symbolic-victory-with-capture-of-kunduz) [after](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/taliban-capture-aibak-sixth-provincial-capital-northern-afghanistan) [another](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/taliban-fighters-capture-afghan-city-at-strategic-junction-north-of-kabul) has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that [their survival is in their own hands](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/us-says-afghans-must-defend-their-country-as-taliban-takes-more-ground). “They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” [Joe Biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden) said. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.” But despite more than \$80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is [collapsing with greater speed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-taliban-lashkar-gah--army-chief-is-replaced) than even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks. Interviews with former officials who have been intimately involved in US policy in [Afghanistan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/afghanistan) point to an interconnected webs of factors behind the implosion, some of them long in the making, some a result of decisions taken in the past few months. [![Afghan soldiers on patrol](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2c764264432cc437991c240d891643ff83a5c3fb/0_240_3224_1936/master/3224.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=1e5efd246dca4d9f0c1ef7fae2ef87ef)Afghanistan stunned by scale and speed of security forces’ collapse Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/13/afghanistan-stunned-by-scale-and-speed-of-security-forces-collapse) While there is consensus that a failure of leadership and unity in Kabul has played an important part in the domino-fall of defeats, there is also agreement that the attempt to put all the blame on the Afghans obscures the share of responsibility of the US and its allies for the military disaster. The candid assessments of US and allied officials and soldiers recorded in congressionally mandated “lessons learned” reports obtained by the [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-army-police/) make clear some of the problems so evident today had their origins at the onset of the US-led military presence in the country. In the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loth to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention. Later, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding. Out in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised. “We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,” [Douglas Lute](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/?document=lute_doug_ll_01_d5_02202015), a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war tsar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.” Throughout the 20 years of the US war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ANSF’s capabilities were consistently oversold by a succession of US defence secretaries and military commanders, who enthused over progress made. Retired Gen Joseph Votel, who led US central command from 2016 to 2019, admitted that in some cases the charge of overselling the ANSF was “fair criticism”. But he added that many individual Afghan units, particularly special forces, were impressive. The main problem, he argued, was unevenness in the quality of the troops and the lack of integration on a strategic, national scale. “The challenge of leadership at scale has always been a significant one for them – to not just have good tactical commanders, but also to have good leaders at all levels,” Votel told the Guardian. “National government has always had a challenge with exercising authority, particularly in far-flung provinces of the country.” Vali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani. “He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.” Given all these structural weaknesses in the security apparatus the US and its allies helped build, many military analysts argue the abruptness of the US withdrawal, begun by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, has contributed to the speed of the collapse. “The core of the problem is the way President Biden made and announced this decision and its timing,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian who served as an adviser to US commanders in Afghanistan. “The president announced the order to withdraw right at the start of fighting season. That was unnecessary,” Kagan, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued. “The president could perfectly well have ordered withdrawal to occur after the completion of the major fighting this year, and allowed the Afghans to continue to have the support that they had expected and prepare themselves for a world without US support.” Without US soldiers on the ground directing precision airstrikes in the midst of the battle, US air support to Afghan troops is of limited help and is due to cease altogether at the end of the month. Afghanistan has its own air force but it is dependent on [US military](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-military) contractors to service it, and the contractors were among the first to leave. Bringing them back after the US withdrawal would require a new agreement that could take months to negotiate. [![American troops landing in Khost province, Afghanistan, in 2008. US forces withdrew from Bagram on Friday.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9bd631379ed021a1e5abaceaedfbc0bf0da54dce/0_245_3888_2333/master/3888.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c565b67d8fd10f97f5723a65ef415125)After the retreat: what now for Afghanistan? Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/04/after-the-retreat-what-now-for-afghanistan) “Very few of America’s allies, even including Nato allies, actually have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets,” Kagan said. In view of the sudden US and allied departure at the very start of a mass Taliban offensive, he argued it was deeply unfair to demonise the Afghan forces for the military rout they are enduring. “They have taken horrific casualties over the course of this war. Their families have been targeted, and yet they’ve continued to volunteer,” he said. “It is in fact offensive not to recognise the determination that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have shown up to fight against our common enemies and their willingness to die and run risks to their families to do so. It is part of a story that is not being told.” Explore more on these topics - [Afghanistan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/afghanistan) - [US military](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-military) - [South and central Asia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/south-and-central-asia) - [Joe Biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden) - [Biden administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/biden-administration) - [analysis](https://www.theguardian.com/tone/analysis) Share [Reuse this content](https://syndication.theguardian.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2021%2Faug%2F12%2Fafghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld&type=article&internalpagecode=world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-us-military-analysis-biden-rumsfeld "Reuse this content") ### Most viewed - [![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/67598ca3a0cb302ce908ac51dda1dfb43cda597e/0_0_1200_960/master/1200.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Human remains found on California beach in 2022 identified as missing man](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/human-remains-california-beach-identified-missing-man) - [![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1d444ca55c89e7fe3988d2846ffbca6f4c5b13a9/546_0_5208_4169/master/5208.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Hegseth says suspensions lifted for helicopter crews who hovered over Kid Rock home](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/hegseth-kid-rock-army-helicopter-video) - [![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a3bac6622ae791d475ed68043af7763c84bffac3/131_0_4080_3264/master/4080.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) At least 29 dead after Russian military plane crashes in Crimea](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/01/russia-military-plane-crash-crimea-ukraine) - [![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e91896bb63964b9cc501f89a2c31fd482cdd6962/250_0_2500_2000/master/2500.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Judge orders University of Pennsylvania to provide list of Jews to federal agency](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/judge-penn-jewish-employees-list-trump) - [![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/39dc945e17fc3a4ca6f1e3032f1f47e75251dbe3/415_31_2606_2084/master/2606.jpg?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none) Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine calls Hungary ‘a disgrace’ after leaked calls with Moscow emerge](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/01/ukraine-war-briefing-ukraine-calls-hungary-a-disgrace-after-leaked-calls-with-moscow-emerge) ## Related stories ## Related stories - ![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/301d5e9f19133d00b657c0603ce7d711581e8d73/0_0_5461_3277/master/5461.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4) ### Biden ‘privately defiant’ over chaotic 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, book says 16 Feb 2024 - ![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/591cc0ef3bb74eb01513787d908497b13d9a2c2f/0_362_5433_3260/master/5433.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4) ### The Biden doctrine: Ukraine gaffe sums up mixed year of foreign policy 23 Jan 2022 - ![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cf4c75b123475bf5b4d13ed5ba3c7e77af7e6d03/0_267_4000_2400/master/4000.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4) ### US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley says 28 Sept 2021 - ![](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/451a5d5ffacfef3ee45a7ec8ebe277157bf372ed/0_0_3297_1978/master/3297.jpg?width=220&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4) ### The media is lambasting Biden over Afghanistan. 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All rights reserved. (dcr)
Readable Markdown	As [one](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/06/taliban-captures-provincial-capital-in-afghanistan) [provincial](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/07/taliban-seize-second-afghan-provincial-capital-in-two-days-sheberghan) [capital](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/08/taliban-seize-symbolic-victory-with-capture-of-kunduz) [after](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/taliban-capture-aibak-sixth-provincial-capital-northern-afghanistan) [another](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/taliban-fighters-capture-afghan-city-at-strategic-junction-north-of-kabul) has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that [their survival is in their own hands](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/us-says-afghans-must-defend-their-country-as-taliban-takes-more-ground). “They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” [Joe Biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden) said. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.” But despite more than \$80bn in US security assistance since 2002 and an annual military budget far in excess of other developing nations, Afghan military resistance to the Taliban is [collapsing with greater speed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/afghanistan-taliban-lashkar-gah--army-chief-is-replaced) than even most pessimists had predicted. There is talk among US officials of Kabul falling in months – if not weeks. Interviews with former officials who have been intimately involved in US policy in [Afghanistan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/afghanistan) point to an interconnected webs of factors behind the implosion, some of them long in the making, some a result of decisions taken in the past few months. While there is consensus that a failure of leadership and unity in Kabul has played an important part in the domino-fall of defeats, there is also agreement that the attempt to put all the blame on the Afghans obscures the share of responsibility of the US and its allies for the military disaster. The candid assessments of US and allied officials and soldiers recorded in congressionally mandated “lessons learned” reports obtained by the [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-army-police/) make clear some of the problems so evident today had their origins at the onset of the US-led military presence in the country. In the early years, when the Taliban were on the run, the Pentagon, under the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was loth to fund a substantial Afghan force, particularly after the Iraq invasion drew away resources and attention. Later, when the Taliban had regrouped and struck back, the coalition raced to build the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) comprising army, police and militias on a huge scale, totalling over 350,000 at their peak, cutting corners on training and funding. Out in the provinces, newly minted police were left to fend for themselves, and many used their authority and guns to squeeze income out of the population. Army officers drew salaries for tens of thousands “ghost soldiers”, whose names were on the books, but who never materialised. “We economised. We got the ANSF we deserve,” [Douglas Lute](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/?document=lute_doug_ll_01_d5_02202015), a three-star army general who served as the Afghan war tsar in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in his “lessons learned” interview. “If we started with the ANSF in 2002-6 when the Taliban were weak and disorganised, things may have been different. Instead we went to Iraq.” Throughout the 20 years of the US war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ANSF’s capabilities were consistently oversold by a succession of US defence secretaries and military commanders, who enthused over progress made. Retired Gen Joseph Votel, who led US central command from 2016 to 2019, admitted that in some cases the charge of overselling the ANSF was “fair criticism”. But he added that many individual Afghan units, particularly special forces, were impressive. The main problem, he argued, was unevenness in the quality of the troops and the lack of integration on a strategic, national scale. “The challenge of leadership at scale has always been a significant one for them – to not just have good tactical commanders, but also to have good leaders at all levels,” Votel told the Guardian. “National government has always had a challenge with exercising authority, particularly in far-flung provinces of the country.” Vali Nasr, a former US adviser and now a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts a share of the blame more specifically on the shoulders of the current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani. “He has clearly failed from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul in order to create a much stronger source of resistance to the Taliban,” said Nasr, who served as special adviser to the US Afghanistan envoy, Richard Holbrooke, from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of the problem is the fact that there is no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them.” Given all these structural weaknesses in the security apparatus the US and its allies helped build, many military analysts argue the abruptness of the US withdrawal, begun by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, has contributed to the speed of the collapse. “The core of the problem is the way President Biden made and announced this decision and its timing,” said Frederick Kagan, a military historian who served as an adviser to US commanders in Afghanistan. “The president announced the order to withdraw right at the start of fighting season. That was unnecessary,” Kagan, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued. “The president could perfectly well have ordered withdrawal to occur after the completion of the major fighting this year, and allowed the Afghans to continue to have the support that they had expected and prepare themselves for a world without US support.” Without US soldiers on the ground directing precision airstrikes in the midst of the battle, US air support to Afghan troops is of limited help and is due to cease altogether at the end of the month. Afghanistan has its own air force but it is dependent on [US military](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-military) contractors to service it, and the contractors were among the first to leave. Bringing them back after the US withdrawal would require a new agreement that could take months to negotiate. “Very few of America’s allies, even including Nato allies, actually have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets,” Kagan said. In view of the sudden US and allied departure at the very start of a mass Taliban offensive, he argued it was deeply unfair to demonise the Afghan forces for the military rout they are enduring. “They have taken horrific casualties over the course of this war. Their families have been targeted, and yet they’ve continued to volunteer,” he said. “It is in fact offensive not to recognise the determination that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have shown up to fight against our common enemies and their willingness to die and run risks to their families to do so. It is part of a story that is not being told.”
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