Afghan government collapse.

[Cassius]

Assuming the Afghan government does collapse completely, then it’s time for the US and others to make some sort of an accommodation with the Taliban.

[Cassius]

Assuming the Afghan government does collapse completely, then it’s time for the US and others to make some sort of an accommodation with the Taliban.

Why? The US (and the UK and the rest of Europe/the West) has zero interests at stake in Afghanistan. They can happily ignore whatever happens with zero consequences, except maybe droning some terrorists if needed like Yemen and Syria.

That’s what I mean by accommodation, whereas I suspect what will happen is that a Taliban controlled Afghanistan will end up being another Iran (ie pointlessly sanctioned and having an inordinate amount of attention paid to it).

[Cassius]

I suspect that the Taliban are interested in retaining at least some ‘intellectual resources’, given that a Taliban ruled Afghanistan will still require doctors, engineers, jurists, finance people etc etc. On the other hand, the problem faced by most Western countries at the moment is arguably an overabundance of ‘intellectual resources’, ie graduates who cannot find work commensurate to the qualifications that they have received. Rather than exacerbating this problem (in the long term) by taking in the intellectual cast offs of Afghanistan, a better policy would be to redirect currently un and underemployed domestic graduates into graduate fields (medicine, engineering et al) where the demand cannot currently be met purely from domestic sources.

[Cassius]

I suspect that the Taliban are interested in retaining at least some ‘intellectual resources’, given that a Taliban ruled Afghanistan will still require doctors, engineers, jurists, finance people etc etc. On the other hand, the problem faced by most Western countries at the moment is arguably an overabundance of ‘intellectual resources’, ie graduates who cannot find work commensurate to the qualifications that they have received. Rather than exacerbating this problem (in the long term) by taking in the intellectual cast offs of Afghanistan, a better policy would be to redirect currently un and underemployed domestic graduates into graduate fields (medicine, engineering et al) where the demand cannot currently be met purely from domestic sources.

I don't think you realize but the Taliban are on living like it's the middle ages. They don't need doctor's, already have their religious scholars to serve as jurist nor do they care much if the infrastructure falls into despair. Their theocratic views reject any mordernization they aren't forced to accept by nesseciaty like mobile phones or weapons.

I mean, there were doctors in the Middle Ages (obviously nothing like today but hey ho). But that aside, even under the original incarnation of the Taliban regime doctors continued to practice and I would expect no less today. There is no doubt that opportunities for women will be curtailed in a Taliban dominated Afghanistan; nonetheless, the Taliban needs (and clearly has the support of at least some) educated people in order to produce some sort of workable regime. There are plenty of examples of countries run by Islamic fundamentalists that nonetheless churn out huge numbers of doctors, lawyers, engineers etcetera, and there’s no reason to expect that a stable (and this is the key factor), theocratic Afghanistan would be any different.

[Cassius]

Lots of claims above that the Taliban enjoy "massive" public support in Afghanistan.

Has there ever been any serious attempt to quantify this?

Have just seen somewhere else an equally serious claim that only about 10% of the population are strong supporters, and that what is happening is more akin to a military coup

The latter is probably a more accurate assessment (although these things are impossible to quantify with anything like precise figures), but at this point it’s pretty clear that the Taliban enjoy more popular support than the ‘legitimate’ government in Kabul. As is always the case I suspect the majority of the population simply want to avoid trouble and if that means conceding to Taliban rule then they’ll concede to Taliban rule.

[Cassius]

South Vietnam really put up more of a fight.

Which, of course, is precisely why panicked calls to ‘do something’ and somehow prop the situation up make no sense. There is nothing to prop up anymore.

[Cassius]

If the USA is smart they should move quickly to form a relationship with the new Taliban regime as there is no alternative to the Taliban in the medium term.   Their goal should be try to lock out as much PRC-Russia influence over the Taliban as possible.

Yes. I suspect that is why the Taliban have (thus far) been relatively restrained with regards the advance on Kabul and the evacuation of US and other foreign personnel, so as to avoid anything that echoes the incidents that took place in Iran in 1979 that poisoned relations with the US in the short and long term. Obviously I expect relations to be extremely frosty in the short to medium term, but perhaps an accommodation can be worked out for the long term that avoids sanctions and the recrudescence of international terrorist activity based within Afghanistan.

[Cassius]

Blinken reviewing the situation with the media.

[Cassius]

The best way to avoid Afghanistan ‘lapsing back into a breeding ground for terror’ would be to recognise the new government.

[Cassius]

Also, for all that people have been making fun of the Afghan army (and clearly some of that is warranted and that in places cowardice and/or treachery have played a role), the fact is that many (most?) units were under-strength and had no food or ammunition, and in those circumstances you’d have to be mad to expect them to put up any sort of resistance. I suppose the US ‘analysts’ made the assumption that the Afghan army would be at full strength and properly provisioned, hence the ‘shock’ over the speed at which the army has collapsed.

[Cassius]

It seems quite easy to pontificate about how Afghan civilians alone are responsible for their own destiny from the comfort of your own developed, stable western democracy

What’s the alternative? The West spent twenty years in Afghanistan trying to craft a developed, stable, westernised democracy. The West failed. The old government in Kabul may have been ‘nicer’ than the Taliban (although they weren’t that nice), but it was neither particularly competent nor particularly ‘legitimate’, the latter being evidenced by the low turnouts and widespread allegations of fraud in the elections that were held, alongside the speed at which the government collapsed once it was subjected to serious pressure by the Taliban.

Nonetheless, the twenty year occupation clearly wasn’t ‘for nothing’; life expectancy, literacy and infrastructure have all improved (albeit unevenly and from a pitiably low base) since 2001. This means that whilst there will undoubtedly be a regression in terms of political freedoms and opportunities afforded to women and minorities, a full scale rollback to the situation in 2001 is pretty unlikely (and would likely be strongly resisted). This is very normal in terms of the historical pattern of state development; it took the UK about 700 years to develop from an essentially feudal society to being a modern liberal democracy, and there were plenty of stops, starts, reverses and sideways steps along the way. The recrudescence of Taliban rule could well simply be a temporary reverse on the way to a more democratic and developed Afghanistan. Who can say? The only alternative however to the present situation is a renewed Western military occupation, with all the killings, maimings and bombings that that will inevitably entail. I doubt that will be acceptable to most people in the West, therefore, yes, the road forward lies through the people of Afghanistan and the choices that they make.

[Cassius]

I mean the problem with making evacuation part of the withdrawal would have been that doing so would have been to, effectively, admit that the US fully expected the Afghan government to collapse very quickly (and probably would have speeded up the collapse). Wouldn’t have been great Optics^TM (and whilst it’s a fair comment to say ‘screw the Optics^TM’, Optics^TM unfortunately plays a massive role in these things).

[Cassius]

Well that was a typically useful intervention by Bernard-Henri Levy.