What Should Have Gone Right, but Didn’t
Planning is something at which the U.S. military excels. That does not mean that every US military plan is guaranteed to work flawlessly; not only are missteps unavoidable, they are dealt with effectively in every military plan. Planning begins before issuing the first mission order, and its evidence is found in the format of every order: Accomplish ABC, and prepare to accomplish BCD. The first mission order did not include the follow-on, and we spent twenty years trying to define one. The original sin is on G.W. Bush.
Both strategic and tactical plans begin with a statement of the commander’s intent. That makes it simpler to modify plans, because the only certainty is that the plan will evolve over time. The closest I can come to a commander’s intent is to complete military forces’ withdrawal by August 31, with no thought given to the material or Americans left behind.
There is plenty of blame to go around. As smart as the people in charge were, they never admitted the key error: There is no Afghanistan. There is a region called Afghanistan, occupied by people with a common religion and a common language (Pashtun, or Pushtu). There are 34 provinces, with each province divided into a number of districts. At the district level, and occasionally at the province level, there are individual warlords. They have been in conflict with neighboring warlords over territory, rights to collect free-passage fees from travelers, rights to smuggle opium, etc. Most Afghans know and are loyal to their family, village, clan, and district warlord. Beyond that, there is no sense of something as ephemeral as “Afghanistan.” It simply doesn’t exist. If there is no Afghanistan, there is no Afghan army.
Fast forward 19 years from Bush, and the President is anxious to cut losses and withdraw forces from Afghanistan. President Trump had a conditions-based withdrawal in mind. When declared conditions were met, withdrawal would start. We were able to enforce that with only 2,500 troops inside Afghanistan. As with many who wanted to denigrate and hurt America, the Taliban recognized that Trump would not hesitate to use force to keep them manageable. President Biden claims that he inherited Trump’s plan and followed it, so if it failed it was Trump’s fault. But we know that this is not true. Biden chose a calendar-based withdrawal plan. It had to succeed by a specific date. That’s an enormous difference. We also know that if it was associated with Trump, the Biden administration dismissed it, denigrated it or both. Why should a withdrawal plan be different?
No one can say what was in the Trump plan, because no details were released. I can say what would have been in a military-produced plan for something this significant, at least what would have been included by a military told to make it a high priority. I developed a number of such plans as well as several potential conflict scenarios. In all cases my instructions were to be absolutely, even brutally, honest, and to provide priorities, resource requirements, alternatives and resource contingencies – mostly time.
Were I tasked to develop the plan, Priority One would be filling critical information gaps: How many American citizens needed withdrawal, how many non-citizens, how much material needed to be removed or destroyed? Historically, when being over-run was a high probability, artillery batteries spiked their guns so that the enemy could not use them against our forces. There are usually a few critics who claim that this was done prematurely, but rarely a critic claiming it was not necessary. Typically, every artillery unit commander is attuned to the best intelligence available about enemy strength and activities. The best intelligence available was from the troops working directly with the Afghan army and police; they knew there was no way anyone would endanger himself by fighting. There was no Afghan army, because there was no Afghanistan. Almost anyone working directly with the Afghan army knew it would not fight the Taliban.
Decision-makers didn’t accept the intelligence from the low-level troops; they couldn’t possibly have the big picture. Instead, they looked only to the directors of the various intelligence agencies, all of which assessed that the Afghan army was formidable and the Taliban were near extinction. There had been a similar situation earlier involving Iraq and ISIS. The JV Team was headed to the Final Four, and that didn’t fit Obama’s narrative. All of the intelligence agencies supported the conclusion that ISIS was near extinction and Obama’s strategy was winning. Only the Defense Intelligence Agency disagreed. Its commanding general went into the field and checked with individual and small-group intelligence collectors. He learned that they were under pressure from above to report information supporting the preferred narrative. If they didn’t, their reports were usually changed before reaching the DIA. He pursued his inquiry and found that much of the DIA had become politicized. He fired the worst offenders and refused to endorse the other agencies’ conclusions. He was Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, who was immediately fired by President Obama. That sheds light on the charges against him, threats to arrest his son unless he confessed, bankrupting him and his family, and the failure of his defense attorneys to use information they had.
Back to planning for Afghanistan. American citizens serving as contractors to the US Government were certainly known, including their number and location. Maintenance contractors at Bagram Air Base all disappeared and left the country before the abrupt abandonment of the base. Contractors working on behalf of the US Government are required to obtain Embassy approval before they begin work; I assume these were known along with their locations. That leaves individuals visiting for any reason, employees of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as Doctors Without Borders, and employees of charities. I understand that the Embassy trusted e-mail communication with them, and told them to make their way to the Kabul Airport. They relied on Taliban promises to allow safe passage to the airport. That is not working out well.
It would have been easy to obtain other countries’ authorization to overfly their airspace, and to obtain permission to land, Defense Attaché Offices around the world do it every day. When the planners have a good estimate of how many will be flown out, they make a single call to the State Department and outsource the problem.
We had the names of every Afghan who collaborated with U.S. forces as a translator or informant. All of them were paid, and government loves permanent retention of records of minuscule payments to individuals. An early activity needed to be filling out all paperwork necessary to evacuate these people and their families and retaining it under US control. This is because no withdrawal is ever executed during a Sunday School picnic. A principle of military planning is that there is no need to dot every I before doing things that must be done in any eventuality. Another principle is regular sharing of information with one’s allies. Why neither of these activities was planned, let alone executed, is beyond my understanding.
When it comes to equipment, the military is inherently incapable of keeping track of what it has and where it is. We had spent billions of dollars equipping the Afghan army; the weaponry at Bagram Air Base could only be used either by the US military or the Taliban. It wasn’t necessary to conduct an inventory or a country-wide search. Everything was in open sight. Some of the lower-ranking military members at Bagram had spent time with the Afghan army, and knew they were likely to fold. Another principle of military planning is that you take information where you can get it. Did anyone ask the lieutenants and captains who had been working directly with the Afghan army what would happen? If so, was that information made available to decision-makers?
Aircraft and armored vehicles could be shipped out of Afghanistan with little risk. A joint approach by the ambassadors from the US and UK to Sheikh Khalifa, absolute monarch of Abu Dhabi, would likely gain approval for temporary storage in the UAE, a deal that could be sweetened by leaving some of them there. The rest of the lot are rigged with explosives to be detonated as the Air Base is abandoned. Arming your enemy is usually considered bad form.
I wasn’t privy to the decision, so I do not know why our final outpost was Kabul Airport instead of Bagram Air Base. On its face Bagram was a superior choice. It had two runways, both exceeding 3,000 meters, as opposed to Kabul, with only one runway, albeit 3,500 meters. There is more room at Bagram Air Base than at Kabul, and it is not situated in the midst of a six-million-population city. There may be perfectly logical reasons for selecting Kabul over Bagram; in light of the other decisions made, I’m not inclined to give the US Government the benefit of the doubt here.
Priority Two is a list of tasks necessary to accomplish prior to final withdrawal. Backwards planning often works best. What are the final steps? What needs to be done before those can take place? What needs to be done before that? A timeline can then be developed beginning at the end and moving backward. One can only estimate the time needed for each set of tasks, but the military has a lot of searchable records. If task zero is final departure, task 1 immediately precedes it, and is gathering all evacuees close. It’s probably includes flying out U.S. citizen women and children. If a complete enemy victory by the end of the year is believed inevitable, there is little risk in taking this precaution. Gathering evacuees close is even less risk. It is far more comfortable sleeping on the ground without bullet holes.
It would be hubris if I claimed to know what all the steps are between planning and the Step One activities. The farther one is from Step Zero, the foggier the view. I do know that Step One activities I’ve outlined will take two to three weeks. Removing equipment and setting explosives to what’s left is one week if the Commander in Chief orders it; Actual evacuation – Step Zero – is a logistical problem that the US Air Force has already solved. There are more than 150 Boeing 777s registered to U.S. airlines, with an average capacity of more than 300 passengers each. Total airlift capacity 45,000 passengers. United Airlines, one of the largest operators of 777s, has established a world record of one hour to turn around a 777. That includes offloading passengers, cargo and baggage, cleaning the aircraft, taking on catering, refueling, reloading passengers, cargo and baggage, and being prepared to taxi from the gate. Two days of ontinuous operation and the last one aboard turns out the lights. One day, with two runways.
Ideally, the planners would have unlimited time. That is unrealistic. It will take at least a month, possibly two or three. There is unlikely to be a single issue more suited to unity than pulling out of Afghanistan. The country is behind you, Mr. President. Please lead us.
When the French invaded Moscow from War & Peace would be a very good book for people to read now. Fires.
Bill, you are obviously much more capable than the combined abilities of the current administration.. as to the future... we can only hope!