Taliban Sweep in Afghanistan Follows Years of U.S. Miscalculations

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s apical advisers concede they were stunned by the accelerated illness of the Afghan service successful the look of an aggressive, well-planned violative by the Taliban that present threatens Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.

The past 20 years amusement they should not person been.

If determination is simply a accordant taxable implicit 2 decades of warfare successful Afghanistan, it is the overestimation of the results of the $83 cardinal the United States has spent since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan information forces and an underestimation of the brutal, wily strategy of the Taliban. The Pentagon had issued dire warnings to Mr. Biden adjacent earlier helium took bureau astir the imaginable for the Taliban to overrun the Afghan army, but quality estimates, present shown to person severely missed the mark, assessed it mightiness hap successful 18 months, not weeks.

Commanders did cognize that the afflictions of the Afghan forces had ne'er been cured: the heavy corruption, the nonaccomplishment by the authorities to wage galore Afghan soldiers and constabulary officers for months, the defections, the soldiers sent to the beforehand without capable nutrient and water, fto unsocial arms. In the past respective days, the Afghan forces person steadily collapsed arsenic they battled to support ever shrinking territory, losing Mazar-i-Sharif, the country’s economical engine, to the Taliban connected Saturday.

Mr. Biden’s aides accidental that the persistence of those problems reinforced his belief that the United States could not prop up the Afghan authorities and subject successful perpetuity. In Oval Office meetings this spring, helium told aides that staying different year, oregon adjacent five, would not marque a important quality and was not worthy the risks.

In the end, an Afghan unit that did not judge successful itself and a U.S. effort that Mr. Biden, and astir Americans, nary longer believed would change the people of events combined to bring an ignoble adjacent to America’s longest war. The United States kept forces successful Afghanistan acold longer than the British did successful the 19th century, and doubly arsenic agelong arsenic the Soviets — with astir the aforesaid results.

For Mr. Biden, the past of 4 American presidents to look achy choices successful Afghanistan but the archetypal to get out, the statement astir a last withdrawal and the miscalculations implicit however to execute it began the infinitesimal helium took office.

“Under Trump, we were 1 tweet distant from complete, precipitous withdrawal,” said Douglas E. Lute, a retired wide who directed Afghan strategy astatine the National Security Council for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “Under Biden, it was wide to everyone who knew him, who saw him pressing for a vastly reduced unit much than a decennary ago, that helium was determined to extremity U.S. subject involvement,” helium added, “but the Pentagon believed its ain communicative that we would enactment forever.”

“The puzzle for maine is the lack of contingency planning: If everyone knew we were headed for the exits, wherefore did we not person a program implicit the past 2 years for making this work?”

A Skeptical President

From the infinitesimal that quality outlets called Pennsylvania for Mr. Biden connected Nov. 7, making him the adjacent commandant successful chief for 1.4 cardinal active-duty troops, Pentagon officials knew they would look an uphill conflict to halt a withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. Defense Department leaders had already been fending disconnected Mr. Biden’s predecessor, Donald J. Trump, who wanted a accelerated drawdown. In 1 Twitter station past year, helium declared each American troops would beryllium retired by that Christmas.

And portion they had publically voiced enactment for the statement Mr. Trump reached with the Taliban successful February 2020 for a implicit withdrawal this May, Pentagon officials said they wanted to speech Mr. Biden retired of it.

After Mr. Biden took office, apical Defense Department officials began a lobbying run to support a tiny counterterrorism unit successful Afghanistan for a fewer much years. They told the president that the Taliban had grown stronger nether Mr. Trump than astatine immoderate constituent successful the past 2 decades and pointed to quality estimates predicting that successful 2 oregon 3 years, Al Qaeda could find a caller foothold successful Afghanistan.

Shortly aft Lloyd J. Austin III was sworn successful arsenic defence secretary connected Jan. 22, helium and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommended to Mr. Biden that 3,000 to 4,500 troops enactment successful Afghanistan, astir treble the 2,500 troops there. On Feb. 3, a congressionally appointed sheet led by a retired four-star Marine general, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., publicly recommended that Mr. Biden wantonness the exit deadline of May 1 and further trim American forces lone arsenic information conditions improved.

A study by the sheet assessed that withdrawing troops connected a strict timeline alternatively than however good the Taliban adhered to the statement heightened the hazard of a imaginable civilian warfare erstwhile planetary forces left.

But Mr. Biden, who had go profoundly skeptical of American efforts to remake overseas countries successful his years connected the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and arsenic vice president, asked what a fewer 1000 American troops could bash if Kabul was attacked. Aides said helium told them that the beingness of the American troops would further the Afghan government’s reliance connected the United States and hold the time it would instrumentality work for its ain defense.

The president told his nationalist information team, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his nationalist information adviser, Jake Sullivan, that helium was convinced that nary substance what the United States did, Afghanistan was astir surely headed into different civilian warfare — 1 Washington could not prevent, but also, successful his view, 1 it could not beryllium drawn into.

By March, Pentagon officials said they realized they were not getting anyplace with Mr. Biden. Although helium listened to their arguments and asked extended questions, they said they had a consciousness that his caput was made up.

In precocious March, Mr. Austin and General Milley made a last-ditch effort with the president by forecasting dire outcomes successful which the Afghan subject folded successful an assertive beforehand by the Taliban. They drew comparisons to however the Iraqi subject was overrun by the Islamic State successful 2014 aft American combat troops near Iraq, prompting Mr. Obama to nonstop American forces back.

“We’ve seen this movie before,” Mr. Austin told Mr. Biden, according to officials with cognition of the meetings.

But the president was unmoved. If the Afghan authorities could not clasp disconnected the Taliban now, aides said helium asked, erstwhile would they beryllium capable to? None of the Pentagon officials could reply the question.

On the greeting of April 6, Mr. Biden told Mr. Austin and General Milley helium wanted each American troops retired by Sept. 11.

The quality assessments successful Mr. Biden’s briefing books gave him immoderate assurance that if a bloody debacle resulted successful Afghanistan, it would astatine slightest beryllium delayed. As precocious arsenic precocious June, the quality agencies estimated that adjacent if the Taliban continued to summation power, it would beryllium astatine slightest a twelvemonth and a fractional earlier Kabul would beryllium threatened; the Afghan forces had the advantages of greater numbers and aerial power, if they could support their helicopters and planes flying.

Even so, the Pentagon moved swiftly to get its troops out, fearful of the risks of leaving a dwindling fig of Americans successful Afghanistan and of work members dying successful a warfare the United States had fixed up for lost. Before the July 4 weekend, the United States had handed implicit Bagram Air Base, the subject hub of the war, to the Afghans, efficaciously ending each large U.S. subject operations successful the country.

“Afghans are going to person to beryllium capable to bash it themselves with the aerial unit they have, which we’re helping them maintain,” Mr. Biden said astatine the time. A week later, helium argued that the Afghans “have the capacity” to support themselves.

“The question is,” helium said, “will they bash it?”

The Will Is Gone

To critics of the decision, the president underestimated the value of adjacent a humble presence, and the execution of the withdrawal made the occupation acold worse.

“We acceptable them up for failure,” said David H. Petraeus, the retired wide who commanded the planetary forces successful Afghanistan from 2010 until helium was appointed C.I.A. manager the adjacent year. Mr. Biden’s team, helium argued, “did not admit the hazard incurred by the swift withdrawal” of quality and reconnaissance drones and adjacent aerial support, arsenic good arsenic the withdrawal of thousands of contractors who kept the Afghan aerial unit flying — each successful the mediate of a peculiarly aggravated warring season.

The effect was that Afghan forces connected the crushed would “fight for a fewer days, and past recognize determination are nary reinforcements” connected the way, helium said. The “psychological interaction was devastating.”

But medication officials, responding to specified critiques, antagonistic that the Afghan subject dwarfs the Taliban, immoderate 300,000 troops to 75,000.

“They person an aerial force, a susceptible aerial force,” thing the Taliban does not have, John F. Kirby, the Pentagon property secretary, said connected Friday. “They person modern equipment. They person the payment of the grooming that we person provided for the past 20 years. It’s clip present to usage those advantages.”

But by the clip Mr. Kirby noted those advantages, nary of them seemed to beryllium making a difference. Feeling abandoned by the United States and commanded by rudderless leaders meant that Afghan troops connected the crushed “looked astatine what was successful beforehand of them, and what was down them, and decided it’s easier to spell disconnected connected their own,” said retired Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the erstwhile commandant of United States Central Command who oversaw the warfare successful Afghanistan from 2016 to 2019.

Mr. Biden, 1 medication authoritative said, expressed vexation that President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan had not managed to efficaciously program and execute what was expected to beryllium the latest strategy: consolidating forces to support cardinal cities. On Wednesday, Mr. Ghani fired his service chief, Lt. General Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, who had lone been successful spot for 2 months, replacing him with Maj. Gen. Haibatullah Alizai, a peculiar operations commander. The commandos nether General Alizai are the lone troops who person consistently fought the Taliban these past weeks.

Richard Fontaine, the main enforcement of the Center for a New American Security, an influential Washington deliberation vessel that specializes successful nationalist security, wrote that successful the end, the 20-year symbiosis betwixt the United States and the Afghan authorities it stood up, supported and ushered done elections had breached down.

“Those highlighting the Afghan government’s subject superiority — successful numbers, training, equipment, aerial powerfulness — miss the larger point,” helium wrote recently. “Everything depends connected the volition to combat for the government. And that, it turns out, depended connected U.S. beingness and support. We’re exhorting the Afghans to amusement governmental volition erstwhile theirs depends connected ours. And ours is gone.”