The London Independent, in a report posted today, paints a picture of a collapse of Afghan security forces that was not only not abrupt but that was in process months before the Taliban offensive picked up steam in July. “A sophisticated Taliban campaign aimed at securing surrender deals lay at the heart of the Afghan military’s collapse, but layers of corruption, waste and logistical failures left the country’s security forces so underequipped and with such battered morale that it enabled the militants’ success,” the Independent reports. “Interviews with more than a dozen members of the Afghan special forces, army and police in three provinces from May to July illustrate that the collapse of security forces was not abrupt. Instead, it was a slow, painful breakdown that began months before the fall of Kabul.”
Among the points made include the following: Afghan police went six months without pay; as the government lost more ground to the Taliban, it relied more heavily on elite forces by misusing them as if they were regular frontline units and failing to listen to the advice of the commanders of those forces; and, there was no effort to wean the Afghan forces off U.S. support, particularly air support (such a process should have begun years earlier with the buildup of in-depth logistics and other supporting capabilities but the fact that this was never done contributed to the failure of the U.S.-led 20 year war—ed.).
