Was the Afghanistan Pull-Out Inevitable?

    There is no doubt that the controversy surrounding President Biden’s recent decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan is justified. Opposing sides continue to argue about Biden’s handling and planning of the situation, and whether or not troops should have stayed there indefinitely. But the largest question these debates seem to circle back to is whether or not the Afghanistan pull out was inevitable. In my opinion, it is clear that withdraw from Afghanistan was bound to occur, and the sooner it occured, the better.

As the article, Every Option in Afghanistan was Bad, explains, “the Afghan government couldn’t stand on its own, and the security forces couldn’t hold the country, despite 20 years of international support.” Clearly, the inability of Afghanistan to support itself, as well as the “instability and non-cohesive nature of the Afghan state,” was not something that Biden, or any American president could have solved. (Disentangling the disaster in Afghanistan) While some may argue that “America hadn’t invested enough in the country,” or that “military leaders were not making effective use of the resources we gave them,” the Afghan government was going to fall when the US withdrew regardless of when they did it. (Disentangling the Disaster in Afghanistan) The article, Twenty Years of Afghanistan Mistakes, but this Preventable Disaster is on Biden, argues that “‘one more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country.’” Clearly, Afghanistan’s lack of state building ability made it inevitable that a US pull out would not only occur, but would cause the collapse of it’s sovereignty to the Taliban. Every Option in Afghanistan was Bad reiterates this point, claiming that Afghanistan would never be able to stand on its own, “so something like this collapse would’ve happened whenever the US pulled out.”

Despite the inevitability of the Afghanistan pull out, it can also be argued that the execution was fundamentally flawed. The Duck of Minerva’s post on Disentangling the Disaster in Afghanistan, puts it perfectly; “It’s horrible that the Taliban have taken over the country, but it was also inevitable; it’s unlikely a sustained US presence would have led to any other outcome. At the same time, there is no excuse for the Biden administration’s apparent failure to plan for the withdrawal, especially concerning the safety of afghans who had worked with the United States.” This “unmitigated disaster,” as the article on Twenty Years of Afghanistan Mistakes deemed it, was not necessarily preventable, due to the inevitability of withdrawal, but it definitely could have been handled much more effectively.

Although some may argue that the Afghanistan pull out was not inevitable, attributing their conclusions to the evidence of permanent American bases and troops in both South Korea and Germany, it is clear that the case of Afghanistan was fundamentally different. As Biden explained, “‘The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.” (Twenty Years of Afghanistan Mistakes, but this Preventable Disaster is on Biden) So, despite allegations that the Afghanistan intervention was the same as the 70 year old intervention in Japan, South Korea, and Germany, it is clear that their situation was completely different, thus justifying the inevitability of the pull out. 

Evidently, the withdraw of American forces from Afghanistan was inevitable due to the mere nature of Afghanistan’s state building capabilities. Although the situation was not planned and executed efficiently, it is clear that it was bound to happen. As the article, Every Option in Afghanistan was Bad, asks, “What were we going to do, stay there forever?”