Thread by @CChivvis

THREAD: For nearly two decades, America has sought to remake Afghanistan on a western model. It turns out that Afghanistan was never America’s to fix. I was part of the foreign policy establishment that tried to find technical solutions for the challenges of nation-building. 1/18

But ultimately there can be no technical solutions for intractable political problems. Weapons and skills are transferable. The will to fight for your country is not. 2/18

The dramatic collapse of Afghan National Security Forces is the best evidence that the project had become a Potemkin village – if any was needed. 3/18

Nearly a decade of peace talks with the Taliban in Doha yielded almost nothing. All-important talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government were even less productive because the Taliban always believed it had the upper hand and could prevail on the battlefield. 4/18

For two decades, the Taliban was convinced America would eventually leave and they would recapture Kabul. Its leaders understood that America’s fight for abstract ideals could never outlast their willingness to give their blood to defend their way of life and their soil. 5/18

It was sad to watch the U.S. national security bureaucracy spin its wheels over Afghanistan during the transition from Trump and Biden. Because Biden was the anti-Trump, nearly everyone assumed he would do the opposite on everything, including Afghanistan. 6/18

But what would have happened if Biden had decided to scrap Trump’s plan for withdrawal and stayed the course back in May? The foreign policy establishment would have approved, but would America's interests have been served? It's doubtful. 7/18

The Taliban would have been energized by America reneging on Trump’s deal. American troops would obviously still be in the line of fire. To be sure, the Taliban wouldn't have made the gains it did, but America would almost certainly have had to put more forces in to respond. 8/18

The fact is that with no credible evidence Afghanistan would ever stabilize absent the U.S. forces, that deployment was a life sentence. 9/18

A conservative estimate would be that hundreds and hundreds of Americans would have lost their lives in the next decade, after nearly 2,500 have already perished. This is not to mention the costs to American taxpayers— $8 billion annually. 10/18

Those who say America’s reputation is on the line may have a point, but America’s reputation with whom? The Taliban? The Afghan people? The Russians and the Chinese may gloat, but it served their interests better for America to remain. 11/18

Meanwhile, America’s project in Afghanistan would have continued to suck up precious national security resources and distracted U.S. officials from more important strategic challenges: pandemics, China, Russia, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation, to name a few. 12/18

America’s national security establishment struggles to overcome its groupthink over Afghanistan. America's best and brightest all worked the file. But years of dedication to the cause of saving Afghanistan hardly created open minds. 13/18

Afghanistan was, for many, the “good war” of the early 2000s. Iraq was the war we fought, based on fictions, personal vindictiveness, and anger. Afghanistan was justified by the Al-Qaeda threat and, when this was not enough, the desire to do good for the Afghan people. 14/18

Withdrawing proves that the Taliban were right all along—that we weren’t going to stay—and this is hard to swallow because America could continue to prove the Taliban wrong by staying indefinitely. But this would be cutting off your nose to spite your face. 15/18

Most difficult is perhaps the way this outcome underscores a central paradox about America’s role in the world by demonstrating both the futility of nation-building and yet also the extraordinary power of the US military, which was holding the whole country together. 16/18

Herein a deeper reckoning for America’s foreign policy establishment: Our idealistic plans for the world are often predicated on our immense capacity for violent coercion. Afghanistan does not work the way we want it to work without the U.S. military there. 17/18

America’s great projects always come at a price. Improving women’s education in Afghanistan is laudable, but only possible at the point of a sword. Furthering our objectives meant killing Afghans. It is time for this to end, however ugly and painful to accept. 18/18