History Repeats Itself!

On April 14, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that all U.S. troops would withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. In so doing, the U.S. will be following in the footsteps of Britain and the Soviet Union. There are interesting similarities between how these three preeminent military powers got entangled in Afghanistan and how they withdrew. Therefore, the focus of this piece will be on the patterns repeated by foreign invaders in Afghanistan, and not on the type of (armed) opposition they each were up against.

The First Anglo-Afghan War 1838-1842 and the U.S.-Taliban War 2001-2021:

On October 1, 1838, Britain declared war on Afghanistan, launching a two-pronged invasion through the Khyber and Bolan Passes. The British in India hadn’t been feeling safe enough with Amir Dost Mohammad Khan, who had been (falsely) suspected of collusion with Persia and Russia, being on the Kabul throne. The British solution was to topple Dost Mohammad and replace him with the former Afghan monarch Shah Shuja Durrani, who had been ousted nearly three decades ago, and was living on British pension in Ludhiana.

The British faced little resistance on their way to Kabul. Gradually, however, resistance against the British started taking root, and by early 1842 most of southern and eastern Afghanistan had risen against them. Financially, too, the occupation was considered a great source of stress to the East India Company’s treasury. Finding their position untenable, the British withdrew to India through the Khyber Pass in October 1842. Afghans who had cooperated with the British during the occupation also left for India.

The following year the British released Amir Dost Mohammad, who had been captured in 1840 in Kabul and taken as a prisoner to Calcutta. Upon his arrival in Afghanistan, the Amir was received triumphantly, and he once again ascended the Kabul throne. Ironically for the British, the war that had been initiated to dethrone Amir Dost Mohammad came to an end with the same Amir ascending the throne again.

While the destruction of a 16000-men British army is frequently mentioned by observers as a high point from the Afghan perspective, what almost always misses attention are the thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of innocent Afghan lives that were lost during the course of the British occupation. Moreover, the war disrupted Afghanistan’s trade with its neighbors and led to the destruction of Afghan cities and villages, including the destruction of Afghan crops.

There are multiple similarities between British and American wars in Afghanistan. First, both Britain and the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to topple Afghan ruler(s) whom they considered a security threat. The British war came to an end by restoring the same person whom they had dethroned. The U.S. war is also coming to an end with the Taliban coming back to power, either by military conquest or through a negotiated settlement.

Second, like the negative impact of the Afghan war on the British East India Company’s treasury, the U.S. war in Afghanistan has imposed great economic cost on America’s treasury. Third, the U.S. is giving refuge to those Afghans who cooperated with it and worked directly or indirectly with the U.S. military and civilians in Afghanistan, following in the footsteps of Britain.

Fourth, like most observers of the First Anglo-Afghan War who focus on British casualties and ignore Afghan losses in blood and treasure, today the media is more focused on the 2488 U.S. deaths in Afghanistan than on the nearly 150,000 Afghan deaths since 2001. While there are differences between British and American wars in Afghanistan, the similarities are too obvious to ignore.

The Soviet and U.S. Withdrawals from Afghanistan:

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 to prevent the collapse of the Amin regime or its reaching an understanding with the Mujahedin (and possibly Pakistan). After their initial triumphant entry into Afghanistan, the Soviets, like the British previously, got bogged down in a country-wide insurgency.

In addition to sharing many of the above mentioned attributes (such as the war being a burden on the invader’s economy and simultaneously causing massive casualties to Afghans) with British and American wars, the Soviet war in Afghanistan came to a close after the conclusion of Geneva negotiations. Thus, the piece will now highlight some of the similarities between Soviet and American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

To find a face saver to withdraw, the Soviet Union encouraged the (indirect) Geneva negotiations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Geneva negotiations had started in 1982, and the texts had been settled by 1986.[1] But it would not be until April 14, 1988, when the Accords were signed by Afghanistan and Pakistan, and by the U.S. and Soviet Union as guarantors.

Before agreeing on a time frame for withdrawal within the Geneva Accords, the Soviets wanted to give the Afghan President Najibullah enough time to make his national reconciliation policy work. The Soviets wanted (but failed) to create a broad-based government under Najibullah, hence the delay in finalizing the Geneva Accords. Najibullah’s failure to convince the Mujahedin to cease hostilities prompted the Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan regardless of the status of an internal settlement amongst Afghans.

There are two things to note here. First, like the Geneva negotiations which provided the Soviet Union with a face-saver to withdraw, the Qatar negotiations, culminating in the February 2020 deal between the U.S. and Taliban, served a similar purpose. Leaving behind a chaotic and unstable Afghanistan without a face-saving agreement would deal a major blow to any invader’s credibility and prestige.

Secondly, the U.S., like the Soviet Union in the 1980s, has encouraged reconciliation between the Afghan government and its armed opposition (the Taliban). The initial U.S. calculation was that it would have enough time to help Afghans reach an understanding, before completing its troop withdrawal, by May 2021. The Afghans, however, have yet to agree on an agenda for negotiations.

The Afghans’ failure (so far) to reach an understanding has once again prompted the invading foreign power to decide to withdraw its troops regardless of the status of intra-Afghan talks. Biden, like the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, doesn’t attach much importance to progress amongst Afghans toward an internal settlement. Biden today, like Gorbachev in the 1980s, has other priorities, and Afghanistan no longer tops his priority list.

Over the last two centuries the invaders of Afghanistan have had at least five things in common. First, their entry into Afghanistan was relatively easy. Second, resistance against the invaders gradually started building up. Third, the invaders got bogged down in a stalemate from which it was hard to extricate. Fourth, the invaders spent an enormous amount of money to maintain their military presence, which in turn affected their will to see through success. Fifth and final, the invaders resorted to a face-saving withdrawal, and left a devastated Afghanistan behind.

^[1]Riaz Muhammad Khan, Untying the Afghan Knot: Negotiating Soviet Withdrawal, P. 185