Research & Commentary Results

A week and a half after the fall of Kabul, the world has yet to fully recover from the shock of how quickly the Ghani regime collapsed. As U.S. and international forces continue their evacuations and many Afghans struggle to leave for Western countries, the formation of a new government in Kabul has picked up pace. The Taliban have been consulting all stakeholders to form a government that has broad support from a variety of Afghan populations — one they say will be “inclusive” and “Islamic” — but what that will actually mean or look like in practice is as yet unclear.

As the Great Game between the United States and China unfolds on a global scale, American and Chinese leaders have to make a choice — will they clash more openly in a struggle to dominate Afghanistan and its neighboring regions or will they rein in their ambitions and jealousies to accomplish goals that benefit themselves and many others?

في ديسمبر/كانون الأول 2011، كُنتُ في مُعسكر أمريكي صغير بالقرب من بغداد أتحدث مع القادة الميدانيين لأحد أجهزتنا الاستخباراتية حول الخيارات للحد من فقدان كل من الاستخبارات التقنية والبشرية بعد أن تم تخفيض القوات العسكرية الأمريكية إلى الصفر في العراق. في وقت متأخر من تلك الليلة بعد انتهاء اجتماعاتي التي استمرت طوال اليوم، قمت بإجراء مكالمة مع قائدي الجنرال جيم ماتيس، الذي كان وقتها يتولى رئاسة القيادة المركزية الأمريكية (CENTCOM).

Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.

Suddenly and seemingly without warning, Russian forces amassed in Crimea and near the Ukrainian border in April 2021. Heavy armor, long-range missiles and artillery, modern air forces, and elite airborne infantry units deployed into positions that raised alarm in Ukraine and throughout Europe. The situation today appears stable, but reports of new and upgraded hardware, including unmanned vehicles, demand a fresh evaluation of the Russian way of war.

We can and must provide that assistance not to help defeat the Taliban, fix Afghanistan, or remove our moral stain, but to achieve a much more limited objective, one that’s stated by the President himself, which is to ensure that no major attack against the U.S. or U.S. strategic interests is launched from Afghanistan.

Charles Lister on what Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban means for the future of al-Qaeda.

Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.

The Cipher Brief:  Did you ever envision that the U.S. would pull out so quickly or completely leaving the Afghan military on its own without U.S. air support?  

General Votel: I did not anticipate this during my time – but once the President sets a hard departure date – then a fast withdrawal is inevitable.  No Commander wants to accept unnecessary risk with troops on the ground when you are up against a clearly articulated departure date.

“You’re all going to die,” the diminutive, senior U.S. intelligence official observed in matter-of-fact fashion to her stunned Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) hosts. Her rather blunt appraisal was uncharacteristic of the engagement to which the senior Pakistani officials had grown accustomed and cut to the chase: the consequences of decades of Pakistan’s support to the Taliban, violent Kashmiri liberation groups, radical madrassas, and extremist local political groups were coming home to roost.

As Kabul falls to the Taliban, it’s safe to say that this is without a doubt the most significant day for al-Qaeda since 9/11. After two decades of relentless counterterrorism pressure from the United States and allies, al-Qaeda’s central leadership was in dire straits just weeks ago.

Weeks before the official U.S. military withdrawal, Afghanistan is unraveling rapidly as the Taliban continue their swift military advance. They now control more than two-thirds of the country and half of the provincial capitals. With the government’s hold on Kabul in doubt, the Biden administration has dispatched troops to evacuate U.S. citizens from the country. We asked experts and scholars from across MEI to weigh in with their thoughts on the situation and what it means for the country, the wider region, and key international players.

The Afghan government appears to be in a state of precipitous collapse. At least a dozen provincial capitals have fallen to the Taliban in a week. The Taliban now control around 66% of the country.

The debate about whether Afghanistan was worth thousands of U.S. lives and a trillion U.S. taxpayer dollars should have occurred before those lives were lost and the money was spent. The decision to pull out our remaining 2,500 troops was made after all of that was done. That minimal number of troops preserved everything we fought for in the last two decades. We had significantly reduced the risk to our forces and the expense to the U.S. taxpayer. 

Despite being largely low-key and limited in nature, ties between pro-Al Qaeda jihadists operating in Indonesia and Syria respectively continue to exist. Recent activity involving Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and other militant Indonesian groups illustrates the potential security risks from this nexus, which should not be overlooked.