Immediately after the terrorist attacks on the United States of America (USA) on September 11, 2001, then Secretary of State Colin Powell said that America would deal with the tragedy by bringing those responsible to justice and at the same time protecting the world's democracies.
After that attack, then-President George Bush quickly made the fight against global terrorism his main policy and began to establish an international "coalition of the willing" to carry out missions.
The US-led invasion of Afghanistan had the primary goal of punishing the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, and Washington soon overthrew the Taliban regime.
However, the American experience in Afghanistan ultimately ended in failure, and the hardline Taliban group returned to power.
Huge losses
The war, which lasted almost 20 years, ended with huge losses in manpower and money, which forced the American public and politicians to unwillingly join "eternal wars" that could not be won, writes Radio Free Europe.
On August 31, 2021, US President Joseph Biden, announcing the official end of the war, stated that more than 2000 thousand billion dollars had been spent in Afghanistan. At the same time, 20.744 American servicemen and women were injured, and 2.461 American personnel were killed.
Biden did not mention the estimated 70.000 deaths among Afghan security forces, the more than 46.000 deaths of Afghan civilians and the deaths of more than 4.000 allied troops and US contract workers.
A tree without roots
Experts say that what started as a fight against terrorism has become too expensive and has tended to last "forever".
"It was an extremely expensive war in a place that is probably the least important to the US." It was a war where the US sought to destroy al-Qaeda, which it did very quickly, then to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan, which it did, and then it became something much bigger, like how to establish democracy and a functioning government in Afghanistan and sustain it," says Wali Nasr, professor of international relations and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.
He estimates that the US "became committed to eternal war, or eternal presence that cost billions of dollars a year." This meant sending tens of thousands of soldiers.
He adds that the economy and civil society established under the protection of the US military is not something that Afghanistan can carry out on its own.
"What the US has created is like a tree that never took root." So, at some point you will say: 'I will stop watering it, and I will stop trying to forcefully keep it upright,'" Nasr assesses.
He points out that many of the unique circumstances that accompanied the invasion of Afghanistan—a direct attack on American soil, counterterrorism that became the focal point of American policy, and the idea that state-building was an effective solution—are unlikely to be repeated.
Little reaction from both Trump and Harris
Ryan Menon, a professor of international relations at the City College of New York, says the minimum good outcome for the US in Afghanistan would be "a stable country with a government that may not have been democratic, but that could be counted on not to serve as a platform for terror and that would have a positive relationship with the USA".
"But in trying to achieve that goal, what you're essentially trying to do is to engage in nation-building." Even a very, very powerful military machine like the US has a hard time pulling it off," says Menon, adding that "there are no nice ways out."
"To avoid the chaotic retreat that happened in Afghanistan, you have to build institutions, political and military and civil." Without that, when you go and remove military protection, the institutions will start to collapse, and that's what happened," Menon points out.
He emphasizes that with both American presidential candidates, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, there is "a little reaction against the so-called eternal wars."
"I think the American public is likely to be much less supportive of such inclusion in the future," Menon concludes.
Source: Radio Free Europe
