What the US failed to understand about Afghanistan

Three decades ago, I climbed into a former Soviet army helicopter to tag along as a journalist with Andrei Kozyrev, then Russian foreign minister, to a deserted outcrop on the northern Afghan border.

It was a terrifying, haunting trip. Mujahideen fighters were still battling the Russians, even though the Soviet army had technically retreated from Afghanistan in 1989, after a decade-long occupation, and the Soviet Union had itself fallen in 1991.

As the helicopter flew towards Afghanistan, we lurched violently around the beautiful mountains to avoid incoming fire. Since Kozyrev’s bodyguards insisted on keeping the doors open, with their guns pointing out, I was terrified we might fall out. But what was equally memorable was that when we finally landed — intact — we found ourselves in a Russian garrison tucked into a remote corner of the Hindu Kush, inhabited by troops and a few military families.

One friendly Russian army wife showed me a vegetable garden she had planted, in a desperate — surreal — bid to create some normality. It evoked scenes from a Rudyard Kipling novel; in 19th-century Kabul, her British counterparts had also created gardens while their husbands were trying to subdue Afghanistan. “How long will you stay here?” I asked her.

She wistfully admitted she had already been trapped in the wilderness for a couple of years and had no idea when she might leave. “For ever!” a Russian soldier near her muttered, with black humour, gesturing at the crowd of locals. “[The Afghans] fight here for ever!”

Is that true? That question — and memories of that trip — have popped back into my head now that President Joe Biden has announced plans to withdraw the 2,500 troops that the US still has stationed in Afghanistan by September 11 this year.

In some respects, this withdrawal is not surprising. When the US invaded in 2001, with its allies, it hoped to crush Islamic extremists such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban and implant democratic ideas in the country. But two decades later, after 2,400 American troop deaths, the Taliban remain so strong that they may end up dominating Afghanistan. The American occupation has essentially failed.

What is more surprising, though, is that anyone ever thought it might end differently. The ill-starred Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s — and the British ones before it — demonstrated how hard it is to maintain control of the wild terrain of the Hindu Kush region if you have alienated parts of the population.

The Americans, like the Russians before them, often did precisely that. That was partly because clumsy military operations sometimes killed civilians. It is also because western politicians and troops often scorned Islam, viewing it as a monolithic, extremist phenomenon. It is not. While there are hardline versions of Islam in central Asia, there are also traditions of progressive and inclusive Islamic thought, such as those focused on the teachings of the Persian intellectual Rumi. It is a pity that does not get more attention from the watching world.

Another problem is the nation state. Westerners tend to assume that a “government” should be equated with a “nation”. However, the history of Afghanistan — like most of central Asia — is a shifting mosaic of city states and overlapping tribal fiefdoms. The “nation state” is not a strong concept there, and it is a profound mistake for invading forces to assume that if they control the capital, Kabul, and the (supposedly) national government, they will then control the entire country. Both the Americans and Russians learnt this to their cost.

So, after almost two centuries of botched invasions, will outsiders now finally leave it alone? I doubt it. Afghanistan is such a turbulent source of drugs and guns — and a potentially important transit point for energy — that it is hard for regional powers to ignore.

But I hope that when the Americans do finally leave, along with an estimated 7,000 allied troops, they make strenuous efforts to protect the factions that have supported them. The history of the Soviet invasion and withdrawal shows that a change of regime sparks bloody reprisals. The Americans have a moral duty to protect those who once helped them or championed their values, if necessary with asylum.

I have a second hope: that we do not forget the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians from all sides who have died in these seemingly endless wars. Therein lies a vast tragedy and a reason why western policymakers need a better grasp of history, even (or especially) in seemingly far-flung places such as Afghanistan.

Indeed, this sense of history is doubly important since it is highly likely that the “Great Game” — as the geopolitical struggles in the region have been known for more than a century — will continue. American special operatives will probably continue to furtively roam. Chinese, Iranian and Pakistani spies will undoubtedly be circulating for years to come too. And the Russians? I don’t know for sure what happened to that isolated garrison but I suspect it is still there — I just hope that the lovely Russian army wife managed to get away.

Follow Gillian on Twitter @gilliantett and email her at gillian.tett@ft.com

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