Talking about the defeat of the United States in Afghanistan, is not similar to our discussion in the previous article about the victory of the Taliban over the United States; We are in front of two different parties in all aspects, and any attempt to make comparisons between them will lead us to wrong results that will lead to the failure of plans or perceptions that may be based on them, just as if we made a comparison between the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip and the Zionist entity. Some may prefer to talk about the defeat of the United States in Afghanistan, for political goals or under pressure of intense emotion and discontent with American policies against Arabs and Muslims, but this talk will not change the fact that the United States is still the only superpower dominant in the world, and of course this fact will not continue forever.
The losses of the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere - despite their high cost - are counted among the orgy adventures undertaken by the great powers, when they move their armies and equipment to achieve the goals of the political elite that holds power, and whose tactics change according to internal and external factors, and estimates of the successive strategic positions of these adventures.
A loss, not a defeat
Afghanistan is not the lifeblood of the United States, it is just one of the poorest and underdeveloped third world countries in the world, but it occupied a place in the strategies of American hegemony in the world during the period of the Cold War between it and the Soviet Union in the second half of the last century, where Afghanistan was the great opportunity For the United States to eliminate its traditional rival and monopolize the world’s leadership, it made a great effort to hunt down the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, with the help of its regional allies: Pakistan and some Arab countries, and it was done.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was preoccupied with creating the new enemy that would succeed the Soviet Union, namely Islamic terrorism. After a few years, this (made) enemy was ready, and the battle of the western capitalist camp - led by the United States - turned from its war against the communist camp led by the Soviet Union, which has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, to Islamic terrorism led by "Al-Qaeda" and "ISIS"! Yes, led by "Al-Qaeda" and "ISIS"! Ridiculous indeed, but true; The world swallowed this bait, and its countries regularly lined up behind the United States to lead it in this fabricated, naive battle, which helped the United States gain more strategic military bases, establish a unipolar world, and exercise a process of gradual imperial hegemony over it.
Afghanistan was one of the countries included in the new geopolitical strategy of the United States, which was engineered by neo-conservatives under the title "The New American Century", and work on its implementation began fiercely during the era of President George W. Bush.
This heralded a change in the US strategy towards the world at large.
After the September 11, 2001 incident, the US administration set a major goal for the invasion of Afghanistan, which is:
Elimination of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, which are being embraced by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
This goal remained the flag raised, and the argument by which successive US administrations justify to their people and their allies their invasion of Afghanistan, and their military operations, which numbered more than 110,000 people in 2010. But this goal was not the only thing that preoccupied the American administrations, as it was paralleled by several other goals, most notably :
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
Establishing military bases in Afghanistan.
Acquisition of concessions to prospect for mineral resources in Afghanistan.
Launching transit energy projects to Europe through India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Cut off the way for China and Russia to interfere in the Afghan issue.
The administrations of former President Donald Trump and current Joe Biden justified the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan by saying that the goal of the invasion was achieved by assassinating bin Laden, paralyzing al-Qaeda's activity, and the Taliban's pledge not to allow al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups to use Afghanistan to carry out their activities in any way.
President Biden was more insistent than his predecessors on the speedy completion of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, contrary to the opinion of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency "CIA" (CIA).
As for the goal of overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime, it was achieved in 2003, in a heinous historical criminal operation, under the trumped-up pretext that Saddam Hussein contributed to the financing of Al-Qaeda and possesses weapons of mass destruction that threaten the United States and its allies.
As for the rest of the goals, the door to them is still open, and America is still holding most of its threads in its hand, and the Taliban is going through a transitional stage that realizes that it will not be able to pass it safely without the United States of America, its partner in signing the peace agreement in Afghanistan.
Between the adventures of Vietnam and Afghanistan
The figures of US losses in Afghanistan may seem exorbitant overall to the marginal countries that live on debts, loans and grants, but if we re-read the figures from the perspective of the empire that leads the world, we find that they are negligible compared to the items of the US federal budget or the Pentagon budget. Or a comparison of the 20-year casualty figures for the United States in the 1955-1975 Vietnam War.
The United States spent on the war in Afghanistan about $2 trillion in 20 years 2001-2021, an amount that covers Afghanistan's budget last year ($5.5 billion) for more than 360 years, while the annual share of this amount is equivalent to an average of 10% of the annual Pentagon budget In the past twenty years.
As for the dead American soldiers, they were about 2,650 soldiers for the entire period, an average of 132 soldiers annually, which is equivalent to about a soldier every 3 days.
If we compare these losses with their counterparts in the American war in Vietnam, we find that the number of American forces participating in the war amounted to about half a million soldiers in 1967, more than 4 times the number it reached in Afghanistan, and the cost of the war amounted to about 750 billion dollars, and its value is currently equivalent to more Of the cost of the war in Afghanistan, while the losses of American forces in Vietnam amounted to about 60,000 dead, an average of about 3,000 dead annually.
In other words, fewer Americans were killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than they were killed in Vietnam in one year.
A loss, not a defeat
The United States lost the war in Vietnam, and withdrew from it without achieving its goal of defeating the communist North, loyal to the Soviet Union at the time. In the year following its withdrawal, Vietnam was unified under the name (the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) led by the Vietnamese Communist Party. It also lost the war in Afghanistan without completely eliminating al-Qaeda and groups loyal to ISIS, and the matter ended with the return of the Taliban and the raising of the flag of the Islamic State of the Taliban Emirate throughout Afghanistan.
These losses - despite their high cost - are counted among the orgy adventures undertaken by the great powers, when they move their armies and equipment to achieve the goals of the political elite that holds power, and whose tactics change according to internal and external data, and estimates of the successive strategic positions of these adventures, and among these tactics what he sees President Biden is currently aware that the military presence in Afghanistan could not prove that diplomacy will not succeed without it, but rather that it is able to succeed with the help of regional allies without the military presence, and for this he stressed the completion of the withdrawal, without ceasing to threaten force and the ability to intervene anywhere and in any time in defense of American interests.
The United States withdrew from Vietnam, after it caused the deaths of more than two million people, and is currently in contact with the Vietnamese leadership to rebuild relations and coordinate positions in the face of China, which is increasingly threatening Vietnam.
In Afghanistan, it was not as severe as it was in Vietnam.
The United States has handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban on the basis of joint cooperation in many fields, and for the most part, the doors of mutual interests will remain open between them, and it will enumerate cooperation projects to complete what they have agreed upon, thus achieving the interests of each of the other.
(Continued... The cost of war and the challenges of rebuilding)