Zhang Fan: An Analysis of the U.S. Withdrawal Strategy in Afghanistan
Author: Zhang Fan is a researcher at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Source: Contemporary American Review, No. 4, 2021; Contemporary American Review
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
Overseas military intervention is an important feature of the US foreign strategy, and the theory of "exit strategy" proposed by the international political science community in recent years provides an important path for examining how the United States ends overseas military intervention. The "exit strategy" of the United States to end the war in Afghanistan is mainly derived from the US president's "Afghan war concept", Obama, Trump and Biden all believe that Afghanistan's status in the US national strategy is decreasing, and the prospects for war in Afghanistan are getting dimmer and dimmer. Based on this understanding, all three presidents committed themselves to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and ending the Afghan war through a series of strategic statements, defending the decision to end the war in Afghanistan on the grounds of national interest, and proposing the military and political objectives of the "exit strategy" to end the war in Afghanistan, that is, to strive to maintain the results of this overseas military intervention while withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, including the "safe haven" of Terrorism in Afghanistan and the maintenance of the Afghan government. While gradually reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the United States is trying to ensure the realization of these goals through direct negotiations with the Taliban. Because it has not been able to effectively combine the political and military aspects of the implementation of the "exit strategy", the United States has not been able to achieve its ideal "end state" while completing the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In order to comprehensively and deeply examine the "exit strategy" of U.S. military intervention abroad, this paper takes comparative analysis as the research path to explore the "exit strategy" with unique U.S. strategic characteristics.
[Keywords] War in Afghanistan; "Exit Strategy"; U.S. Military Intervention Abroad; U.S. Afghanistan Policy
On August 31, 2021, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan officially came to an end as the last U.S. military and political officials stationed in Afghanistan withdrew on military aircraft. In response to 9/11, the George W. Bush administration launched the Afghan War in October 2001, overthrowing the Taliban regime and annihilating al-Qaida forces, after which the War in Afghanistan lasted nearly 20 years. In the second half of the War in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has been committed to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and ending the War in Afghanistan, but the so-called "war is easy to end", from the Obama administration to withdraw from Afghanistan to the Biden administration to officially complete the process, it took nearly a decade. Why is it so hard? What's the hard part? Continuous engagement in overseas military intervention is an important feature of U.S. foreign and strategic affairs. Academia and policy research have long focused on how the United States initiated specific overseas military interventions, and relatively little research has been done on how they end such operations. In fact, a significant portion of U.S. military intervention abroad has ended in failure or setback. How the United States can "get out" or "withdraw" from such overseas military interventions is receiving increasing attention. Based on the theory of the "exit strategy" that has emerged in the international political science circles in recent years and the relevant historical experience of the United States, this paper conducts a preliminary investigation of the "exit strategy" of the United States to end the war in Afghanistan, with the aim of having a deeper understanding of the "exit strategy" of the UNITED States' overseas military intervention. To this end, this paper first establishes an analytical framework based on the theory of "exit strategy" and the historical practice of the "exit strategy" of US overseas military intervention, and accordingly examines the various elements of the "exit strategy" of the United States to end the war in Afghanistan, especially the dilemma in practice, reveals the "difficulties" and reasons for the United States to end the war in Afghanistan, and puts forward a research path for reference on how to comprehensively and deeply study the "exit strategy" of us overseas military intervention.
An analytical framework for "exit strategies" and related U.S. behavior
To a large extent, to examine how the United States ended the war in Afghanistan, it is actually the "exit strategy" proposed by the international political science circles in recent years, and its relevant theories have a certain inspiration for examining the end of overseas military interventions by the United States, including the war in Afghanistan.
(1) The theory of "exit strategy"
After the end of the Cold War, from Somalia to Haiti to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small number of Western countries such as the United States have carried out more and more overseas military interventions in the name of "maintaining regional stability" and "national reconstruction". But the major challenge for these countries engaged in overseas military intervention is under what conditions and how to end such intervention. The war in Afghanistan and iraq launched by the United States has been protracted for a long time. Taking this as an opportunity, some Western scholars engaged in international conflict studies began to explore ways to theoretically end overseas military intervention. In 2012, Professor Richard Caplan, director of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford, published The Exit Strategies and State Building, which attempted to explain the conditions and implementation process for ending military intervention abroad by constructing an "exit strategy" theory, and his more prominent contribution was to try to define the concept of "exit strategy". Scholars at the U.S. Army War College used the historical experience of the United States in ending overseas military intervention as a case to theoretically explore the strategy for ending such operations and expounded the specific steps to end overseas military intervention, but did not call it "exit strategy". In its annual report published in 2015, the Netherlands Defense Academy conducted a further theoretical analysis of how to end military intervention abroad, focusing on the specific objectives and implementation paths of such strategies, with the theme of "exit strategy".
According to the existing research results, the so-called "exit strategy" refers to the path of countries engaged in overseas military interventions to end such interventions when they achieve the objectives of the intervention or suffer major setbacks in the intervention and the existing objectives are difficult to achieve. In fact, the "exit strategy" refers more to the latter situation, namely, how the State that intervened militarily in the event that the intervention was difficult to achieve the stated objectives, while preserving the results of the intervention as much as possible, while ending the military operation. Taking this definition as the starting point, when examining the specific strategy for ending overseas military intervention, it is necessary to start from the following dimensions.
The first is the strategic origin. Decision makers in countries engaged in military intervention abroad, when and under what circumstances, realizing that the original objectives of the intervention were difficult to achieve and that the intervention, far from advancing national interests, became a strategic burden and decided to end the operation. The "exit strategy" theory emphasizes that the decision to "end" the decision of the decision maker stems from the decision maker's own cognition or/and/and various pressures from both at home and abroad.
The second is strategic expression. Policymakers convey to the outside world their willingness to end military intervention abroad in the form of government documents or public speeches, clarifying the so-called "end state" and "end timing." The former refers to the ideal state that the "interventionist state" hopes to achieve in the political, military, economic and social fields after the end of the military intervention, which is generally the result of the intervention that the "interventionist state" strives to retain and maintain; the latter is the timetable for the implementation of the withdrawal and the specific time for the final completion of the withdrawal. The "end state" and "end time" are the key elements of the strategy statement, that is, the goal of the "exit strategy".
The third is the implementation of the strategy. How to achieve the "end state" and how to complete the withdrawal process according to the "end time", that is, the specific measures to implement the "exit strategy" at the political and military levels. The political aspect of the implementation of the strategy involves the game between the "intervening power" and the local forces, in order to achieve the "end state" and maintain the results of the intervention, the "intervening state" often through peace talks with the local forces being interfered with and then reach an agreement, and strive to make the end of the military intervention, the local political, military, economic and social situation in line with expectations. The military dimension of strategy implementation involves strategic coordination between the military of the "interventionist state", especially the commander of the overseas military intervention and the top decision-maker of the "intervention state". The theory of the "exit strategy" emphasizes that the objectives of the "exit strategy" can be fully and effectively achieved only by combining the military and political dimensions of the implementation of such strategies, and the implementation of this strategy is a protracted and complex process.
(ii) The "Exit Strategy" of Overseas Military Intervention: U.S. Practice
Overseas military intervention is an important means for the United States to pursue, maintain and enhance global hegemony, and is an important part of US foreign affairs and foreign strategy. However, U.S. military intervention abroad is often difficult to achieve the stated goals and has suffered repeated setbacks. Therefore, the "exit strategy" to end such interventions has often become an important choice for US policymakers. From armed intervention in Lebanon to participation in the Vietnam War, from sending troops to Somalia to attacking Iraq, the United States has not been able to win quickly, and the "exit strategy" has accompanied such failed interventions. Taking the above-mentioned theoretical dimensions of the "exit strategy" as the analysis perspective, the "exit strategy" of overseas military interventions implemented by the United States in the past shows the following characteristics.
First, the decision to end military intervention overseas is largely made by the president, but the proposal to end such operations does not necessarily come from the president. Given that the U.S. Constitution gives the president the right to handle foreign affairs, the president of the United States often makes the decision to end overseas military intervention under multiple pressures at home and abroad, after weighing the gains and losses of various interests. The U.S. decision to end the Vietnam War was made by Nixon under multiple pressures from Congress and domestic anti-war public opinion, as well as allied appeals; in 1983, Reagan's decision to withdraw troops from Lebanon was largely forced by pressure from Congress and domestic public opinion. Thus, in terms of the origins of the "exit strategy" of the United States on a particular war issue, the key question is to examine whether the president himself, as the most important decision-maker, advocates and advocates an end to military intervention abroad. If the answer is no, where did such initiatives come from, under what pressure the president decided to end the intervention, and if the president himself supported ending the intervention, what kind of perception led to it.
Second, once the president decides to "withdraw", US government officials often use various public occasions to express their willingness to "withdraw" around the decision, and put forward a general idea of the "end state" and a plan for the "end time". Ending military intervention overseas is a major adjustment to foreign policy, and even a symbolic turning point in foreign policy. Therefore, the U.S. government's formulation of the "exit strategy" is often aimed at appeasing the opposition and defending the "withdrawal" decision from the perspective of the so-called "national interest" in order to enhance the "legitimacy" of such decisions. For example, after Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War as soon as possible, the relevant strategic statements of U.S. government officials mainly included three aspects: First, this move was in the national interest, that is, the United States could better contain the Strategic Competition of the Soviet Union only by ending the Vietnam War. The long-term mire of the Vietnam War is a heavy strategic burden on the United States and is not in the national interest; the second is the "end state", that is, maintaining and ensuring the legitimacy and viability of the Saigon regime; and the third is the "end time", that is, the withdrawal timetable of various sizes and speeds. The strategic expression of ending the Vietnam War has a certain representativeness in the history of the US "withdrawal strategy", and since then, the STRATEGIC expression of the United States around certain major "withdrawals" has included the above three aspects to varying degrees.
Finally, in the case of ending the Vietnam War, the United States, in implementing the "exit strategy," strives to achieve the so-called "dignified withdrawal," that is, to gradually complete the withdrawal while achieving its desired "end state" through negotiations. Since the Vietnam War, the United States has pursued an "exit strategy" by combining withdrawals and certain specific military operations with negotiations to preserve the results of the intervention, and has completed the withdrawal accordingly. However, due to the inherent contradiction between the withdrawal and the maintenance of the results of the intervention, it is often difficult to achieve a "decent withdrawal". Without the support of the US military presence, the ideal "end state" is unsustainable, and "decent withdrawal" often becomes a "fig leaf" for unloading the strategic burden. Examining the historical experience and characteristics of the Implementation of the "Exit Strategy" by the United States is of reference value for clarifying to what extent the United States can maintain the results of its intervention through negotiations, achieve its expected "end state", complete the withdrawal of troops on what scale and speed, and whether the political and military aspects of the implementation of the "Exit Strategy" can be combined.
(iii) The analytical framework for the United States to end the war in Afghanistan
Based on the above theory and the historical practice of the United States, this paper examines the "exit strategy" of the United States to end the war in Afghanistan from the following aspects.
First, strategic origins. The war in Afghanistan is by far the longest overseas military intervention by the United States, but the war in Afghanistan has not triggered social unrest in the United States, whether most members of Congress or the mainstream media in the United States have not put pressure on the president to end the war, and its main allies have not called on the United States to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The idea of ending the war in Afghanistan mainly comes from the president of the United States, and Obama, Trump, and Biden all advocate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. From the perspective of the US president's perception of the war in Afghanistan, this article explores the origin of the "exit strategy" of the United States to end this overseas military intervention.
Second, strategic expression. The U.S. government's strategic statement of ending the war in Afghanistan actually proposes the strategic goal of "withdrawing" from Afghanistan, and this article mainly proceeds from the perspective of national interests, that is, how the U.S. government defends the "withdrawal" on the grounds of national interests; "end state", that is, the U.S. expectation of the political and social state of Afghanistan after the end of the war, that is, the results of the intervention that the United States hopes to retain; and "end time", that is, the timetable for withdrawal and the specific time for the final completion of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Third, the implementation of the strategy. To achieve the strategic objectives, the implementers of the strategy need to develop a series of action plans and implement them. This article mainly examines the "exit strategy" implemented by the United States to end the war in Afghanistan from the political and military levels. At the political level, analyze the extent to which the United States has achieved its expected "end state" through the peace talks, and the reasons for not achieving the expectations; at the military level, analyze how the US withdrawal schedule has been generated, whether the US military has withdrawn from Afghanistan according to the "end time", and whether the United States has effectively combined the needs of the political and military levels in the implementation of the strategy.
The "withdrawal" from Afghanistan: the president's cognitive and strategic origins
The three consecutive U.S. presidents since Obama have advocated ending the war in Afghanistan, and their position stems from their respective "afghan views of war," and it is precisely because of their views on this overseas military intervention that they have decided and are constantly committed to ending the war in Afghanistan. Although the "Afghan war outlook" of the three presidents is not consistent, their relevant positions are increasingly negative and pessimistic, which is mainly reflected in the recognition of two key issues.
(i) The position of the war in Afghanistan in the national strategy of the United States
The war in Afghanistan was once an important part and frontier of the U.S. "global war on terror." In the context of "counter-terrorism" as the first priority, the war in Afghanistan occupies an extremely important position in the US national strategy. After crushing the Taliban regime and eliminating al-Qaida's living forces, the George W. Bush administration did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, but instead expanded the Afghan war and threw itself into the "reconstruction of the country" in Afghanistan. Around 2006, the Taliban made a comeback, seriously threatening the U.S. "national reconstruction" process in Afghanistan. Instead of putting "withdrawal" from Afghanistan on the agenda, the George W. Bush administration defined U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan as defeating the Taliban and escorting afghanistan's "national reconstruction." In President George W. Bush's view, the war in Afghanistan occupies an important position in the US national strategy, especially the national security strategy.
Obama's perception of the importance of the war in Afghanistan is different from his predecessors. In Obama's view, the U.S. national strategy should focus on the domestic center, repair the wounds caused by the financial crisis to the U.S. economy, cut the fiscal deficit and reform the health insurance system, but the huge fiscal expenditure of the war in Afghanistan has consumed the capital investment that should be used for domestic affairs. Obama's assertion that "America's 'national reconstruction' should be at home, not in Afghanistan, is a reflection of his perception of the war in Afghanistan. Moreover, in terms of foreign strategy, as the plans of overseas terrorist organizations to attack the United States mainland continue to be thwarted, and the United States continues to strengthen various "anti-terrorism" measures, the threat of terrorism to the United States is gradually decreasing, and Obama tends to adjust the focus of the United States' foreign strategy, believing that it is necessary to "reset" the relative importance of counter-terrorism and great power competition. After bin Laden's death in May 2012, the urgency of "counterterrorism" in the United States has diminished, and Obama has seen the importance of the Afghan war in the U.S. national security strategy declining. The only uncertainty and concern of the Obama administration about the war in Afghanistan is whether terrorists will use Afghanistan as a "safe haven" to launch another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland in the event of the Taliban's comeback.
Trump, who emphasizes "America First," views the war in Afghanistan from the perspective of U.S. domestic priorities. Trump, with his "isolationist" leanings, is skeptical of all military intervention abroad, let alone the protracted and costly afghan war. In Trump's view, the war in Afghanistan is a "disaster" that "costs the people and money" and must end as soon as possible. Even from the perspective of U.S. national security, Trump has tried to belittle the importance of the war in Afghanistan, arguing that great power competition takes precedence over counterterrorism, and in counterterrorism, the fight against the Islamic State takes precedence over the fight against the Taliban. It was only after realizing that the threat of terrorism and violent extremism to U.S. homeland security had not been reduced and reminded that Trump appropriately adjusted his judgment on the importance of the war in Afghanistan to U.S. security, and began to worry about whether Afghanistan would once again become a "safe haven" for terrorists to attack the United States after the Taliban gained power.
Biden opposed the war in Afghanistan when he was vice president of the Obama administration, advocating the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and an end to the war in Afghanistan. As president, Biden also emphasized the primacy of domestic affairs in the U.S. national strategy, arguing that continuing the war in Afghanistan would divert resources that could otherwise be used for domestic economic revitalization, technology, and innovation investments. From the perspective of the US national security strategy, Biden believes that in the context of strategic competition with China becoming a top us national security priority, the War in Afghanistan, which focuses on "counter-terrorism", is not only less important, but also completely loses the reason for continuing. Relative to Obama and Trump, Biden is not worried that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will once again become the epicenter of terrorism that strikes the United States. Biden insists that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was completed as early as the overthrow of the Taliban regime in late 2001, or when bin Laden was killed in May 2012.
(ii) Prospects for war in Afghanistan
When George W. Bush left office, he was optimistic about the prospects for war in Afghanistan, believing that U.S. forces in Afghanistan and their allies (including the Afghan government's security forces) could defeat the Taliban and provide an ideal security environment for the "reconstruction of the country" in Afghanistan.
Obama's perception of the prospects for war in Afghanistan has gone through a process from more optimistic to skeptical to pessimistic. At the beginning of his presidency, Obama held a similar optimism about the prospects for war in Afghanistan as his predecessor, believing that the war could be turned around by increasing troops in Afghanistan. After the failure of the U.S. military's "Surge Strategy," Obama realized that the United States could at best rely on increasing troops to maintain a stalemate with the Taliban, but it was difficult to defeat or defeat its opponents, which meant that Afghanistan's security environment depended on the presence of troops in the distance. Oba President Ma believe that the United States will not be able to sustain such a situation for a long time, and therefore question the prospects for war in Afghanistan. But Obama once pinned his hopes on the U.S.-backed Afghan government and security forces, believing that, with the support of substantial economic and military aid, the Afghan government and security forces could independently undertake the mission of maintaining their national security and "rebuilding the country," but this perception was quickly upended by developments. The 2009 and 2014 Afghan presidential elections exposed corruption and factionalism in Afghanistan's political and social ecology. During the implementation of the Surge Strategy, and in a series of battles from 2015 to 2016, afghan security forces were far less effective than the Taliban. Therefore, Obama believes that in order to avoid the long-term dilemma of the War in Afghanistan, the US military must withdraw. But he also believes that after the withdrawal of U.S. troops, Afghan security forces will find it difficult to defeat the Taliban, and the United States must negotiate and sign an agreement before the withdrawal, consolidate strategic gains in Afghanistan, ensure the survival of the Afghan government, and promote the Afghan national reconciliation process.
In the face of the deteriorating war situation in Afghanistan, Trump has taken a more pessimistic stance on the prospects of war in Afghanistan, arguing that it is impossible to completely defeat the Taliban militarily. However, in the early days of his administration, Trump believed that the United States could temporarily suppress the Taliban's offensive and take advantage of the situation to complete a "decent withdrawal" by launching a series of offensives. After the failure of the plan, Trump turned to the need to withdraw troops from Afghanistan through negotiations as soon as possible. In Trump's view, the important role of negotiations is to help the United States complete the withdrawal of troops. As for how to preserve and maintain the existing achievements of the United States in Afghanistan through negotiations, Trump does not care, and it is only at the urging and prompting of members of his government that Trump has paid formal attention to maintaining the survival of the Afghan government and promoting national reconciliation in Afghanistan.
After taking office as president, Biden saw the withdrawal of troops as the sole priority of U.S. Afghan policy, expressing only rhetorical support for the future survival of the Afghan government or the so-called "national reconciliation" of Afghanistan.
It is precisely with the above-mentioned afghanistan war in the U.S. national strategy and the relevant cognition of the prospects of the Afghan war as the policy starting point, the Afghanistan policy of the three US presidents Obama, Trump and Biden is based on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the end of the Afghan war, and the urgency of related awareness is increasing. In the eyes of the three presidents, Afghanistan's position in the U.S. national strategy is declining, and the prospects for war in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly pessimistic. This largely shows that the "exit strategy" of the United States to end the war in Afghanistan is a gradual and gradual acceleration process.
"Exit" afghanistan: strategic formulation
Beginning with the Obama administration, the U.S. government has made a series of strategic statements on how to end the war in Afghanistan around the national interest, the "end state" and the "end time", and while defending the "withdrawal" of the United States from Afghanistan, it has also put forward the goal of ending the war in Afghanistan.
(1) National interests
The Obama administration defended the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan primarily in the name of national interest. On December 2, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at West Point on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, declaring that "U.S. goals must be aligned with responsibilities, means, and interests, and that U.S. operations in Afghanistan are secondary to domestic economic development, and the United States cannot endlessly assume obligations in Afghanistan. But at the same time, given that the "war on terror" has not yet ended completely, the United States still has a certain strategic interest in Afghanistan, that is, Afghanistan can no longer become a "safe haven for terrorists."
On August 21, 2017, the Trump administration released a new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan, ostensibly emphasizing the need to use the OFFENSIVE of the US military to contain the momentum of the Taliban offensive, but in fact it is still a continuation of the "exit strategy" opened by the Obama administration, emphasizing that military strikes only buy time and dignity for the final "exit". President Trump argues that the strategy stems in large part from his "gut feelings, which tell him that U.S. troops must withdraw from Afghanistan as soon as possible in order to devote more resources to "making America strong again," that is, subordinating to the more important national interest of reviving the United States. Similar to the Obama administration, the Trump administration's Afghanistan strategy still emphasizes a strategic interest in Afghanistan, which is to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a "paradise for terrorism" again.
On April 14, 2021, Biden announced the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, saying that the move was based on the national interests of the United States and complied with the needs of the United States to meet other "pressing challenges", including domestic technological innovation and infrastructure investment, strategic competition with China, and an effective response to the public health crisis.
(ii) "End Status"
Preserving and sustaining the results of interventions is an important objective of the Exit Strategy. From the time Obama came up with the idea and began to end the war in Afghanistan, until Biden took office, the basic idea of the US government to "withdraw" from the "end state" of Afghanistan was to strive to preserve the results of US military intervention: first, to make Afghanistan no longer a "safe haven for terrorists", and second, to maintain the stability of the US-supported Afghan government. In order to avoid Afghanistan becoming a "safe haven for terrorists" again and to make Afghanistan a so-called "model of democracy", the United States has spent a lot of manpower and material resources to prop up a pro-American, pro-Western regime, build a security force that has begun to take shape, and give Afghanistan the status of a "non-NATO Major Ally" (NNMA). The distraught United States has been trying to use the results of these interventions to continue to safeguard its strategic interests in Afghanistan, especially in the field of "counter-terrorism."
In the speech at West Point, Obama stressed that "the United States has no interest in fighting an endless war" and that the Afghan government and military must "stand on their own" and independently wage the "war on terror." Obama's remarks set off a major U.S. strategic realignment in Afghanistan, whereby the Afghan government and military should independently assume counterterrorism in Afghanistan. But the actual combat effectiveness of the Afghan security forces is not up to the expectations of the United States, and the Afghan regime is increasingly threatened by the Taliban. To this end, the Obama administration has shifted the focus of the "end state" to ensuring the survival of the Afghan regime after the withdrawal of the US military, and hopes to provide the Afghan government with the mechanism and institutional guarantee of its existence through peace talks with the Taliban. In March 2011, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid the terms for direct U.S.-Taliban negotiations that the Taliban must accept the Afghan Constitution and recognize the legitimacy of the Afghan government. Since then, in the peace talks between the Obama administration and the Taliban, the US government's expression of the negotiating position has fully expressed its expectation of the "end state", that is, it hopes to retain the results of two major interventions: first, the Taliban promised not to make Afghanistan the birthplace of terrorist attacks; second, the Taliban began a process of direct negotiations with the Afghan government, recognized the Afghan government as a legitimate government, and achieved "national reconciliation".
In his speech announcing the new strategy for Afghanistan, Trump did not mention the EXPECTATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES OF THE "end state", but through peace talks with the Taliban, hoping to retain two achievements consistent with the Obama administration after "withdrawing" from Afghanistan.
In his speech announcing the total withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, President Biden did not mention the "end state" at all, and mainly proceeded from the national interests of the United States to defend the complete withdrawal of troops and the complete end of the war in Afghanistan, believing that the United States was powerless in Afghanistan. In President Biden's view, U.S. interests in Afghanistan are gone, and the United States does not need or be able to retain the so-called "results of intervention."
(iii) "End time"
In order to gradually withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Obama has announced three major withdrawal plans. In June 2011, Obama first announced plans to withdraw troops from 100,000 to 90,000 by the end of 2011 and to 67,000 by the end of September 2012. In February 2013, Obama again announced a withdrawal plan: by February 2014, the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan would be reduced to 33,000. He also declared that by the end of 2014, the U.S. military will end its military operations in Afghanistan, and the U.S. troops stationed there will mainly serve as advisers and responsible for training. On May 27, 2014, Obama announced his withdrawal plan for the third time: to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 9,800 by December 2014 and to 5,500 in 2016. In fact, however, by the end of Obama's term, 8,400 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan.
When Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan, he proposed to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 3,800, and other plans to increase troops, which caused the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to rise to 13,000 at one point. Beginning in 2018, Trump committed to a rapid withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and stressed the need to complete the withdrawal process through negotiations with the Taliban. The Trump administration's withdrawal plan is largely reflected in the february 2020 agreement signed with the Taliban, which stipulates that within 135 days of signing the agreement, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be reduced from 13,000 to 8,600; within 14 months after the signing of the agreement (as of April 2021), all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Since then, the U.S. military has completed its plan to reduce the Afghan garrison to 8,600 troops nearly a month ahead of schedule. Trump announced in August 2020 that he would reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 4,500, and in October of the same year, he announced on Twitter that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by Christmas that year. But when Trump left office, 2,500 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan.
On April 21, 2021, President Biden announced that the goal of withdrawing all U.S. troops in Afghanistan is to withdraw the above 2,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan, planning to begin the evacuation by May 1, 2021, and withdraw all by September 11 of the same year.
IV "Exit" from Afghanistan: Strategy Implementation
In order to implement the "exit strategy" to end the war in Afghanistan, the main actions taken by the United States include trying to achieve the desired "end state" through peace talks with the Taliban, achieving the political goal of preserving the results of the intervention, and trying to achieve a complete military "withdrawal" through a gradual withdrawal. However, in strategic practice, the United States has not effectively combined the military and political goals in the "exit strategy", thus detrimental to the implementation of the strategy.
(i) Peace talks and "ended state"
From 2011, when U.S. diplomats began to engage with Taliban representatives, to February 2020, when the two sides formally signed the agreement, the U.S. has always adhered to the negotiating position that the Taliban must ensure that Afghanistan will no longer become a "safe haven for terrorists," must recognize the legitimacy of the Afghan government, and achieve "national reconciliation" through direct negotiations with the Afghan government. The Taliban's consistent negotiating position is that all U.S. troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan and refuse to recognize the Afghan government. During the Obama administration, because the positions of the United States and the Taliban were far apart, progress in the negotiations was limited to the clarification of their respective positions by both sides and the establishment of the Taliban as a participant in the negotiations, and substantive progress was not made.
At Trump's urging, the U.S. government began accelerating the negotiation process with the Taliban in 2018. Then Secretary of State Pompeo informed Zalmay Khalilzad, head of the U.S. negotiating delegation and special representative for reconciliation in Afghanistan, that Trump was anxious to see the outcome of the negotiations and could make a breakthrough in the negotiations at the right time while ensuring the fundamental interests of the United States. The Taliban Political Committee, the supreme decision-making body, also recognized the benefits of negotiating with the United States and instructed its negotiators to seek an agreement with the United States on the premise of refusing to recognize the Afghan government. U.S. and Taliban negotiators have constantly tested each other's bottom lines in negotiations. In Khalilzad's view, the Taliban's bottom line is the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the refusal to recognize the Afghan government; in the eyes of the Taliban negotiators, the fundamental interest of the United States is to ensure that Afghanistan is no longer a "safe haven for terrorists", and the survival of the Afghan government is secondary, at least not as important as the United States openly claims. In the long-term multi-round negotiation confrontation, the United States and the Taliban have made a relatively accurate judgment on each other's bottom line, and have made certain compromises on the basis of knowing each other.
After long and difficult negotiations, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement on February 29, 2020. In addition to the timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops mentioned above, the agreement imposes an obligation on the Taliban not to allow its members and other organizations, including al-Qaida, to use Afghan territory to threaten the security of the United States and its allies, including the recruitment, training, and financing of "terrorists." The agreement also places special emphasis on the Taliban achieving national reconciliation in Afghanistan through direct negotiations with the Afghan Government. In terms of ensuring that Afghanistan will no longer be a "terrorist haven," the United States has, at least in terms of text, achieved the objectives of the negotiations and the desired "state of closure." But the United States has not even achieved superficial results in terms of ensuring the viability of the Afghan Government, far from what was intended, and the Taliban in the agreement neither recognizes the legitimacy of the Afghan Constitution nor the Afghan Government, nor commits itself to the timing and steps of direct negotiations with the Afghan Government. The agreement signed with the Taliban shows that the United States has negotiated the preservation and continuation of its "counter-terrorism" achievements in Afghanistan, but the fate of the Afghan government is uncertain.
(ii) Gradual withdrawal and "end time"
As can be seen from the above strategic formulation of "end time", the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan is a gradual process that takes ten years to finalize. However, from the perspective of the withdrawal timetable, the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan is a linear development process, which not only makes people ignore the decision-making process of the withdrawal timetable, but also covers up the ups and downs of the size of the US troops in Afghanistan.
The timing and scale of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan was largely determined by the President in consultation with the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the top military commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. While most of the withdrawal schedules were established by the president in consultation with military commanders without major disagreements, the U.S. plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in June 2011 was an exception. In discussing plans to withdraw troops, Mr. Obama and David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, were deeply divided over the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by September 2012, with the former wanting to cut to 67,000 and the latter proposing to keep 9,000 to 10,000. Later, Petraeus revealed his argument with Obama to the media, making the differences between the president and the military public, and under the persuasion and coordination of then-Defense Secretary Gates, General Petraeus finally accepted Obama's proposal.
At the beginning of his presidency, Trump pointed out that the war in Afghanistan is "a war without hope." When he released his new strategy for Afghanistan in August 2017, he proposed adding 3,800 troops to Afghanistan, followed by some small-scale troop increases. The Trump administration's surge program not only slowed the withdrawal process that began with the Obama administration, but also increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 8,400 when Obama left office to 13,000. Trump believes that only by increasing the number of troops in place can the Taliban offensive be contained, and then the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan can be decent.
Both Obama and Trump left office without delivering on the withdrawal plan proposed during their terms of office. Obama plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 5,500 when he leaves office, but actually retains 8,400; Trump once claimed to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2020, but when he leaves office, there are still 2,500 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan. When Obama left office, the U.S. military in Afghanistan was larger than planned, and the Afghan security forces were overwhelmed and routed because the Taliban launched unprecedented military offensives in 2015 and 2016. The Obama administration fears that by drastically reducing the size of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the Taliban will take full control of Afghanistan and afghanistan could once again become a "safe haven for terrorists." When Trump left office, he retained a certain size of troops in Afghanistan, for the same reason. With the Taliban gaining power and the Islamic State not being wiped out, the Trump administration is also worried that Afghanistan will once again become a "paradise" for extremists and terrorists, which in turn will pose a threat to the homeland security of the United States. For "counterterrorism" concerns, both Obama and Trump changed their established withdrawal plans when they left office, retaining more U.S. troops in Afghanistan to assist afghan security forces.
(III) The combination of the political and military levels: the lack of An Afghan "exit strategy"
In the whole process of "exiting" Afghanistan, the United States failed to combine the political and military needs in the implementation of the "exit strategy", resulting in the implementation of the "exit strategy" being greatly affected.
During the Obama administration, peace talks and withdrawals were conducted on almost two parallel tracks. The U.S. withdrawal plan is highly unilateral, and the timing and scale of the withdrawal depend on the internal decision of the U.S. government, namely Obama's consultations with the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, and are not linked to the negotiating agenda and process. Trump wants to end the war in Afghanistan as soon as possible through negotiations, but the decoupling between negotiations and the withdrawal of troops remains the same. Under the Trump administration, U.S. military action against the Taliban has not added leverage to the talks. In the summer of 2019, the U.S. military retaliated against a series of terrorist attacks created by the Taliban in Afghanistan, on a scale and intensity far exceeding the expectations of the Taliban's decision-makers. In addition, Trump also ordered the suspension of negotiations with the Taliban. The Taliban's decision-makers, shocked by the Trump administration's hardline stance, believe that the United States will raise the terms of negotiations after the resumption of negotiations, especially on the issue of ensuring the survival of the Afghan government, so it prefers to make certain concessions conditionally. But U.S. military action and Trump's order to suspend negotiations were merely in retaliation for the Taliban's terrorist attacks, and did not consider using the operation and its pressure on the Taliban's decision-making levels as a means to force the Taliban to make concessions on strategic issues. After the negotiations resumed, the United States did not make any adjustments to the negotiation strategy, which surprised the Taliban. The main reason for this phenomenon is that the United States military initially opposed direct negotiations with the Taliban and that the International Security Assistance Force Command did not establish an effective communication mechanism with the United States negotiating delegation. During the Trump administration, although the military no longer opposed direct negotiations with the Taliban, it was still reluctant to establish a communication or liaison mechanism with the U.S. negotiating delegation on negotiations. More importantly, neither Obama nor Trump has effectively intervened to broker an agreement with the Taliban negotiating delegation.
The decoupling of negotiations from withdrawals and specific military operations has had a greater impact on the implementation of the Exit Strategy. Shortly after the negotiations officially began, Taliban negotiators and the Taliban Political Committee realized that the U.S. withdrawal was largely unilateral, not tied to the specific agenda of the negotiations, and that the scale, timing, and speed of the withdrawal were not U.S. bargaining chips. In other words, whether there are negotiations or not, or whatever the outcome of the negotiations, sooner or later all U.S. troops will withdraw from Afghanistan. The Taliban's negotiating tactics have always been based on this judgment and have refused to budge on issues involving the legitimacy of the Afghan regime. The Taliban eventually reached an agreement with the United States in exchange for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible, without touching the core interests of the United States. Therefore, in the absence of the support of the military presence, it is difficult for the United States to fully achieve the political goal of "withdrawing" from Afghanistan, and the completion of the goal of the "withdrawal strategy" of the United States is actually at the expense of the future future of the Afghan government.
V. Conclusion
The "exit strategy" of the United States to end the war in Afghanistan is mainly derived from the "Afghan war concept" of the three US presidents, and Obama, Trump and Biden all believe that Afghanistan's position in the US national strategy is declining, and the prospects for a war in Afghanistan are getting bleaker. With this recognition as a starting point, all three presidents committed themselves to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and ending the Afghan war, and to this end adopted a series of strategic statements to plan the military and political objectives of ending the war in Afghanistan while defending the decision to end the war in Afghanistan on the grounds of national interest, that is, to strive to maintain the political results of this overseas military intervention while withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, including making Afghanistan no longer a "terrorist haven" and maintaining the survival of the Afghan government. Due to the failure to combine the political and military needs in the implementation of the "exit strategy", the United States failed to fully achieve its ideal "end state" while completing the withdrawal of troops, and the Taliban forces quickly overthrew the Afghan regime supported by the United States, and the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated, and there is a great possibility of becoming a "hotbed of terrorism" again, seriously threatening regional security and the "counter-terrorism achievements" of the United States.
By examining how the United States ended the war in Afghanistan, this article aims to deepen the understanding of the "exit strategy" of U.S. military intervention abroad. As far as the comprehensive examination of the "exit strategy" of the US overseas military intervention is concerned, it is necessary to further start from such a path: on the one hand, a longitudinal comparative analysis is conducted, that is, a comparative analysis of the "exit strategy" of overseas military intervention in the history of the United States is based on a certain scientific and reasonable comparative analysis framework, from which its characteristics and similarities and differences are summarized; on the other hand, a horizontal comparative analysis is conducted, that is, on the basis of establishing an appropriate comparative analysis framework, a comparative study of the implementation of the "exit strategy" by the United States and other major powers is carried out In this way, we can find the similarities and differences between the similar practices of the United States and other major powers, and seek to use appropriate theories to explain the unique features of the "exit strategy" of the United States, so as to expand and deepen the understanding of the "exit strategy" of the United States' overseas military intervention.
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this official account
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