Imagine fighting the longest, most expensive
war in your entire nation's history. I mean,
trillions of dollars spent. Yeah, staggering
amount of money. Right. Hundreds of thousands
of lives lost. two full decades of just relentless
combat spanning four different presidential administrations.
It's hard to even wrap your head around that
kind of timeline. It really is. And on the very
last day, after all that blood and treasure,
you basically hand the keys to the country right
back to the exact same people you invaded to
overthrow 20 years prior. Yeah. That isn't some
dystopian novel. That is the stark paradoxical
reality of the war in Afghanistan. It is the
absolute definition. of a geopolitical closed
loop. I mean, a 20 -year conflict that ended
almost exactly where it began. With the Taliban
empowering Kabul. Exactly. And, well, that is
the profound, staggering reality we are tackling
today. You are joining us for a deep dive into
the war in Afghanistan. And our mission here
is explicitly clear. Right. We are going to guide
you chronologically through the major turning
points of this conflict. Tracking the journey
from the initial invasion, you know, right in
the shadow of 9 -11. All the way to the incredibly
chaotic withdrawal in 2021. And we're relying
strictly on a massive compilation of historical
data and documentation to construct this timeline.
because our goal is to help make sense of an
overwhelming complex web of events. Right. We
want to understand not just the timeline, but
the actual mechanics of the conflict, like how
and why it happened the way it did. And just
to be clear up front, we are going to examine
the facts impartially across multiple international
administrations. Looking at the structural realities
on the ground without taking any political sides,
we are simply following the historical record
here. So whether you are trying to grasp the
nuances of modern geopolitics or, you know, maybe
you want to understand a pivotal piece of recent
history. Or you just want to know how a two decade
global effort actually unfolded on the ground.
This deep dive is completely tailored for you.
OK, let's unpack this. We have to start before
the first shot is even fired by the United States.
Yeah, you really have to. To understand 2001,
we need to know what Afghanistan actually looked
like in the late 1990s. Right. So set the scene
for us. You have to picture a country utterly
devastated by decades of prior conflict. First,
you have the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. Which
was brutal. Incredibly brutal. And that was followed
immediately by a vicious civil war in the 1990s.
And out of that chaos, that's where the Taliban
emerges, right? Exactly. They originally formed
from groups of religious students. I mean, the
word Taliban literally means student. Huh, I
didn't actually know that. Yeah. And their initial
appeal to the Afghan population was actually
rooted in a desire for order. Because the people
were just exhausted, I imagine. Utterly exhausted
by the brutality of local warlords. So the Taliban
promised to end warlordism and establish security.
Albeit through a violently strict adherence to
their interpretation of Islamic law. Right, it
was a severe trade -off. But militarily speaking,
it worked. Because by the year 2001, they controlled
roughly 90 % of the country. Yeah, they had founded
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The only
real resistance left was this coalition known
as the Northern Alliance. And they were basically
boxed into the northeast corner of the country.
Exactly. Geographically protected up in the Panjshir
Valley. So the Taliban were the dominant, virtually
uncontested power in Kabul. But, and this is
the massive but, their control of the country
came with a critical alliance. They were harboring
al -Qaeda. Right. Afghanistan provided a safe
haven for Osama bin Laden and his network. Al
-Qaeda used that rugged remote terrain to train
fighters, import weapons, and basically plot
global terrorist actions. And the numbers are
wild. The historical estimates suggest anywhere
between 10 ,000 and 20 ,000 men passed through
these training facilities before September 11th.
It was a massive operation. Which, of course,
brings us to the inciting incident for everything
that follows. September 11th, 2001. Al Qaeda
orchestrates the attacks in New York and Washington.
And the United States' immediate desire to hold
bin Laden accountable becomes the absolute case's
belly. The undeniable cause for war. Right. Following
the attacks, U .S. President George W. Bush issues
a clear ultimatum to the Taliban leadership.
Hand him over. Basically, yes. Immediately extradite
Osama bin Laden and permanently close down all
al -Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. And
the Taliban's response is one of those historical
moments that kind of gets lost in the broader
narrative today. It really does. Because they
don't just issue a flat, defiant no. Right. They
refuse the immediate extradition, sure, but they
actually demand evidence of bin Laden's guilt.
And they offer a counterproposal. Which is crazy
to think about now. What was the proposal? They
offer to hand him over to a neutral third country
to be tried under Islamic law. Wow. But that
was provided the US stops its bombing campaign
and actually provides that evidence. And the
US administration just dismisses these offers
entirely. Completely. An administration official
famously stated that the demands were not subject
to negotiation. So the diplomatic door was slammed
shut almost immediately. Bang, closed. But why
the total dismissal? I mean, looking back with
20 years of hindsight, an offer to hand him over
to a third country seems like a potential diplomatic
off -ramp. It does seem that way now. So why
didn't the US even entertain the idea of calling
their bluff? Because of how the US administration
fundamentally viewed the enemy at that exact
moment. OK, untack that. Well, in the immediate
deeply traumatic aftermath of 9 -11, the U .S.
operated under the belief that the Taliban and
al -Qaeda were functionally inseparable. Like
they were the exact same thing. Exactly. They
view them as a single monolithic entity of global
terrorism. But the historical record shows they
actually had very different goals. Right. And
distinct leadership structure. Yeah. Al Qaeda
had these sweeping global jihadist ambitions.
They wanted to attack the West. Where's the Taliban?
The Taliban, conversely, were intensely insular.
Their focus was entirely on national control
of Afghanistan and implementing their specific
local governance. So in the eyes of Washington,
negotiating with the Taliban was the moral equivalent
of negotiating with the architects of 9 -11 themselves.
It was just politically impossible. Which means
the covert military action begins. And it begins
fast. while Operation Enduring Freedom officially
kicks off with massive airstrikes on October
7, 2001. The groundwork was already being laid
on the ground, right? Oh, yeah. Just 15 days
after 9 -11, the CIA covertly inserted members
of their Special Activities Division into Afghanistan.
To link up with the Northern Alliance. Exactly.
And this is where the mechanics of the early
war are just wild to visualize. It sounds like
a movie. It really does. You have these tiny
12 -man U .S. Special Forces teams arriving in
a completely hostile country. Working with the
CIA. Right. And they are linking up with Northern
Alliance fighters who have been fighting the
Civil War for years. And what did they do? We
are talking about highly trained U .S. operators
literally riding on horseback through the freezing
mountains of Afghanistan. While using GPS receivers
and lasers to paint Taliban targets for B -52
bombers flying miles above them. It is an overwhelmingly
successful synthesis of 19th century cavalry
tactics and 21st century aerospace technology.
And with that devastating U .S. air support,
the Northern Alliance was able to break out of
their enclave. They captured several key cities
from the Taliban in a matter of weeks. Because
the Taliban simply could not comprehend or match
the air power, entire defensive lines evaporated.
They just retreated from major population centers
and by November of 2001 they had lost control
of most of the country. speed of it is breathtaking.
It gave everyone whiplash. I mean, fewer than
a dozen U .S. soldiers died in those initial
months. While thousands of Taliban fighters were
killed or taken prisoner. Which leads directly
to the Bonn Conference in December 2001. Right.
The Taliban are ousted from Kabul, so the international
community rushes to figure out who is going to
run the country. So the United Nations convenes
this conference in Bonn, Germany. Bringing together
various Afghan anti -Taliban factions. And they
select Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan interim
administration. And Karzai was chosen largely
because he was a prominent Pashtun leader. Which
is the majority ethnic group in Afghanistan.
Exactly. The same group the Taliban drew their
strength from. So making him the leader was theoretically
acceptable to the South. But he also had the
backing of the Northern Alliance and the West.
Yeah. And the UN also authorizes the creation
of the International Security Assistance Force,
or ISAF. Which was initially just a small coalition
force meant to help maintain security in Kabul
itself. Right. Let me pause here though, because
this narrative of total victory in 2001 feels
incredibly dangerous. Oh, absolutely. Yes, they
ousted the Taliban in a few weeks. But thinking
that winning those initial battles meant winning
the war is absurd. It was a massive miscalculation.
It's like tearing down an old dangerous building
over a long weekend, dusting your hands off,
but having absolutely no architectural blueprint
for what to build in the empty lot. That is a
great analogy. And worse, you're totally ignoring
the fact the previous tenants didn't die. They
just moved into the dark woods right next door.
That's a highly structural way to look at it.
Yeah. entirely accurate based on the sources.
The failure to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora
Bora during this early stage was a massive tactical
miss. But the grand strategic error was the bond
conference itself. How so? Well, by completely
excluding the Taliban from any role in the new
government formation, essentially treating them
as a vanquished, irrelevant entity. the coalition
guaranteed a future conflict. Because they were
defeated tactically in conventional battles,
but they were not eliminated as a political or
social force. Exactly. So they just melted away.
Well, melted away makes it sound like magic.
It was geography and demographics. OK, what do
you mean? The surviving Taliban leadership, including
their founder, Mullah Omar, didn't vanish. They
simply walked across the incredibly porous, largely
unmapped Duran line. The border into neighboring
Pakistan? Yes. They retreated into the tribal
areas, sat down, and waited. Because they knew
the terrain, they had deep tribal connections
across the border, and they had time. All the
time in the world. But because of that rapid,
relatively low -casualty military success, there
was this intoxicating false sense of finality
in Washington and London. They really thought
the war was essentially over, just a mop -up
operation remaining. And that false sense of
finality leads us directly into a massive geopolitical
distraction. Which brings us to the years 2002
to 2005. The gaze shifts. Right. Following the
initial success, the U .S. found itself occupying
Afghanistan without a universally agreed upon
long -term goal. Because the original singular
objective was counterterrorism, hunting down
al -Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for harboring
them. But nation -building actually constructing
a functioning democratic state that was actively
opposed by the Bush administration initially?
They wanted what they called a light footprint.
Right. But as the coalition realized you can't
just leave a vacuum, the rationale slowly morphed.
And then in 2003, the United States makes a monumental
pivot. They invade Iraq. The mechanical impact
of the Iraq invasion on Afghanistan cannot be
overstated. It wasn't just a distraction of news
headlines, right? No, not at all. It was a massive
physical diversion of resources. Special operations
units, intelligence assets, surveillance drones,
language experts. And billions of dollars in
funding. Right. All abruptly redirected from
Kabul to Baghdad. It's the concept of a simmering
pot left unattended on the back burner while
you turn around to deal with a massive grease
fire on the stove. Yes. You think the pot on
the back burner is fine because it's not boiling
over right this second, but you left the heat
on. That's exactly what happened. And while the
U .S. was looking toward Iraq, they were relying
on a newly formed, deeply flawed Afghan army.
Because of that light footprint approach. Yeah,
the U .S. deferred heavily to the Northern Alliance
and local warlords to maintain security in the
provinces. Rather than investing the necessary
time and money to build a professional, independent,
uncorrupt military force from the ground up.
Exactly. And the coalition forces that were left
in Afghanistan made some devastating tactical
choices during this window. Right. The pressure
to hunt down high value terrorist targets led
to incredibly aggressive operations. Think about
the mechanics of how intelligence was gathered
then. Coalition troops would go on highly aggressive,
terrifying night raids based on tips from local
informants. But those informants often weren't
providing intelligence on terrorists. No. They
were weaponizing the American military to settle
local scores. Oh, wow. Yeah. A local power broker
could tell the Americans that his business rival
was a secret Taliban commander. So the Americans
would raid the rival's compound? Perhaps kill
him. And the informant gets rid of his enemy
while actually getting paid by the CIA? That
is deeply corrosive. I mean, you are actively
turning the local population against you. And
the civilian toll of these operations was horrific.
There are documented incidents of massive civilian
casualties. Like the devastating event with the
wedding party? Yes. A local wedding party where
men traditionally fire guns into the air in celebration
was misinterpreted by coalition aircraft as a
hostile Taliban gathering. And they bombed it.
They bombed it. You cannot drop a bomb on a wedding
and then visit the surviving elders the next
day and expect them to trust your democratic
institution building. Or your promises of security.
It fundamentally destroys the psychological foundation
of counterinsurgency. It generated immense popular
resentment. And further complicating this, the
promises made by the newly formed Afghan government
were falling apart. Yes, the historical record
shows that many mid -level Taliban commanders
had actually tried to give up their arms early
on. Right. They wanted to go back to their villages
and live peacefully. Especially after being promised
amnesty by President Karzai. But that amnesty
wasn't respected on the ground. Not at all. Those
former fighters found themselves constantly harassed,
detained, or extorted by local Afghan security
forces. Or they were targeted by U .S. special
operations forces, who just weren't clued into
the political amnesty deals. Wait, so if the
Taliban were largely defeated, scattered into
Pakistan, some of their fighters were literally
trying to surrender and go back to farming. How
on earth did they coordinate a massive country
-wide insurgency just three years later? Well,
because the coalition essentially built the insurgency
for them. Wow. By 2004, those harassed former
fighters realized surrender just wasn't a safe
option. So they fled across the border to Pakistan,
rejoining the hardline leadership hiding there.
So the coalition's missteps, the civilian casualties,
the night raids, empowering warlords, broken
amnesty promises that all served as the ultimate
recruitment tool. The undeniable recruitment
tool. The movement reorganized in the tribal
areas of Pakistan. And in late 2004, the hidden
Taliban leader Mullah Omar officially announced
a formal insurgency against American and Afghan
government forces. To, as he put it, regain the
sovereignty of our country. And they didn't just
come back with the same old tactics, did they?
No, they adapted. They realized they couldn't
fight the Americans in open battles. And there's
a specific commander the data points to named
Dadula. Oh, OK. Tell me about him. Mullah Dadula
was appointed as a senior military commander
for the Taliban. And he introduced a terrifying
new dynamic to the battlefield. suicide bombings.
Which is wild because historically suicide attacks
were not a Taliban tactic. Exactly. It wasn't
part of Afghan martial culture at all. It was
an imported al -Qaeda tactic. So how did Dadula
suddenly build an army of suicide bombers? He
utilized a vast network of radical madrassas
religious schools located in Pakistan that catered
to impoverished Afghan refugees. These schools
provided a captive audience of young deeply indoctrinated,
destitute men who are entirely disconnected from
traditional Afghan village structures. So Dadila
built a pipeline. He took these radicalized students,
convinced them of the glory of martyrdom against
the foreign occupiers and unleashed them into
Afghan cities. So by focusing intensely on aggressive,
kinetic counter -terrorism operations, the coalition
accidentally alienated the rural population.
Pushed the moderate fighters back into the arms
of the extremists. And fueled an insurgency that
fundamentally changed the rules of engagement.
The pot on the back burner is now officially
boiling over. Which brings us to the massive
escalation, the years 2006 to 2009. The battle
for hearts and minds fails against the reality
of open combat. Right. By 2006, insurgent attacks
had grown fourfold compared to 2002. The Taliban
began launching brutal coordinated summer offensives.
Operations with names like Mountain Thrust and
Medusa. You saw heavy conventional fighting in
southern provinces like Helmand and Kandahar.
But the coalition forces were achieving tactical
victories in these operations. They were. They
had superior firepower. They could roll into
a valley, clear it of Taliban fighters and declare
the area secure. But the mechanics of their strategy
were flawed. because they had the troops to clear
an area, but nowhere near the numbers required
to hold it indefinitely. Ah, so the moment the
coalition forces moved on to the next valley.
The Taliban simply filtered right back in. It
was a deadly, exhausting game of whack -a -mole.
And the friction between the foreign forces and
the civilian population reaches a true boiling
point during this time. We really have to look
at the 2006 Kabul riot here. Because this event
is a perfect, terrifying microcosm of what was
going wrong mechanically with the occupation.
Walk us through it. So, May 29, 2006. A U .S.
military logistics truck is driving in a convoy
through Kabul. It suffers a mechanical failure,
loses control, and plows into a line of civilian
vehicles. It kills one person and injures six.
A tragic but entirely mundane traffic accident.
Right. It wasn't a coordinated Taliban ambush.
It was just a vehicle collision. But look at
what happens next. The surrounding crowd doesn't
wait for ambulances. They become instantly violently
furious. A riot erupts that engulfs the city
and lasts all day. The crowd starts throwing
stones, setting fires, chanting anti -American
slogans. U .S. troops actually have to fire their
weapons to fend themselves as they flee the mob.
And by the end of the day, 20 people are dead
and 160 are in... What does that tell you about
the baseline psychology of the Afghan public
at that moment? A traffic accident spiked a citywide
deadly riot. It reveals the massive, simmering
groundswell of resentment. It proved that the
Hearts and Minds campaign was a catastrophic
failure in urban centers. The population didn't
view the coalition as protectors. They viewed
them as an arrogant, reckless, occupying force.
Exactly. And militarily, the Taliban were growing
incredibly bold. Let's talk about the 2008 Kandahar
jailbreak. Oh, man. This wasn't a skirmish. This
was a Hollywood level heist. It was a highly
sophisticated coordinated assault. The Taliban
used a massive tanker truck packed with explosives
to blow open the main gates of the Sarposa prison
in Kandahar. And following the explosion, a wave
of fighters armed with rockets and machine guns
stormed the facility. They systematically broke
the locks on the cells and liberated roughly
1200 prisoners. And out of those 1200, roughly
400 were confirmed Taliban fighters. 400 hardened
insurgents instantly put back on the battlefield.
Wow. It was a staggering operational embarrassment
for NATO and the Afghan security forces. It showed
that the government couldn't even secure its
most important infrastructure. But strategically,
the Taliban makes an incredibly vital pivot around
this time, too. Right. Looking at the intelligence
assessments from late 2008, the Taliban appears
to sever their remaining operational ties with
al -Qaeda. The U .S. military estimates suggested
there were perhaps fewer than a hundred members
of al Qaeda left in Afghanistan at that point.
And if we look closely at the political mechanics,
this was a highly calculated rebranding effort
by the Taliban leadership. They realized that
their association with al Qaeda and global jihad
was drawing the full wrath of the American military.
They didn't want to be seen by the international
community as terrorists plotting attacks in London
or New York. They wanted to legitimize themselves.
So they pivoted their propaganda. to frame themselves
strictly as a nationalist resistance movement,
fighting a righteous war to expel a foreign occupation
and reclaim their own homeland. Rebranding the
insurgency for a domestic audience. Yes. And
it was working so well that the U .S. felt it
had to drastically change its entire approach.
In 2009, the new Obama administration comes into
office reviews the deteriorating situation and
approves a massive surge of troops. They sent
tens of thousands of additional American soldiers
to Afghanistan alongside a massive increase in
controversial drone strikes in Pakistan. Because
they're attempting to finally implement a true
counterinsurgency strategy. Right. coin. The
goal is to flood the South with truth to finally
hold the ground after clearing it, providing
enough security for the Afghan government to
build local infrastructure and win back the population.
But the political reality in Kabul is completely
contradicting the military reality on the ground.
Oh, absolutely. Hamid Karzai is re -elected in
2009 in an election that is heavily marred by
international claims of massive fraud. And interestingly,
in a televised speech shortly after his contested
victory, Karzai publicly calls on Taliban brothers
to come home and embrace their land. It's a striking
contradiction. You have the U .S. surging tens
of thousands of young soldiers into brutal combat
in Helmand province. While the president of the
very country they are defending is publicly referring
to the enemy as brothers and signaling a desire
for a political settlement. The disconnect is
just jarring. And it ushers us into the peak
years of the war 2010 to 2013. We hit the absolute
maximum military footprint followed immediately
by a drastic And a catastrophic cascade of fractured
trust. So the troop surge hits its zenith in
2011. There are roughly 140 ,000 foreign troops.
Primarily American and British, operating under
the ISAF command across Afghanistan. It is a
staggering logistical enterprise. And right in
the middle of this massive, grinding military
undertaking, an event happens outside of Afghanistan
that completely rips the psychological foundation
out from under the entire war. May 2, 2011. Operation
Neptune Spear. U .S. Navy SEALs conduct a covert
nighttime raid in Ahmedabad, Pakistan. They locate
and kill Osama bin Laden. The man who orchestrated
9 -11 is dead. And suddenly, the average American
citizen, who has been vaguely paying attention
to a decade -long war, looks at the news and
asks a very logical question. Wait, didn't we
invade Afghanistan specifically to get the guy
who did 9 -11? Right. If he's dead and he wasn't
even in Afghanistan, why do we currently have
140 ,000 troops fighting and dying in random
farming villages in Helmand Province? It's the
moment the narrative collapses. As we discussed,
the original causes, Billy, was counterterrorism.
But over 10 years, the mission had morphed into
an impossibly broad nation building and counterinsurgency
effort. With Bin Laden dead, the Obama administration
loses the core psychological justification for
keeping such a massive force engaged. So almost
immediately, Washington announces a withdrawal
plan, starting with pulling out 10 ,000 troops
by the end of the year. And as the U .S. clearly
starts looking for the exit doors, the relationship
between the coalition forces and the Afghan people
goes through its absolute darkest, most toxic
period. The year 2012 is just a relentless, grueling
string of public relations disasters and horrific
criminal incidents. The historical record catalogs
a series of events that completely obliterated
any remaining moral authority the coalition claimed
to hold. Like what? Well, in January, a video
surfaced showing U .S. Marines laughing and urinating
on the bloodied corpses of dead Taliban fighters.
Oh, my God. Then in February, massive deadly
protests erupted across the country. It was revealed
that U .S. military personnel at Bagram Air Base
had improperly disposed of Islamic religious
materials, including burning copies of the Quran
in a burn pit. Exactly. Then in March, the horrific
Panjwai massacre occurs. A U .S. Army Staff Sergeant
leaves his base in the middle of the night, walks
to two nearby villages. And systematically murders
16 Afghan civilians in their homes, including
nine children. Before setting some of their bodies
on fire. And the hits just keep coming. Another
video emerges showing a U .S. helicopter crew
singing the pop song American Pie while firing
a Hellfire missile into a group of Afghan men
on the ground. It's just devastating. So put
yourself in the shoes of an Afghan army commander.
How on earth are you supposed to motivate your
troops to fight alongside the Americans? You
can't. Right. How is a coalition military supposed
to successfully train and advise an allied Afghan
force when these high profile, incredibly disrespectful
and murderous incidents are constantly destroying
any shred of mutual respect? It created an insurmountable
fracture. This is the era where we see a massive
spike in what the military called green on blue
attacks. Explain the mechanics of that. What
is a green on blue attack? Green refers to the
allied Afghan security forces. And blue refers
to NATO or US forces. These were insider attacks.
Meaning? Afghan soldiers or police officers or
Taliban infiltrators wearing their uniforms would
turn their weapons on the American or British
troops who were embedded with them to train them.
Wow. It bred an atmosphere of profound paranoia.
US soldiers were ordered to carry loaded weapons
at all times, even inside their own secure bases.
Essentially expecting the people they were training
to shoot them in the back. Exactly. It's a complete
degradation of the partnership. exact narrative
the Taliban were pushing, that the foreign forces
were immoral occupiers that brought nothing but
degradation. Yet despite this toxic environment,
the political timeline moves forward, regardless
of the reality on the ground. By June 2013, the
transfer of security responsibilities from NATO
to the Afghan forces is officially completed
on paper. The dynamic of the war fundamentally
shifts. ISAF prepares to end its combat mission.
Setting the stage for the transition to an Afghan
-led war from 2014 to 2017. So in 2014, combat
operations officially end for the U .S. and its
allies. The mission changes its name to Resolute
Support. The goal is no longer leading the fight.
It's training, advising, and assisting the Afghan
National Defense and Security Forces from the
rear. But here is where we need to look at the
logistical reality. As the official foreign military
presence shrinks drastically, dropping down to
just over 10 ,000 troops, a massive shadow army
steps in to replace them. Military contractors.
Let's dive into how this actually works, because
people hear contractors and they think of mercenaries
with assault rifles. Right. But it's much more
structural than that, isn't it? Absolutely. The
U .S. government hired tens of thousands of private
contractors to fill the gaping logistical voids
left by withdrawing troops. While some provided
perimeter security, the vast majority were essential
technicians, right? They were the mechanics maintaining
the Afghan Air Force's Black Hawk helicopters.
They were the IT specialists running the secure
communication networks. They were managing the
complex supply chains required to move ammunition
and fuel across a mountainous country. The Afghan
military It was built by the U .S. to fight like
the U .S. military. Which means it required an
incredibly sophisticated, expensive logistical
tail. Exactly. So the Afghan army is like a high
end sports car. It looks great. It has massive
firepower, but it requires incredibly specialized
mechanics to keep it running. And those mechanics
are almost entirely foreign contractors. Wow.
And with the Afghan army now officially taking
the brunt of the frontline combat, the cracks
in that system immediately show. In 2015, the
northern city of Kunduz falls to the Taliban.
The Taliban taking a major provincial capital
is a massive shock to the system. It was brief.
The Afghan forces, heavily relying on U .S. airstrikes
and special operations advisors, recaptured the
city a couple of weeks later. But the psychological
damage was permanent. The fall of Kunduz proved
to the Afghan public and to the Taliban themselves
that the insurgents were capable of capturing
and holding major urban centers against the Afghan
National Army. And just when you think the battlefield
couldn't get more chaotic, the conflict fractures
again. A brand new hyperviolent faction enters
the fray. In 2015, the Islamic State Khorasan
province, known as ISIS -K, officially emerges
in eastern Afghanistan. This development completely
scrambles the tactical map. ISIS -K represents
a fundamental ideological split. Because they
view the Taliban as essentially sellouts, right?
Yeah, too focused on Afghan nationalism, too
willing to engage in diplomacy and not radically
pure enough in their vision of a global caliphate.
So now it's not a two -sided war. You have the
Afghan government fighting the Taliban. You have
the Afghan government fighting ISIS -K. And you
have the Taliban fighting ISIS -K in brutal turf
wars. It's a devastating three -way meat grinder.
Furthermore, within the Taliban umbrella itself...
Power dynamics are shifting. The Akani network.
Yes. A semi -autonomous, highly organized and
notoriously brutal faction based near the Pakistani
border. They gain immense operational control.
They steer the Taliban toward deadlier, high
profile complex attacks in urban centers like
Kabul. Focusing heavily on mass casualty bombings.
By 2017, the political winds in Washington shift
again. The Trump administration comes in, reviews
the stalemate, and decides to try and bomb their
way out of the deadlock. They deploy a few thousand
more troops. But more importantly, they fundamentally
alter the rules of engagement. Explain that.
What changed? Previously, to minimize civilian
casualties, U .S. air power was heavily restricted.
Airstrikes usually required troops on the ground
to be in direct contact, actively taking fire
from the enemy. But the Trump administration
relaxed those rules. They allowed commanders
to proactively target insurgent networks. And
a massive part of this new strategy was heavily
targeting Taliban drug production facilities.
Let's talk about the drug trade because it's
the financial engine of the war. It really is.
Despite billions of dollars spent over a decade
and a half on poppy eradication programs, you
know, paying farmers to grow wheat instead or
literally driving tractors over poppy fields.
Afghanistan remained the world's absolute undisputed
largest producer of illicit opiates. The opiate
trade was deeply ingrained in the rural economy.
And for the Taliban, it was a golden goose. Because
they taxed the farmers, they protected the smuggling
routes, and they ran the processing labs. The
intelligence estimates suggested the drug trade
was generating tens of millions of dollars annually
for the insurgency. Easily funding their weapons,
salaries and explosives. So the U .S. starts
dropping incredibly expensive precision bombs
on makeshift drug labs in Hellman province. But
dropping a hundred thousand dollar bomb on a
mud hut full of opium isn't going to end a guerrilla
war. No, it's not. By 2018, the stark reality
sets in across all capitals. A strict military
victory is mathematically out of reach for everyone.
The Afghan government, even with U .S. air support,
cannot completely eradicate the Taliban from
the rural areas. The Taliban, as long as U .S.
bombers are flying overhead, cannot completely
topple the government in Kabul. And the American
public is completely exhausted. Which leads us
into the critical final diplomatic phase, the
years 2018 to 2020. the peace overtures and the
Doha agreement. And this period begins not with
diplomats in suits, but with a truly remarkable,
heartbreaking moment of grassroots civilian desperation.
In early 2018, an unprecedented peace movement
erupts organically in Afghanistan. The media
dubbed it the Helmand Peace Convoy. It started
in Helmand province, which had arguably seen
the most intense, prolonged combat of the entire
war. And a group of regular Afghan citizens,
teachers, Civil society activists decided they
had simply had enough of the daily slaughter.
They began walking. They walked several hundred
kilometers right through active war zones, right
through Taliban held territory, all the way to
the capital city of Kabul. They held sit -in
protests, enduring blistering heat and fasting
for Ramadan on the road. demanding an immediate
end to the violence from both sides. And their
immense courage actually helped pressure leadership
on both sides to agree to an unprecedented temporary
ceasefire during the Eid al -Fitr celebrations
in June 2018. And the scenes that unfolded during
those three days were completely surreal. You
had Taliban fighters, guys who had spent years
hiding in mountains, flooding into the cities.
They were taking selfies with locals, eating
ice cream and literally hugging state security
forces in the streets. It was a profound psychological
release, but it also terrified the leadership
of both the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Because it highlighted just how desperate the
average Afghan citizen was for peace. The rank
-and -file fighters were tired of fighting. The
ceasefire inevitably expires and the violence
resumes. But the diplomatic gears are finally
turning. Direct, high -level talks begin between
the United States and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.
And a key figure sitting across a table representing
the insurgents is Abdugani Berdar. Berdar is
a fascinating figure. He was a co -founder of
the Taliban alongside Mullah Omar. He had actually
been arrested by Pakistani intelligence in 2010.
But the U .S. requested his release in 2018,
specifically because they believed he carried
enough authority within the Taliban ranks to
negotiate a binding peace deal. So the U .S.
and the Taliban sit down in Doha, and on February
29th, 2020, they sign a historic conditional
peace agreement. The mechanics of the deal are
relatively straightforward on paper. The United
States agrees to a full phased withdrawal of
all its military forces and all NATO coalition
forces within 14 months. And in exchange for
the Americans leaving, the Taliban pledges a
single core security guarantee. Which is? They
promise not to let Afghan soil be used by any
militant group, including al -Qaeda, to stage
terrorist attacks against the United States and
its allies. Essentially, the U .S. says we are
leaving and the Taliban says we won't let another
9 -11 happen. Right. But there is a glaring,
massive, fatal omission in this treaty. A missing
chair at the table. The internationally recognized
Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani
in Kabul is not a party to the deal. The United
States negotiated the terms of Afghanistan's
future directly with the insurgents. completely
excluding the sovereign government they had spent
20 years bleeding to protect. Think about the
crushing tragedy of that dynamic. The Helmand
Peace Convoy marches hundreds of miles, citizens
risking their lives, begging for their voices
to be heard in the peace process. But the ultimate
fate of their country is decided in a luxury
hotel room in Qatar. Between American diplomats
and Taliban commanders bypassing the Afghan voters
entirely. Let's analyze the mechanical effect
of that decision. By negotiating directly with
the Taliban and deliberately sidelining the government
in Kabul, the United States inherently delegitimized
President Ghani. The U .S. signaled to the entire
country, and crucially to the Afghan military,
that the real power rested with the Taliban.
The psychological damage to the Afghan state
was terminal. President Ghani is absolutely furious,
and understandably so. He's particularly enraged
because the U .S. Taliban deal includes a mandate
for the release of up to 5 ,000 Taliban prisoners
currently held in Afghan government jails. Ghani
rightly points out that the U .S. diplomats do
not have the legal or moral authority to promise
the release of prisoners held in another sovereign
nation's prisons. But Ghani's government is entirely
dependent on U .S. financial aid and military
support to survive. So, under immense pressure
from Washington, who is desperate to keep the
peace deal intact, Ghani is ultimately forced
to capitulate. The Afghan government releases
the 5 ,000 prisoners. Thousands of battle -hardened
Taliban commanders and fighters are injected
directly back into the insurgent ranks. Right
at the exact moment the U .S. military is actively
packing up its bases to leave. Which brings us
to the catastrophic climax of our timeline. the
year 2021, the final offensive, and the last
flight out. The new Biden administration assumes
office in Washington. After a brief review, President
Biden announces that he will honor the withdrawal
agreement initiated by his predecessor, extending
the final deadline slightly to the end of August
2021. And the Taliban, seeing the clock ticking
down and the U .S. troops actively leaving, launch
a sweeping massive summer offensive. The speed
of this final offensive stunned the entire global
intelligence community. In the first three months
of the summer, the Taliban captured vast swaths
of the rural countryside. They isolated the provincial
capitals, cutting off supply lines. And then
the cities began falling like dominoes. It wasn't
a slow, grinding, fighting retreat by the Afghan
National Army. It was a damn breaking. Entire
corps were surrendering without firing a single
shot. I mean, how does a military of over 300
,000 nominally trained soldiers melt away in
a matter of weeks? We have to return to the sports
car analogy from earlier. Right, the structural
reliance. The collapse was a structural inevitability.
It wasn't simply a lack of moral will to fight
among the average Afghan soldier. As we discussed,
the Afghan military apparatus was structurally
designed to rely on advanced U .S. logistics.
It required close air support to break Taliban
sieges. It required U .S. intelligence gathering
to know where the enemy was. And crucially, it
required thousands of civilian contractors to
maintain their aircraft and weapons systems.
When the U .S. announced the final withdrawal,
they didn't just pull out the combat troops.
They pulled out the contractors overnight. They
turned off the intelligence feeds. They grounded
the air support. They removed the scaffolding.
Once that framework was abruptly yanked away,
the Afghan military apparatus physically could
not sustain itself. Soldiers out in remote outposts
ran out of food and ammunition. When they radioed
for an airdrop of supplies or a medevac for their
wounded, no helicopters came. because there were
no contractors left to repair the helicopters.
Realizing they were completely abandoned by Kabul
and Washington, local commanders made the rational
survival choice. They cut deals with the advancing
Taliban to surrender in exchange for their lives.
And the collapse accelerates exponentially. On
August 15th, 2021, Taliban fighters walk unopposed
into the capital city of Kabul. President Ashraf
Ghani, realizing the security forces have evaporated,
boards a helicopter and flees the country. The
Taliban seize the empty presidential palace and
declare total victory. The sudden fall of Kabul
triggered an immediate massive panic among the
population, leading directly to the frantic airlift
at Hamid Karzai International Airport. For two
grueling weeks, the airport becomes the only
heavily fortified piece of American held territory
left in the country. And the scenes are apocalyptic.
Tens of thousands of desperate people, foreign
diplomats, aid workers and incredibly vulnerable
Afghans who had spent years working alongside
the coalition as translators or fixers swarmed
the tarmac. Amidst total chaos, terror attacks
by ISIS -K, and profound desperation, the U .S.
and its allies managed to airlift over 122 ,000
people out of the country. It was one of the
largest non -combatant evacuation operations
in military history. But it was a chaotic bloody
exit. The footage of young Afghan men clinging
to the landing gear of moving C -17 transport
planes falling from the sky as the plane ascends
will forever be the defining tragic image of
the end of this war. And finally, on the stroke
of midnight on August 30, the final U .S. Air
Force plane lifts off from the runway. After
19 years, 10 months, three weeks, and two days,
the longest war in American history is officially
over. Which leaves us with the aftermath. We
have to look at the sobering, devastating reality
of what the coalition left behind once the dust
settled on that empty runway. The sheer human
cost of the conflict is staggering. The historical
data estimates that between 176 ,000 and well
over 212 ,000 people were killed directly in
the violence. That includes over 46 ,000 Afghan
civilians caught in the crossfire. And over 66
,000 Afghan national security forces who died
fighting the insurgency. And the immediate humanitarian
crisis that followed the Taliban's takeover was
severe and systemic. Over 2 .6 million Afghans
remained as refugees abroad, with another 4 million
internally displaced within the country's borders.
International aid, which had propped up the Afghan
economy for two decades, was instantly suspended.
Billions of dollars in Afghan central bank assets
were frozen in Western banks to keep them out
of Taliban hands. This financial shock accelerated
a widespread economic collapse, plunging millions
into extreme poverty and triggering acute warnings
of famine. And as we touched on earlier, despite
all the billions and spent and all the bombs
dropped on drug labs, the country remained an
entrenched narco state. Cementing its status
as the world's largest opiate producer. But perhaps
the most damning revelation about the fundamental
nature of the war came slightly before the chaotic
end in 2019 with the release of what became known
as the Afghanistan Papers. The Afghanistan papers
were a trove of over 2 ,000 pages of confidential
government documents obtained and published by
the Washington Post. These documents were generated
by a federal watchdog agency, and they contained
candid, unpublished interviews with over 400
key military and political figures who were directly
involved in managing the war. And what did these
internal documents reveal? They showed a shocking
systemic pattern of deceit. They revealed that
U .S. officials across multiple administrations
consistently and deliberately misled the public
about the reality on the ground. Behind closed
doors, generals and diplomats admitted they had
no idea what they were doing, that the strategy
was fundamentally flawed, and that the conflict
was unwinnable. But publicly, they kept spinning
the data to present a false narrative of continuous
progress. The documents connect the dots of failure
across two decades. They highlight the early
tactical arrogance in 2001, the catastrophic
diversion of resources to Iraq, their alliance
on corrupt warlords and the inability to understand
Afghan culture. They prove that the systemic
failures that caused the rapid collapse in 2021
were recognized internally by leadership long
before they were ever admitted to the public.
And the most painful lingering wound of this
aftermath is the profound sense of betrayal felt
by the Afghan allies who were left behind when
the music stopped. The historical record specifically
highlights the agonizing plight of former Afghan
special forces. These were the absolute elite
troops heavily vetted who fought shoulder to
shoulder with NATO operators for years. Their
treatment post withdrawal has been heavily scrutinized.
For instance, reports emerged that hundreds of
these elite Afghan commandos who fought directly
alongside British troops were rejected for resettlement
in the UK. One former UK Special Forces officer
even publicly alleged that bureaucratic decisions
in British headquarters actively prevented these
former Afghan colleagues, some of whom were potential
witnesses to alleged war crimes from securing
safe passage. It highlights a dark, unresolved
legacy of abandonment. So we arrive at the end
of our chronological timeline. From the ashes
of 9 -11 and the lightning -fast 2001 invasion
through the fatal distraction of Iraq. The Taliban's
relentless resurgence from the madrassas of Pakistan,
the massive surges that failed to hold ground.
The devastating cultural friction that destroyed
trust, the exclusionary backroom peace talks
in Doha, all the way to that frantic, apocalyptic
final airlift in August 2021. And analyzing this
20 year span is absolutely vital. It serves as
a stark historical masterclass in the absolute
limits of military intervention. It clearly demonstrates
the mechanical reality that overwhelming tactical
firepower can win battles. But those military
victories will be completely, totally undone
if you fail to secure an inclusive, culturally
viable political settlement. You simply cannot
build a functioning nation state entirely through
the narrow lens of counterterrorism. We started
this deep dive talking about the expectation
of a clean narrative arc in history. We wanted
a story with a clear moral. But the architecture
of this 20 -year war wasn't a building being
constructed. It was a sprawling, multi -trillion
-dollar structure built on shifting sands. With
a blueprint that changed every time a new general
or politician took charge, while the original
tenants simply waited patiently in the dark woods
next door. And now, 20 years later, the original
tenants hold the keys once again. Which leaves
us with one final lingering thought to explore.
What happens to a generation of Afghans, the
millions of men, and especially the women who
spent the last 20 years growing up under the
promise, however flawed and corrupt, of a republic?
A generation who were told by the international
community that they could vote, that they could
attend university, that they could speak freely.
What happens to the psychology of a nation when
that generation wakes up one morning, looks out
their window, and finds themselves living back
in a fundamentalist emirate? How does a society
reconcile the ghosts of a two decade war when
the architects of that war have simply packed
up their planes and flown away? That's all for
today's Deep Dive.