The following two blogs #41 and #42 will now together further elaborate on the ISAF’s Caveat Crisis in Afghanistan, by providing a description of the way in which the mission’s caveat problem developed over the course of the Security Assistance mission, increasing in both scope and severity as the operation progressed through the four fundamental phases of NATO’s Operational Plan (OPLAN) for the mission. Indeed, limitation and ban rules in the Rules of Engagement (ROE) of ISAF national contingents were actively and obstructively present during all five of the OPLAN’s phases, from the very genesis of the ISAF operation in December 2001 until its complete termination in December 2014. These included the phases of: I) Assessment and Preparation; II) Geographic Expansion; III) Stabilisation; IV) Transition; and lastly V) Redeployment. These blogs will provide a concise overview of the diverse difficulties posed by these national caveat restrictions on the ISAF Force during each of these operational phases, in order to illustrate how the issue of heavy caveat imposition spread like a cancer, first politically in the Coalition of the Willing, and then operationally and tangibly across the mission in terms of both geography and time, with the caveat issue growing larger and generating more and more alarm in military and political quarters with the progression of each successive NATO-led phase until the final termination of the mission.
#40 In Videos: An International, Multilateral, Political & Strategic Failure – The Fall of Kabul & the Lamentable Loss of the Anti-Terror & Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, 2001-2021
In Videos: The calamitous political and military decisions taken by short-sighted governments in multiple Capitals, to rapidly end the Afghan theatre of war in the overall and ongoing Global War on Terror (GWOT), and the resulting and hugely consequential developments and events that followed on the ground for the country and the people of Afghanistan, that has shocked, changed, and threatened the entire world. Important videos.
#39 Farewell Fallen Friend: Democratic Afghan Republic, 2001-2021
Democratic Afghanistan – a young but progressing democratic country, a multi-ethnic Nation-State standing politically and militarily strong against Islamic Extremism and mass-murdering terrorists, that was suddenly and deliberately abandoned to die by the American President and so-called “Leader of the Free World,” Joe Biden. Following in the path of President Trump’s Afghan Exit Strategy of “Taliban-Negotiations,” in 2020-21 the liberal-socialist Biden-Harris Administration led the political leaders and elites of the democratic “Free World” to prematurely withdraw their military forces and support from Democratic Afghanistan. By choosing to abandon the young but committed country – and after only 20 years of help, investment and support since its naissance – these political leaders enabled and allowed extreme, brutal, racist, and pro-terrorist forces to retake control of the people and country of Afghanistan. The Taliban and their al-Qaeda and militia allies rapidly turned the country back once again into the terrorist sanctuary and Taliban “Terror State” it had once been, prior to the history-changing 9/11 terrorist attack of 2001, that had murdered nearly 3,000 U.S. and international citizens living, working and travelling in the American homeland.
Biden was assisted in this singularly unwise withdrawal from Democratic Afghanistan by collectively complicit, complacent, and careless European allies, as well as leading Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs) around the world including NATO and the UN, in their mutually shared – if short-sighted – preoccupation and desire for ‘a fast and final end’ to the long but vital Afghan War against terror forces in Central-South Asia, just in time for the artificial and domestic deadline of the 20-year anniversary of 9/11. This was a needless abandonment and death of a democratic country, a profound mistake, and a national, political and strategic tragedy for the people of Afghanistan and of the whole world, with profoundly dire security consequences in the global struggle against murderous Islamic Extremist terrorism (the ungodly and cowardly mass-murder and terrorisation of innocent civilians for politico-religious aims).
Consequently, a full 20 years of hard-fought and hard-won achievements via Allied security, stability and nation-building operations post-9/11, to deliberately but kindly establish together with the native Afghan people a moderate, truly population-representative, democratic, just, secure, stable and anti-terrorist government, in the war-weary killing fields of Afghanistan – and these mostly achieved through the great efforts, courage, heart, self-sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears of the Free World’s military fighting forces – ended in total failure. Just as the consequence was a living nightmare for the freedom-loving Vietnamese population following the Fall of Saigon and the collapse of Democratic South Vietnam decades earlier (the Republic of Vietnam from 1955-75), which led to a mass-exodus of frightened “Boat People” into the Asian Sea (and again caused by a deliberate decision made by one American president in Washington D.C. to prematurely withdraw the Free World’s military and political support from a young democratic country’s fight against invasive Marxist-Communist aggression), the Fall of Kabul and the collapse of Democratic Afghanistan was a heart-breaking and nightmarish event for the population of Afghanistan, which sparked a second, terrified, mass-exodus of homeless and Stateless refugees around the globe.
The deepest, cherished and shared goal of democratic nations in the Free World is to advance the cause of human value and liberty before God, and the inherent right of all men, women and children to receive basic care and services, personal freedoms, and legal justice and protections from their native political leaders, rulers and “national caregivers” in government, in every nation and State around the world. It is for this fundamental reason that the Free World has always – and for many centuries since the Protestant Christian Reformation against evil and corrupt leaders in Europe during the 1500s – sought and worked hard to promote, to establish, and to support native, population-representative, caring, self-governing, democratic and just Nation-States around the world. Nation-States, moreover, that will be led by native and elected political leaders, who will care about and serve the greatest needs, interests and desires of their own native free people.
Historically then, the Allied democracies’ recent abandonment of the Democratic Afghan Republic, which led directly to the young country’s weakness and collapse in August 2021 and to untold Afghan deaths and suffering ever since, stands in stark, sharp and bitter contrast to the similar but robustly successful, Allied democracy-building enterprises that took place: (1) in the Axis countries of Japan, Germany and Italy from 1945 after World War Two; (2) in South Korea from 1948-53 after WW2 and the Korean War; (3) in many Nation-States across Eastern Europe and the Balkan regions following the end of the ideological Cold War confrontation from 1989-1991; and (4) even partially and influentially in Iraq from 2003 in the post-9/11 era of the “Global War on Terror” (aka the “Global Campaign against Terrorists”), following the multinational Iraq War against Saddam Hussein’s terrorist-supporting dictatorship, conducted by a Coalition of Willing Nations right up until the Obama-ordered military withdrawal in 2011 (that tragically led to the ISIS Wars from 2014-2019). The Free World’s building and long-term support to these democratic States were ALL successful, long-lasting and world-changing endeavours, that created democratic Nation-States nearly all of which continue to stand strong, free, and tall to the present day – and remain valued allies, friends, and vital members of the Free World. But ALL were accomplished chiefly due to the very great efforts made by several successive generations of freedom-loving democratic forces, contributed to nations in extreme need and hopelessness, by the world’s Free Nation-States of Western-model Democracies. These successes were achieved also at great cost to the Nation-States involved, paid both financially and in currencies far greater than mere money, with full-hearted commitment and self-sacrifice, but with long-term vision, grit and determination. These democratic Nation-States of the Free World – the free offspring of free peoples – have long stood and continue to stand as living and active memorials to these earlier generations of democratic freedom-givers.
As it has always been throughout human history on planet earth, the great cause of “Human Freedom, Protection and Justice” is a timeless blazing light of truth, goodness and hope on earth, for human beings living in the darkness of political and systemic oppression, abuse, injustice, and fear in their native nations and countries, wherever they may be around the world. Because basic human value and individual freedom are the God-given birthright of every person, and every ethnic nation of people, born into the human race. “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Book of Proverbs 29:18).
ISAF – COIN APPENDIX 2 – Counter-Insurgency (COIN) Warfare: Definitions, Political Nature, 5 False Expectations, Necessity, & Lessons from Vietnam & Iraq for Afghanistan
In blog ‘#31 BACKGROUND – COIN Warfare & the ISAF’s COIN Strategy: Battle for the Majority Population’, I briefly outlined the central theoretical doctrine and most important principles of Counter-Insurgency (COIN) warfare. This appendix will present a fuller overview of counter-insurgency, by providing various definitions of COIN, the nature of COIN warfare to quell an insurgency, and – most importantly perhaps – addressing five false expectations of COIN war in the modern era, which continue to frustrate national and international efforts to defeat dangerous and destabilising insurgencies in nations around the world today.
#28 BACKGROUND – Afghanistan: The Land, its Diverse Ethnic Peoples & the Pashtun Taliban
#28 BACKGROUND Afghanistan: The Land, its Diverse Ethnic Peoples & the Pashtun Taliban – Dr Regeena Kingsley The Land of Afghanistan Borders & Resources Few countries have a history so permeated with conquest and conflict than that of Afghanistan. A forbiddingly inhospitable country, this 647,500 km² landlocked area is located in both Central Asia and on the western periphery of South Asia. It is bordered clockwise by Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan and China to the northeast, and Pakistan to the east and south, and Iran to the west. Afghanistan: Topographical view of Afghanistan