From Afghanistan - 3 Important Lessons for Singapore

After nearly 20 years of foreign occupation led by the United States (US), Afghanistan has been liberated by the Taliban, an indigenous Afghan force that was defeated by US-led Allied forces in 2001. ?At the beginning of 2019, soldiers from 39 countries, including the US, occupied Afghanistan; there were about 14,000 US soldiers and 25,000 American private security contractors in Afghanistan. ?In August 2010, US forces were at their highest at 100,000, and through 2011, roughly 140,000 foreign troops were operating under ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and US Command. ?More than 775,000 US military personnel have been deployed to Afghanistan at least once.?

Singapore contributed and deployed 492 warfighters over a 6-year period (2007-2013) under Operations Blue Ridge in Afghanistan.?Over the 2,263 days, the Singapore flag flew proudly wherever they were deployed in Camp Kiwi in Bamiyan, Camp Holland in Oruzgan, Camp Alamo in Kabul, and Camp Baker in Kandahar. ?Singapore provided mostly medical services and support, engineering services, and an artillery unit to support the multi-national peacekeeping efforts. ?The Singaporeans weathered harsh Afghani winters, mountainous terrains as well as came under hostile fire during their deployment, without suffering any casualties. ?

The liberation of Afghanistan by the Taliban is therefore followed with great concern in Singapore. ?There are 3 relevant lessons for Singapore from the withdrawal of foreign forces in Afghanistan.

[1] Leadership is a Key Strategic Factor

Leadership is challenging in normal conditions. The 2020 US decision to withdraw completely from Afghanistan was correct and decisive to end the “endless war” of 20 years by May 2021.?This was extended by President Biden to 31 August 2021.?The withdrawal decision was not the problem.

The execution of the withdrawal is a self-inflicted crisis from inept, incompetent, and the lack of leadership. ?Crisis leadership calls for exceptional leadership.?The debacle that ensured from 14 August 2031 resulted from leadership failure at the highest level to plan for the anticipated outcome which US military and intelligence officials have insisted to be inevitable for years. ???

A July 2021 State Department internal Memo warned that the?Taliban were advancing faster?than previously expected and that the Afghan government could collapse shortly after the 31 Aug 2021 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.?This contradicted claims by President Biden and his administration that no one had predicted Kabul could fall so quickly.?He told the American people that “the consensus by the intelligence community” was that it would not happen because Afghanistan had already 300,000 US-trained soldiers while the Taliban only had 75,000.

Biden’s dismissal of vital intelligence was fatal and led to the blitzkrieg sweep of the Taliban across Afghanistan with astonishing speed and force in a matter of days without any resistance by the purported 300,000 local Afghani soldiers.

The strategic error likely began on 2 July when the US quietly abandoned Bagram Air Base at 3am surreptitiously without informing its local Afghani forces. ?The Americans left behind about 3.5 million items including thousands of water bottles, energy drinks, and military ready-made meals (MREs). They also left behind thousands of civilian vehicles, without keys, and hundreds of armoured vehicles. They also took heavy weapons with them and detonated some ammunition stocks, but left behind small weapons and ammunition for the Afghans.

At its height, Bagram Air Base was home to several thousands of troops. It ballooned from a small Afghan airbase to a mini-city with swimming pools, cinemas, spas, and imported fast food outlets Pizza Hut and Burger King.

The unforced abandonment of Bagram Air Base, about 2 months earlier than originally scheduled for 31 August invariably created the impression not lost on the Taliban that the US has lost any motivation to fight and remain in Afghanistan.?Its failure to inform local Afghani forces, who discovered the empty Air Base only after looters had entered the “lights-out” base some 5 hours later, is evidence of its distrust of the Afghani soldiers whom it had fought alongside for 20 years.

Bagram’s exit in the quiet of night defied logical standard military strategy to withdraw orderly in the sequence of people, equipment, and, lastly, soldiers. ?It lacked strategic planning and careful risk evaluation in the most unlikely event. ?

The Taliban began to take over regional capital cities within 2 months of the US withdrawal from Bagram.?Local Afghan forces also lost their will and motivation to resist given their loss of air protective cover from Bagram as well as their US counterparts and trainers who had cut and run, and deserted them.?Their march into the Capital of Kabul was inevitable, even as the Afghani President fled, reportedly (but unverified) with planeloads of cash, instead of mobilizing his 300,000 soldiers to resist and fight.

In the British Parliament, President Biden's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal was?condemned as "catastrophic" and "shameful"?as both Houses of UK Parliament delivered an unprecedented rebuke to a US president.?Across the political spectrum, MPs and Peers, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, put some blame for?the Taliban's takeover?and the chaos that followed on the US, Britain's closest ally.?President Biden was accused of "throwing us and everybody else to the fire" by?pulling out US troops and was called "dishonourable" for criticising Afghan forces for not having the will to fight.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who committed British troops into Afghanistan in 2001, branded Biden an “imbecile” (an idiot or stupid person) over the “tragic, dangerous and unnecessary” decision to quit Afghanistan amid claims Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s remarks: “we would be better off with Trump”.?Tony added that Britain also has a “moral obligation” to stay until “all those who need to be are evacuated”.?

A good leader MUST always have the welfare and interests of his people utmost in all that he/she does. This includes proper planning, allocation of resources, and perfect execution. The unfolding drama of Afghanistan is a clear example of the extremely poor, inept, and bad leadership of President Biden, as well as all the leaders in the US Congress. Furthermore, the US' failure to keep its promises to supporters and stakeholders to evacuate them to safety is utter leadership failure to the nth degree. Only performance results and impact define the quality of leaders, not personality traits, and qualities.

[2] Corruption is a Social Cancer

The Taliban’s bloodless liberation of Afghanistan can be attributed to many factors.?At the core is the rampant corruption spawn by the US across multiple Presidents and their administrations.?Ordinary Afghani and junior civil servants bear witness to the kind of corruption the US aided and abetted over many years, cultivating crooked officials and stalling anti-corruption investigations.?They watched their leaders and senior officials grew wealthier and wealthier. ?In one broad sweeping stroke, the Taliban has wiped out US-sponsored corruption. ?The new Afghani leadership has embraced the most important challenge of government – the elimination of corruption. ??

For late Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, beating corruption is a top-down affair.?In order to build a just society, a nation must eradicate corruption starting from the very top. ?In his speech at the “Africa Leadership Forum in Singapore” on 8 November 1993, he said:

“Once a political system has been corrupted right from the very top leaders to the lowest rungs of the bureaucracy, the problem is very complicated. The cleansing and disinfecting have to start from top and go downwards in a thorough and systematic way. It is a long and laborious process that can be carried out only by?a very strong group of leaders with the strength and moral authority derived from unquestioned integrity.”

Furthermore, this group of core leaders right at the top must be determined and united, in addition to possessing a strong sense of social duty.?He added:

“Our first goal in Singapore was to shape the government into an effective instrument of policy. This requires strong, fair and just leaders, who would have the moral strength to command the respect of the people. Unity in the core group of leaders helped to send clear signals to the people thus avoiding confusion that would have arisen if the team had bickered and split.” “Leaders must have the sense of trusteeship…?Corruption, which we regarded as a cancer,?must be eradicated as soon as detected.”

China President Xi Jinping, since taking office in 2012, has made the anti-corruption fight the spearhead of an ambitious governance reform agenda, vouching to not only take down the corrupt “flies” (lower and middle-ranking bureaucrats) but also to hunt “tigers” (senior leaders).

In Afghanistan, a big income and wealth gap exists between the rich and ordinary people. ?Furthermore, the Afghani army has also not been paid wages for several months, and they earn relatively low wages, about US$200-US$300 per month.?The gross inequality and official corruption easily sap the motivation and will of the Afghani soldiers to fight the Taliban who promises an uncertain but perhaps better life without foreign corruption and interference.

The rapid collapse of the Afghani Army and the government is not lost on US officials and intelligence sources, as the July 2021 State Department Memo revealed. ?The US has nurtured a corrupt governance eco-system to fester for a more compliant Afghanistan.?It should bear primary responsibility and stop being delusional or pretend to be shocked by the sudden dissolution of the Afghani government management machinery.

Corruption is the social cancer that devours the Afghan nation from within, even as its leaders become addicted to and basked in the illicit wealth which has been incessantly fed by its US and NATO patrons. In the end, the nation of Afghanistan imploded to return to its original 1996 name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). The future of IEA is highly uncertain. At least, it is now hopefully in the hands of ordinary and traditional Afghan leaders to chart a different course of their own volition. Time will tell of this outcome.

According to SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction), the US government had deployed funds for the following programs:

? Train, equip, and pay the salaries for hundreds of thousands of Afghan soldiers

and police;

? Build a credible electoral process by funding elections, cultivating political parties,

and training election officials and observers;

? Educate more Afghans, particularly girls and women, by building, repairing, staffing,

and equipping schools;

? Reintegrate back into society tens of thousands of armed fighters with few other

skills, an abundance of weapons, and ample opportunity to resume violence;

? Develop the private sector by training entrepreneurs, lowering the costs of starting

and running businesses, and creating an environment that would attract foreign and

domestic businesses to operate in Afghanistan;

? Reduce rampant corruption in the Afghan government to improve its performance

and legitimacy;

? Reduce the cultivation and trade of poppy and provide alternative livelihoods for

Afghan farmers;

? Deliver services at the local level so that Afghans in the contested territory would come

to favor the Afghan government over the Taliban;

? Improve the quality and accessibility of health care by building, repairing, staffing,

and equipping medical facilities;

? Train and empower Afghan officials to sustain the above efforts after the US departs by collecting their own revenue and effectively managing their own national budget.

The US problem in Afghanistan wasn’t resources.

“US officials believed the solution to insecurity was pouring ever more resources into Afghan institutions—but the absence of progress after the surge of civilian and military assistance between 2009 and 2011 made it clear that the fundamental problems were unlikely to be addressed by changing resource levels,” the SIGAR report says. “The US government was simply not equipped to undertake something this ambitious in such an uncompromising environment, no matter the budget.”

The total cost of the US invasion of Afghanistan is measured by SIGAR at $145 billion on reconstruction, and another $837 billion spent on fighting the Taliban. Some 2,443 American and 1,144 allied service members have been killed; another 20,666 Americans have been injured. Moreover, 66,000 Afghan troops fighting the Taliban have been killed, and more than 75,000 Afghan civilians have died in the fighting.

It also behooves understanding and credibility how the US could succeed in nation-building in other countries like Afghanistan when it has failed miserably in nation and community building in its own homeland; given the rampant homelessness, high crime rate, poor public medical health, unemployment, education results, crumbling infrastructures, systemic racism and social injustice … etc.

The SIGAR assessment shows nearly every aspect of the US approach was flawed and incoherent. Shifting end goals were addressed with tactics that emphasized shortcuts over building sustainable institutions. US methods never came to grips with Afghanistan’s unique situation, and chose instead to exploit and be exploited by corrupt local actors.

Reports also?began trickling out?that the CIA had also delivered “bags of cash” directly to the Afghan government. Dubbed “ghost money” by Afghani President Karzai’s chief of staff, much of it went directly to corrupt warlords and politicians. Another?analysis found?that at least 40% of thousands of Department of Defense contracts, totalling tens of billions of dollars, ended up in the hands of criminal syndicates and criminal officials.?As one American official said, “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States.”

In stark contrast over the same 20-year period, China built social and civil infrastructures, as well as promote education and functional skills and farming training to eliminate absolute poverty for more than 850 million Chinese.?

[3] No One is Coming

The US focus on Afghanistan has very little to do with establishing a better and more equal society in Afghanistan.?Especially since it was unable to build one in its own homeland.??In 2001, the then righteous motivation was to destroy the Al-Qaeda organisation led by Osama bin Ladin who planned and executed the 911 World Trade Twin Towers bombings and the attack on the Pentagon. ?However, on 16 Dec 2001, before the multinational ISAF and US forces arrived in Afghanistan, Osama bin Ladin had already escaped to Pakistan. He was finally tracked down and killed in Pakistan by US forces on 2 May 2011.?

The Afghanistan Mission should have logically ended with Osama’s escape to Pakistan in Dec 2001, or upon his death in 2011.?It did not.??

The Afghanistan Mission was tweaked to embrace the more strategic American reason to establish a military and geopolitical foothold in Central Asia on the very borders of Russia and China. ?The new US objective was never articulated but clearly understood by all countries involved in Afghanistan. ?The “nation-building and humanitarian” aspects of the US-led Allied occupation of Afghanistan were largely window dressing to cover US geopolitical ambitions. ?This also explains the lack of progress in the Afghanistan “nation-building” and “humanitarian” efforts, despite spending nearly US$1 trillion on mostly military hardware instead of infrastructure, housing, education, industry, manufacturing and public health. ?

As the Taliban liberated Afghanistan from foreign occupying forces and influence, many Afghani have attempted to “escape” via Kabul International Airport to the US under the Special Immigration Visa (SIV) passes printed from their computer. ?It is telling that elsewhere at other border checkpoints, there was no rush by ordinary Afghani to “escape”.?There is nonetheless a fear and apprehension whether the Taliban would resort to the religious excesses which characterised their rule back in 1998-2001 before it fell to the US-led multinational forces. ??????

The US and Allied forces have abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban by August 2021.?As they attempt to extract their own citizens and diplomats for Kabul International Airport, no special plan is in place for the thousands of Afghani interpreters and their families who were promised safe refuge in the US, UK, and France. ??It is expected that the US, British and French forces will leave by 31 August 2021 as long as their own citizens and diplomats have been extracted.

The core lesson for the stranded Afghani supporters of the US-led occupation is that “no one is coming”.??

Ironically, it was their Afghani forefathers who had defeated the Greeks, the British, the Russians, and now the Americans in order to preserve the integrity of their land.?Afghani people should have learned that foreigners do not normally have their long-term interests, and that self-reliance and independence to chart their own way of life is the only guarantee of sovereignty and self-determination.

This reminds me of my own military service in the 1970’s for 2? years.?The Army instructors repeatedly emphasised that as a young nation, achieving independence only in 1965, we had to be ready to fight and sacrifice for this fledgling nation.?He was crystal-clear that in times of trouble, Singapore would be fighting alone to determine our own fate.?

When asked about the 1971’s 5-Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), a non-binding defence treaty, whereby it commits the 5 members (Singapore, Malaysia, UK, Australia and New Zealand) to consult in the event of an armed attack on Malaysia or Singapore, the instructor gave an honest straightforward answer: “no one will come” and “until they see who’s winning and side with the victor”.?The FPDA turns 50 years old this year.

The truth is “that which we cannot defend by ourselves do not belong to us”.?Dependence on foreign military forces is more of social membership in military collegiality for the occasional exercise or sports events or sharing of facilities.

President Biden was wrong when he said that “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves”.?As of April 2021, Afghan military and police had suffered 67,500 deaths and opposition fighters 51,191.?Afghan civilian death totalled 47,245.?Death toll for US and allied troops as well as military contractors are fewer at just 7,432. ?

The US pull-out from Bagram Air Base and private contractors who service the fighter jets removed vital US air support and made inoperable the US-supplied fighter jets to cripple the Afghan forces, most of whom have not received any salary for months, making any resistance to the Taliban advance moot at best. ?Feckless US leadership and the lack of supply destroyed the viability of the very Afghan forces whom they trained at the cost of nearly US$83 billion paid by American taxpayers. ???

President Biden was grossly misinformed (or did he deliberately lie?) by his people that the Afghan forces did not have the will to fight and that “we gave them every chance to determine their own future”.?However, President Biden and his US forces withdrew critical support and logistics, abandoned them at their most needed hour. ??He then blamed them for not fighting.??

The last and most important lesson from Kabul, Afghanistan, for Singapore is to never ever become dependent on foreign military forces to fight our own battles.

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