US, NATO Outta Afghanistan 2021

[RangerRay]

…and the barn itself has burnt to the ground….

…and the horse was hit by a semi…

 

[Kirkhill]

Some of NATO's lessons learned via a Canadian Library of Parliament paper ....

Full LoP paper also attached, as well as NATO's fact sheet on their work

Just looking at this and considering Britain's move towards more ISR (to include diplomacy and training) and less strike, and the US's redirection of the SF away from "door-kicking" to foreign training is it worth asking if the overall intent is to eliminate the "Advance to Contact" phase?

It seems to me that the intent could be to treat the conditions under which wars are fought as "endemic" and shade the peace/war boundary by establishing contact when the risks are low and maintaining contact in perpetuity. Then there is less likelihood of accidents happening when nervous bodies advance through the fog.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Taliban to the troops: Hey, hey, hey - lighten up a bit ...

Taliban fighters will no longer be allowed to carry their weapons in amusement parks in Afghanistan, the group's spokesman said on Wednesday, in what appeared to be another effort by the country's new rulers to soften their image.

Taliban fighters, many of whom have spent most of their lives in a 20-year insurgency against a U.S.-backed government, flocked to amusement parks in Afghan cities in towns after they took over in August.

"Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are not allowed to enter amusement parks with weapons, military uniforms and vehicles," the main Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter.

"(They) are obliged to abide by all the rules and regulations of amusement parks." ...

 

[Czech_pivo]

I think the word I would use is "canny",

canny in British English​

(ˈkænɪ)
ADJECTIVE Word forms: -nier or -niest

1.
shrewd, esp in business; astute or wary; knowing

2. Scottish and Northeast England dialect
good or nice: used as a general term of approval

3. Scottish
lucky or fortunate

And a canny lass is not a nice one because she's a good looking one. She's a nice one, a good catch, because she's shrewd, thrifty, frugal, lucky, manages the tin well down at the market.

Karzai is canny.

Why is it that every definition of something Scottish has the word ‘frugal’ in it, just saying….

 

[daftandbarmy]

Why is it that every definition of something Scottish has the word ‘frugal’ in it, just saying….

We had a guy in my platoon at Sandhurst who was from Glasgow, a former bouncer and as big as a house.

One day, during the usual microscopic level inspection on the parade square, the College Adjutant (a Scots Guardsman) stopped in front of him and had an interaction with him that went like this:

Adjt: Mr. XYZ, why do the Scots have such big noses?

OCdt XYZ: I dinnae know sorrrrr

Adjt (deadpan): Because air is free.


The fact that we didn't all collapse with laughter at that moment probably raised our esteem in the eyes of many onlookers....

 

[KevinB]

Color me shocked...
/s

Biden says he is ‘rejecting’ the military report outlining the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal

When asked if if the report's conclusions and accounts were false, Biden said he was "rejecting them."

taskandpurpose.com

 

[daftandbarmy]

Color me shocked...
/s

Biden says he is ‘rejecting’ the military report outlining the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal

When asked if if the report's conclusions and accounts were false, Biden said he was "rejecting them."

taskandpurpose.com

This is a cheerful read (not).

I assume that someone could have written the same thing about Alexander the Great's campaigns

The root cause of ‘Western’ failure in Afghanistan​

US strategists assume the global system prefers American leadership. Conservatives believe that restraint or containment can maintain American dominance; liberals believe that Western rules and institutions make America vital to world order. Neither approach is valid because they take what America should do to be the norm without considering the possibility that other dynamics are in play.

CIDOB - The root cause of ‘Western’ failure in Afghanistan

A better understanding of tribal cultures and strategic theories based on them might have prevented errors in Afghanistan and better explained the Taliban victory than do simplistic identifications of Islam, rather than tribalism and nationalism, as the agglutinating force that drives them. From...

www.cidob.org

 

[rmc_wannabe]

US strategists assume the global system prefers American leadership. Conservatives believe that restraint or containment can maintain American dominance; liberals believe that Western rules and institutions make America vital to world order. Neither approach is valid because they take what America should do to be the norm without considering the possibility that other dynamics are in play.

Like the local populace, regional history, culture, ethnicity, religion, language...

Running the ANA like a National Guard unit makes it easy to understand for politicians writing the cheques back home. Makes no sense to the Kandak Commander who has no ties to the local ethnic group he's trying to influence.