Afghanistan: that turned out well

[FalseBayFC]

This is the Naval Seal who killed Bin Laden. He's literally advocating killing women and children. He's a complete media whore who does endless interviews and sells books and does the dinner speaking circuit. He is perpetually moaning about the ROE for forces in Afghanistan. Which is fair enough but for a psychopath like this is crazy.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jump 5,000 Rangers into Bagram. Take Kabul. Kill everyone you see. Problem solved.</p>&mdash; Robert J. O&#39;Neill (@mchooyah) <a href=" 16, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Paddington Bear]

Thanks for the replies lads. If you had to do a top 5/10 of the US's biggest allies, how would you rank such a list? I read a book "Taming American power" recently and I've developed a fascination in who gets the most out of their relationship with the US, who has the most leverage, the most unequivocal support etc. Here are some links regarding that question -

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -a-threat/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... ralia.html

It depends a little how you define success as an ally. From a transactional point of view there are two clear winners for me - Israel and Germany. (Dis) honourable mentions to Pakistan and the Saudis.

From a point of view of trust between allies, integration of forces, tech & intelligence sharing etc then Britain and Australia come out very well.

[Saint]

Nah, the only comparison to America class LHDs iscwe didn't order theb F35C or enough F35Bs

The America class can only handle around 6 F35s

Wasp class is a bit more aligned towards heli operations, but that's because the US has the Nimitz/Ford class for serious Air operations. In terms of role they're expected to fulfil they're quite close, although the QE class will support a true Amphib operation instead of managing it itself.

Before the fire on the Bonhomme Richard, they were planning on a 50:50 split on Heli Vs F35 based roles. They are also looking at smaller CVs again, not that I expect it to go anywhere.

QE class is full ops CV

QE is not full ops CV. In normal ops it's primarily a CV; but there's also a littoral operations mode that's effectively full helicopter. It's designed to carry 250 troops for deployment for landing via helicopter (one of the key design requirements was that it could support a Chinook in it's hangers and aircraft lift without folding the blades. It's a VERY multi-role ship, and to think of it in terms of being a pure deep water force projection ship is missing the point of it, but politician dick waving is what it is

[SaintK]

Bit of inter-departmental warfare taking place in Cabinet. Obviously not helped by Raab fucking off on holiday while this was all brewing last week

Tom Newton Dunn also has more on the extraordinary beef between Raab and the FCDO and, well, seemingly everyone else in Whitehall. He reports that there is “deep anger” that Defense Secretary Ben Wallace was alone in trying to form a coalition to replace the Americans, and that “the FCDO had no interest in joining the MoD effort to find only an extra 3,000 troops and accompanying air power that would have replaced the US’s footprint.” A senior official describes Raab to TND as “a low grade, risk-averse lawyer.” Playbook hears the anger at Raab and the FCDO has made its way to Downing Street. One senior Tory says: “Raab isn’t very on side, he’s often saying and doing things that grate against our agenda.”

[Paddington Bear]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

[sturginho]

Brillo has a right go at Biden in the Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... cover.html

[sockwithaticket]

Bit of inter-departmental warfare taking place in Cabinet. Obviously not helped by Raab fucking off on holiday while this was all brewing last week

Tom Newton Dunn also has more on the extraordinary beef between Raab and the FCDO and, well, seemingly everyone else in Whitehall. He reports that there is “deep anger” that Defense Secretary Ben Wallace was alone in trying to form a coalition to replace the Americans, and that “the FCDO had no interest in joining the MoD effort to find only an extra 3,000 troops and accompanying air power that would have replaced the US’s footprint.” A senior official describes Raab to TND as “a low grade, risk-averse lawyer.” Playbook hears the anger at Raab and the FCDO has made its way to Downing Street. One senior Tory says: “Raab isn’t very on side, he’s often saying and doing things that grate against our agenda.”

I've read that Defence are also pretty fucked off about Foreign leaving no staff behind (bar the ambassador who seems to have stayed of his own volition) to handle the visa stuff, so you've got military personnel doing their best to sort all that out.

[laurent]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

Or be as mad as the French... (but Mali is enough thank you)

[tc27]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

This - our politicians need to get over the fact that without US support a long term major commitment like Afghanistan is simply not viable even if they had not spent the last three decades cutting defence spending to the bone. US leaders and voters don't give a toss about heart felt speeches in the Commons they might simply ask why the UK did not send enough troops to hold down Helmand when we had the chance.

[Paddington Bear]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

Or be as mad as the French... (but Mali is enough thank you)

Britain could do an equivalent to Mali with equivalent help that France is getting. We can't stabilise Afghanistan

[fishfoodie]

Just for shits n' giggles I compared the numbers deployed in Afghanistan, versus Northern Ireland, at the peak of the troubles.

NI, Area: 14,130 km²
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Area: 58,584 km²

Peak Deployment:
NI, Operation Banner
13,000 RUC,[3] 21,000 British Soldiers,[4] 6,500 UDR[5]
Total: Circa 40,500

Against peak PIRA 750

9,500 British Soldiers in Helmand, versus who knows how many Talban; but a damn sight more than 750 !

[tc27]

Just for shits n' giggles I compared the numbers deployed in Afghanistan, versus Northern Ireland, at the peak of the troubles.

NI, Area: 14,130 km²
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Area: 58,584 km²

Peak Deployment:
NI, Operation Banner
13,000 RUC,[3] 21,000 British Soldiers,[4] 6,500 UDR[5]
Total: Circa 40,500

Against peak PIRA 750

9,500 British Soldiers in Helmand, versus who knows how many Talban; but a damn sight more than 750 !

Thats an interesting comparison.

As sophisticated as the PIRA got (and they sent their best cells to attack the mainland) the Taliban were a whole different level.

[laurent]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

Or be as mad as the French... (but Mali is enough thank you)

Britain could do an equivalent to Mali with equivalent help that France is getting. We can't stabilise Afghanistan

Mali is turning into a similar mess.

[Brazil]

Or be as mad as the French... (but Mali is enough thank you)

Britain could do an equivalent to Mali with equivalent help that France is getting. We can't stabilise Afghanistan

Mali is turning into a similar mess.

I was going to say, not getting great traction in France as I understand it.

[laurent]

Britain could do an equivalent to Mali with equivalent help that France is getting. We can't stabilise Afghanistan

Mali is turning into a similar mess.

I was going to say, not getting great traction in France as I understand it.

Main issue and it looks like the Taliban return is changing some minds is the growing hostility in Mali and neighbouring countries for the Foreign forces.

In the country there is a tiredness however the French military cannot be compared to the US in its recruitment.

[Niegs]

[Happyhooker]

What's he supposed to say?

We've lost the war. Our agency to win it was always highly dubious. We probably last had the theoretical ability to stablise a nation of this scale 40ish years ago. All the while we were fighting a very hot war in Helmand the political class was cutting the military and therefore it's capability to do anything. They are fundamentally unserious.
We can't get everyone out because the Afghan state has crumbled at the first sign of pressure. The US is the only totally independent actor here, let's stop deluding ourselves as to what we could and can achieve.

Parliament is being recalled so expect a shitshow of nonsense as people move our fictional deployable division around on a map of Central Asia and 'something must be done' resounds around Westminster just as it did when we had an Empire. Reminds me of the debate on sending four jets to conduct no risk airstrikes over Syria as lightweights on all sides cosplayed the Norway debate.

The recalling of Parliament actually made me feel a bit sick. What the fuck is that going to achieve apart from hours of virtue signalling from cunts who haven't given a fuck for years.

Yep likewise. Lisa Nandy demanding Britain gets people round the table to sort this out is a classic of the genre - we've lost a war! Why would the Taliban come to London to take lectures off the defeated? The grip on reality just isn't there, and she's a long way from being unique.

This didn't age well.

Apart from the tory ex military mps, hers was one of the best speeches made today.

Apologies if this has been covered, I'm catching up on this thread

[Happyhooker]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

It was doable.

I know that a potential eng/fra option was put before the CoS a month or so ago

[mat the expat]

QE is not full ops CV. In normal ops it's primarily a CV; but there's also a littoral operations mode that's effectively full helicopter. It's designed to carry 250 troops for deployment for landing via helicopter (one of the key design requirements was that it could support a Chinook in it's hangers and aircraft lift without folding the blades. It's a VERY multi-role ship, and to think of it in terms of being a pure deep water force projection ship is missing the point of it, but politician dick waving is what it is

I beg your pardon?

In the Navy are you or are you just neck-bearding?

You're starting to sound like Bimbot

[Paddington Bear]

The recalling of Parliament actually made me feel a bit sick. What the fuck is that going to achieve apart from hours of virtue signalling from cunts who haven't given a fuck for years.

Yep likewise. Lisa Nandy demanding Britain gets people round the table to sort this out is a classic of the genre - we've lost a war! Why would the Taliban come to London to take lectures off the defeated? The grip on reality just isn't there, and she's a long way from being unique.

This didn't age well.

Apart from the tory ex military mps, hers was one of the best speeches made today.

Apologies if this has been covered, I'm catching up on this thread

Lots of very good speeches which is kinda my point. All happy to talk about it, very few willing to grasp that:
1) We have lost (another) war
2) Our ability to do something right now is pretty limited. We can get our people out whilst the Americans hold the airport, once that's gone it's goodbye. There is no viable option for Britain to directly take on the Taliban
3) One of the core reasons for this is all political parties running defence into the ground over a 30 year period
4) Aircraft Carrier Groups can't sail to Afghanistan

Found the whole thing a bit nauseating. People who want to have the trappings of Great Power without any willingness to pay for it, or to pay attention to it until it was over. Lots of anger and handwringing from the Commons today, from people who by and large have pretended this was hasn't existed until they realised the media was covering it.

As I said before, our current lot love cosplaying the Norway debate.

[Torquemada 1420]

Afghanistan: Orientalism and racist allusions at core of Biden speech

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/afgh ... den-speech

[Torquemada 1420]

2) Our ability to do something right now is pretty limited. We can get our people out whilst the Americans hold the airport, once that's gone it's goodbye. There is no viable option for Britain to directly take on the Taliban

Which is why Pratty Patel's bollox about taking 25,000 Afghan refugees over the next 5 years is......... bollox. Even if the airport was held a la Berlin 1949, 20,000 of those 25,000 will be dead at the hands of the Taliban before
they can ever have a chance to escape. The most disingenuous of hollow promises.

[Uncle fester]

Plugged this on the Book thread a while back but worth mentioning again how good I thought Afgantsy was as a history of the Russian war. Always struck me that a lot of the Muhajideen old hands who also fought for the Taliban had far more respect for the Soviets than they did for the Americans. Of course there's an element of 'in my day' as well as men of extreme violence respecting the same, but an interesting observation nonetheless.

Why so out of curiosity?

[Rinkals]

A Tory politician with a bit of sense.



Certainly, Trump left a booby trap here, but I don't think Biden has played it particularly well. As for nobody being able to predict this mess, what exactly did they think would happen?

[Torquemada 1420]

Fabulous tweet from Panjshir. Someone hasn't surrendered......

[Sandstorm]

As for nobody being able to predict this mess, what exactly did they think would happen?

Nobody thought the Afghan Army would fold in less than a week. I suspect NATO hoped they'd have a few months at least to get their people out.

[Torquemada 1420]

As for nobody being able to predict this mess, what exactly did they think would happen?

Nobody thought the Afghan Army would fold in less than a week. I suspect NATO hoped they'd have a few months at least to get their people out.

"The SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction https://www.sigar.mil/ ) report found that from 2005 the US military had been seeking to evaluate the battle-readiness of the troops they had been training, but by 2010 acknowledged that its monitoring and evaluation procedures “failed to measure more intangible readiness factors, such as leadership, corruption and motivation – all factors that could affect a unit’s ability to put its staffing and equipment to use during actual war-fighting”."

" 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟰, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗲𝘄 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱"

11 years ago, the US knew their policy was failing and their response? More of the same + hide the data.

So whilst 1 week might have been the extreme end, it was clear that it had been long known what the ultimate effects would be.

[tc27]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

It was doable.

I know that a potential eng/fra option was put before the CoS a month or so ago

Not sure it was doable - whilst we could replicate the US ground footprint of 2.5k soldiers and even billions in aid to the Afghan government their are three factors in play that make me think it would not hold.

1. The US only got away with such an arrangement because it had an agreement with the Taliban to pull out.

2. The Taliban knew that if they caused too many problems for the US on the ground they would make themselves vulnerable to massive retaliation - something the Europeans had far less capability to do.

3. The ANA's equipment all depended on US civilian contractors.

[Uncle fester]

This idea of a UK led coalition to replace the Americans in a hot warzone in Central Asia would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that even the Defence Secretary buys into the fallacy. If you want to be able to do these sort of ops, you need to spend a lot more money on defence.

It was doable.

I know that a potential eng/fra option was put before the CoS a month or so ago

Not sure it was doable - whilst we could replicate the US ground footprint of 2.5k soldiers and even billions in aid to the Afghan government their are three factors in play that make me think it would not hold.

1. The US only got away with such an arrangement because it had an agreement with the Taliban to pull out.

2. The Taliban knew that if they caused too many problems for the US on the ground they would make themselves vulnerable to massive retaliation - something the Europeans had far less capability to do.

3. The ANA's equipment all depended on US civilian contractors.

Based on the speed of the Taliban advance, they've been patiently waiting for the pullout for years.
If the US plan changed to maintaining a small but permanent presence, I imagine that the Taliban would have adjusted their plan to suit.
I don't see any scenarios which don't end with Syria-style civil war or the outright victory that they got in the end.

[troglodiet]

So to summarize:

It took 20 years, 4 presidents, and trillions of dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.

[Rinkals]

As for nobody being able to predict this mess, what exactly did they think would happen?

Nobody thought the Afghan Army would fold in less than a week. I suspect NATO hoped they'd have a few months at least to get their people out.

Nobody?

I thought it was common knowledge that they were a fairly shiftless bunch.

[fishfoodie]

As for nobody being able to predict this mess, what exactly did they think would happen?

Nobody thought the Afghan Army would fold in less than a week. I suspect NATO hoped they'd have a few months at least to get their people out.

Well as long as you completely ignore the way they folded before, when the Soviets withdrew, & I doubt NATO stayed there for two decades because they loved afghan cuisine.

No wanting to acknowledge, isn't the same as not knowing !

[Calculon]

Tbf after soviet withdrawal it took 3 years for the then afghan government to fall against the USA, Saudi and Pakistani backed mujahideen. The Soviets presumably had the foresight to prepare the afghan government for their withdrawal

[Paddington Bear]

Plugged this on the Book thread a while back but worth mentioning again how good I thought Afgantsy was as a history of the Russian war. Always struck me that a lot of the Muhajideen old hands who also fought for the Taliban had far more respect for the Soviets than they did for the Americans. Of course there's an element of 'in my day' as well as men of extreme violence respecting the same, but an interesting observation nonetheless.

Why so out of curiosity?

They felt the Russians understood that to make the omelette that is a Russian controlled Afghanistan there would need to be a lot of breaking of eggs along the way.

[Slick]

Plugged this on the Book thread a while back but worth mentioning again how good I thought Afgantsy was as a history of the Russian war. Always struck me that a lot of the Muhajideen old hands who also fought for the Taliban had far more respect for the Soviets than they did for the Americans. Of course there's an element of 'in my day' as well as men of extreme violence respecting the same, but an interesting observation nonetheless.

Why so out of curiosity?

They felt the Russians understood that to make the omelette that is a Russian controlled Afghanistan there would need to be a lot of breaking of eggs along the way.

Thoughts for a new show “Alan Partridge does geopolitics”

[Paddington Bear]

Why so out of curiosity?

They felt the Russians understood that to make the omelette that is a Russian controlled Afghanistan there would need to be a lot of breaking of eggs along the way.

Thoughts for a new show “Alan Partridge does geopolitics”

[tabascoboy]

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the pudding in this case is the Taliban"

[Paddington Bear]

I have, it's fair to say, been mugged off here. Live and learn

[fishfoodie]

Plugged this on the Book thread a while back but worth mentioning again how good I thought Afgantsy was as a history of the Russian war. Always struck me that a lot of the Muhajideen old hands who also fought for the Taliban had far more respect for the Soviets than they did for the Americans. Of course there's an element of 'in my day' as well as men of extreme violence respecting the same, but an interesting observation nonetheless.

Why so out of curiosity?

They felt the Russians understood that to make the omelette that is a Russian controlled Afghanistan there would need to be a lot of breaking of eggs along the way.

The Russians still lost; despite going, eventually with; "Total War"; but the Russians learnt the lesson; & when it came to Chechnya; they started off with Total War; & won. To this day; the Russians are still assassinating Chechens in exile; to stop any possible insurgency; & anyone who harbors them; knows whats coming their direction.

For the Americans; they had units that were perfectly happy to ignore the conventions of a legal war in Vietnam, & every other war; but it was never across the board & never approved; & there was never any question of dropping down to the level of those they were fighting; & doing what was required; whether it was legal or not.

[Slick]

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the pudding in this case is the Taliban"

Sorry Paddington, but it was an open goal.

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