Thomas Gibbons-Neff:
It’s a combination of things. And I could go on for a very long time about why it’s playing out the way it is. Right. But I mean, at its core, the Afghan military was built in the American military’s image. Right. And that means complex logistics systems, different levels of integration this expectation that the Afghan military would kind of operate like the American military. The American military has its own issues. Right. And kind of exploiting that and expecting it to look the exact same without the litany of issues is just it’s unrealistic. Not to mention how long does it take for the military to become a military? Officers, generals and experienced noncommissioned officers? That’s not there. And then kind of couple that with poor leadership, widespread corruption and other factors that have kind of led to this moment. Right, where soldiers and police on the front line have no faith in their government because they don’t trust their leaders. And that’s just kind of all dissolved as the Americans who have provided air support for so long at the Afghan military and police have become so dependent on as soon as they kind of eased off the gas that things started to come apart at the seams. And, you know, that’s left the Afghan Air Force, which is a small but professional force and capable, but not nearly big enough to cover the geographic spread of Afghanistan. And the commando units, which have been well-trained, well-equipped, can fight moderately well because they have that kind of core leadership that motivates their rank and file. Again, this is not big enough to handle what the Taliban have managed to throw at them.
