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Anyone have theories/guesses on how the Taliban are able to pull this off? I would expect that a group that has been hunted for 2 decades to be only just barel

Anyone have theories/guesses on how the Taliban are able to pull this off? I would expect that a group that has been hunted for 2 decades to be only just barely managing to survive - how do they have weapons, transportation, logistics etc to be able to basically get their act together like the past 20 years never happened?

laurent92 5y ago
I think Pakistan and ultimately Russia funds them? I’m not well-versed, it’s only my understanding.
- ggm 5y ago
  Russia funding the Taliban. Ok.. run that playbook again for how the US funded the muj to undermine Russian investments in Afghanistan. Many thousands of young Russian conscripts died in Russia's Vietnam war. It fundamentally undermined the integrity of belief in the USSR and led directly to the end of soviet rule along with Chernobyl. I'm not really sure I can make Russia funding the Taliban work. Do you have any actual evidence because this would be like the CIA funding Al queda, in many ways..
  - zsmi 5y ago
    Not proof a funder per se, but there was this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghan...
    - ggm 5y ago
      I'm insufficiently cynical. All I can say is, this will come back to bite them, if true. Just as US aid for the anti najibulla insurgency fuelled the problems of today.
- fakedang 5y ago
  A lot of Taliban funding comes from Pakistan's ISI, as well as individual elements in Arab countries (prominently Saudi Arabia - wealthy ultra religious folks who might even be distant members of the royal family, but not affiliated to government). Apart from that, the Taliban do have the drug trade to keep them afloat. There are a few enough Russians in Afghanistan, but afaik, the Taliban are mostly ambivalent to them now. The Taliban mostly targets 3 types of folks - US and NATO people, Afghan government people, and open allies of the Afghan government (countries like India). Uzbekistan and Iran maintain very tight borders with Afghanistan so that the fighting doesn't spill over. For a very interesting tidbit, even very recently, Taliban was fighting ISIS near Badakhshan and Nuristan.
ren_engineer 5y ago
tons of foreign support from Pakistan and most likely Russia/China for the sole purpose of bleeding the US dry every major war since WWII has been a proxy war between the US and Russia/China. Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, Latin America stuff, etc.
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
The Taliban are the people of Afghanistan (obviously not all of them, but a substantial portion). We could have avoided this had we learned a lesson by watching the Soviet Union go through this same exercise a few decades ago. When you invade and occupy a hostile nation, you can either stay forever at tremendous cost in blood and treasure or eventually leave and watch the native inhabitants regain control.
- everybodyknows 5y ago
  Exception to that being the non-Pashtun minorities, who actually will fight, in numbers big enough to matter. A plan might have been devised to carve off a new, defensible state, a la Kurdistan. But that would have required bureaucracies to admit partial defeat - an acknowledgment of reality unnatural to them. So instead we have total defeat: collapse, massacres, oppression. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/afghanistan-taliban-surrounds-key-city-of-mazar-i-sharif/100349140 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/afghanistan-taliban-s...
- rhino369 5y ago
  The Taliban are not the people of Afghanistan. Less than 20% of the population supports them. The rest of the population just isn't strong enough and coordinated enough to beat a highly motivated and organized minority. While I didn't support continuation of the war because I don't see how it benefits the USA, it wasn't an unjust war. Quite the opposite. We were allies of the democratically elected Afghan government, fighting against the tyranny of a small group of religious fanatics.
  - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
    It was a predictable disaster from the very beginning - there was never any other possible outcome then the one we see today. We don't have the ability (let alone the right) to invade a country on the other side of the world with a completely alien culture and turn it into some sort of 51st state with our values. This would be true even if Afghanistan wasn't a hodgepodge of cultures and different peoples, most of which never recognized a central government of any kind and exist in a tribal system. Then consider the fact that our so-called allies in Pakistan (the ones who harbored Bin Laden) support the Taliban as a proxy force, and have all along. We could have (and should have) pursued those who attacked us on 9/11 (Al Qaeda - not the Taliban) without launching any misguided, expensive and disastrous foreign invasions with delusions that we could remake the world in our image.
mschuster91 5y ago
1. The Western nations didn't do much in terms of actual nation building and giving the country perspective beyond daily drone strikes, poverty and opium harvesting. Yes, there were a couple of schools built, but that doesn't give a country any perspective. 2. The Taliban come in and promise a return back to old times, and no drone strikes any more, which means they at least don't get resistance any more. 3. The government is corrupt as hell, the army soldiers don't see anything worth fighting for, and they don't have working heavy arms (planes, tanks). That drastically reduces how much resources the Taliban need to take over.
- spfzero 5y ago
  >1. The Western nations didn't do much in terms of actual nation building and giving the country perspective beyond daily drone strikes, poverty and opium harvesting. Yes, there were a couple of schools built, but that doesn't give a country any perspective. That's true if you don't think adding the female half of the nation to the pool of available talent helps build a nation.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    When they don't have anything to make a living for after they are finished with school, they still don't have a perspective in life. There is more to sustainably help women than just building schools.
eplanit 5y ago
The Chinese Communist Party is prepared to recognize the Taliban if (when) they overtake the government.[1][2] This is a truly historic fuck-up. It's not about it being right to withdraw (it is), but how it's done. We've wasted unfathomable money and time, not to mention lives. Now we have truly nothing gained, we're embarrassed and humiliated, and our enemies emboldened. It's pathetic. 1. https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-08-12/china-prepared-to-recognize-taliban-if-kabul-falls-sources-say-undermining-us-threats https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-08-12... 2. https://nationworldnews.com/china-has-taken-new-steps-with-afghanistan-ready-to-recognize-the-taliban/ https://nationworldnews.com/china-has-taken-new-steps-with-a...
- sxp 5y ago
  If that happens and the Taliban grow in power, would the Taliban support or oppose the occupation and genocide in Xinjiang?
  - 9oliYQjP 5y ago
    The Chinese and Russians just completed joint military exercises for the first time on Chinese mainland soil. It’s a ratcheting up of their version of NATO - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. My pet theory is Russia is playing both sides of this. The SCO has been around for 20 some odd years. But recently China and Russia have been fucking with each other and it primarily involves inviting India and Pakistan to join the pact. Anyhow, I imagine Putin is arming and possibly coordinating funding to the Taliban. Once in power the Taliban will become China’s problem in the region and may very well have some excursions past their border with China. So Putin will be able to swoop in to assist with additional military might. It may even become a showcase for the SCO as a NATO-like coalition. It’ll achieve two objectives: showing that China now is a regional military influence in a former US sphere of influence, and that Russia is still itself a military power that can throw its weight around. And just like the US in Afghanistan and the Soviets before it, this will become China’s problem to deal with long term.
nitwit005 5y ago
It doesn't sound like they had to do much of anything. The repeated complaint from defending troops is running out of food and ammo. They didn't really even have the option to fight. Every soldier is also 100% certain their government is unbelievably corrupt, which can't help. If you read about Castro and his men taking over Cuba, they got people to give up military outposts just by firing at them few times. They had no real interest in fighting for their leadership.
angelzen 5y ago
The Taliban simply need to show up, and the locals are submitting to them. Why? * Because everybody can see which way the balance of power is tipping. The US is too weak to stay, and unlikely to ever come back. The Talibans are right there, hungry for blood. * Because many would rather have Sharia law than US backed corruption. Mullah Omar was publicly executing bacha bazi perpetrators. 'One of the original factors mobilizing the rise of the Taliban was their opposition to the practice.' The US was turning a blind eye if not actively protecting them. In an infamous case, they pushed out a SOF captain and almost fired a decorated SOF sergeant for doing something about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar#Forming_the_Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar#Forming_the_Tali... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/green-beret-who-beat-up-afghan-officer-for-raping-boy-can-stay-in-army.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/green-beret-who-beat-u...
rhino369 5y ago
Because they haven't been just barely managing to survive for two decades. They got their asses kicked in 2001-02, retreated to relatively safe territory in Pakistan. And then have been fighting for the past 20 years. They've occupied territory in Afghanistan for over a decade. It's just never included cities before now. While their land in Pakistan isn't totally safe, it's their refuge. They have to worry about drone strikes and hush-hush raids, but they are relatively safe there.
pydry 5y ago
>how do they have weapons, transportation, logistics etc to be able to basically get their act together Aid from Pakistani Pashtuns. Different country, same tribe.
spfzero 5y ago
>Anyone have theories/guesses on how the Taliban are able to pull this off? No one in the US agencies who planned the pull-out and advised the Biden administration, apparently.
dredmorbius 5y ago
You don't have to die for your country. You don't have to convince the other guy to die for his. The easiest way to win is to convince the other guy not to die for his country. Very loosely paraphrasing Sun Tzu.
chewz 5y ago
> I would expect that a group that has been hunted for 2 decades to be only just barely managing to survive - how do they have weapons, transportation, logistics etc to be able to basically get their act together like the past 20 years never happened? ----- > Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply. As of 2017, opium production provides about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan, more than the Afghan National Security Forces [0] > In 2020, the area under opium cultivation expanded to 224,000 hectares from 163,000 hectares - overwhelmingly in areas under Taliban control. [1] [2] > Meth is even more profitable than heroin—and is turbocharging the insurgency. > The officials described the Taliban as the world’s biggest drug cartel and said the group is using heroin transshipment routes to push methamphetamine into new markets in Australia, Asia, North America, Europe and Africa.[4] > Later, a NATO report, accessed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, claimed that Taliban's annual budget had increased to USD 1.6 billion in the financial year 2019-20. It said that the militant group had increased its profits through illicit drug trade, illegal mining, and exports. [3] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista... [1] https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/current-affairs-trends/narco-state-in-afghanistan-taliban-opium-trade-to-fund-power-grab-insurgency-7334791.html https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/current-affairs-tre... [2] https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-what-the-conflict-means-for-the-global-heroin-trade-165995 https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-what-the-conflict-me... [3] https://english.jagran.com/world/explained-how-do-the-taliban-fund-itself-and-its-fighters-in-afghanistan-all-you-need-to-know-10030688 https://english.jagran.com/world/explained-how-do-the-taliba... [4] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-...

laurent92 5y ago

I think Pakistan and ultimately Russia funds them? I’m not well-versed, it’s only my understanding.

ggm 5y ago
Russia funding the Taliban. Ok.. run that playbook again for how the US funded the muj to undermine Russian investments in Afghanistan. Many thousands of young Russian conscripts died in Russia's Vietnam war. It fundamentally undermined the integrity of belief in the USSR and led directly to the end of soviet rule along with Chernobyl. I'm not really sure I can make Russia funding the Taliban work. Do you have any actual evidence because this would be like the CIA funding Al queda, in many ways..
- zsmi 5y ago
  Not proof a funder per se, but there was this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghan...
  - ggm 5y ago
    I'm insufficiently cynical. All I can say is, this will come back to bite them, if true. Just as US aid for the anti najibulla insurgency fuelled the problems of today.
fakedang 5y ago
A lot of Taliban funding comes from Pakistan's ISI, as well as individual elements in Arab countries (prominently Saudi Arabia - wealthy ultra religious folks who might even be distant members of the royal family, but not affiliated to government). Apart from that, the Taliban do have the drug trade to keep them afloat. There are a few enough Russians in Afghanistan, but afaik, the Taliban are mostly ambivalent to them now. The Taliban mostly targets 3 types of folks - US and NATO people, Afghan government people, and open allies of the Afghan government (countries like India). Uzbekistan and Iran maintain very tight borders with Afghanistan so that the fighting doesn't spill over. For a very interesting tidbit, even very recently, Taliban was fighting ISIS near Badakhshan and Nuristan.

ren_engineer 5y ago

tons of foreign support from Pakistan and most likely Russia/China for the sole purpose of bleeding the US dry every major war since WWII has been a proxy war between the US and Russia/China. Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, Latin America stuff, etc.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago

The Taliban are the people of Afghanistan (obviously not all of them, but a substantial portion). We could have avoided this had we learned a lesson by watching the Soviet Union go through this same exercise a few decades ago. When you invade and occupy a hostile nation, you can either stay forever at tremendous cost in blood and treasure or eventually leave and watch the native inhabitants regain control.

everybodyknows 5y ago
Exception to that being the non-Pashtun minorities, who actually will fight, in numbers big enough to matter. A plan might have been devised to carve off a new, defensible state, a la Kurdistan. But that would have required bureaucracies to admit partial defeat - an acknowledgment of reality unnatural to them. So instead we have total defeat: collapse, massacres, oppression. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/afghanistan-taliban-surrounds-key-city-of-mazar-i-sharif/100349140 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/afghanistan-taliban-s...
rhino369 5y ago
The Taliban are not the people of Afghanistan. Less than 20% of the population supports them. The rest of the population just isn't strong enough and coordinated enough to beat a highly motivated and organized minority. While I didn't support continuation of the war because I don't see how it benefits the USA, it wasn't an unjust war. Quite the opposite. We were allies of the democratically elected Afghan government, fighting against the tyranny of a small group of religious fanatics.
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  It was a predictable disaster from the very beginning - there was never any other possible outcome then the one we see today. We don't have the ability (let alone the right) to invade a country on the other side of the world with a completely alien culture and turn it into some sort of 51st state with our values. This would be true even if Afghanistan wasn't a hodgepodge of cultures and different peoples, most of which never recognized a central government of any kind and exist in a tribal system. Then consider the fact that our so-called allies in Pakistan (the ones who harbored Bin Laden) support the Taliban as a proxy force, and have all along. We could have (and should have) pursued those who attacked us on 9/11 (Al Qaeda - not the Taliban) without launching any misguided, expensive and disastrous foreign invasions with delusions that we could remake the world in our image.

mschuster91 5y ago

1. The Western nations didn't do much in terms of actual nation building and giving the country perspective beyond daily drone strikes, poverty and opium harvesting. Yes, there were a couple of schools built, but that doesn't give a country any perspective. 2. The Taliban come in and promise a return back to old times, and no drone strikes any more, which means they at least don't get resistance any more. 3. The government is corrupt as hell, the army soldiers don't see anything worth fighting for, and they don't have working heavy arms (planes, tanks). That drastically reduces how much resources the Taliban need to take over.

spfzero 5y ago
>1. The Western nations didn't do much in terms of actual nation building and giving the country perspective beyond daily drone strikes, poverty and opium harvesting. Yes, there were a couple of schools built, but that doesn't give a country any perspective. That's true if you don't think adding the female half of the nation to the pool of available talent helps build a nation.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  When they don't have anything to make a living for after they are finished with school, they still don't have a perspective in life. There is more to sustainably help women than just building schools.

eplanit 5y ago

The Chinese Communist Party is prepared to recognize the Taliban if (when) they overtake the government.[1][2] This is a truly historic fuck-up. It's not about it being right to withdraw (it is), but how it's done. We've wasted unfathomable money and time, not to mention lives. Now we have truly nothing gained, we're embarrassed and humiliated, and our enemies emboldened. It's pathetic. 1. https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-08-12/china-prepared-to-recognize-taliban-if-kabul-falls-sources-say-undermining-us-threats https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-08-12... 2. https://nationworldnews.com/china-has-taken-new-steps-with-afghanistan-ready-to-recognize-the-taliban/ https://nationworldnews.com/china-has-taken-new-steps-with-a...

sxp 5y ago
If that happens and the Taliban grow in power, would the Taliban support or oppose the occupation and genocide in Xinjiang?
- 9oliYQjP 5y ago
  The Chinese and Russians just completed joint military exercises for the first time on Chinese mainland soil. It’s a ratcheting up of their version of NATO - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. My pet theory is Russia is playing both sides of this. The SCO has been around for 20 some odd years. But recently China and Russia have been fucking with each other and it primarily involves inviting India and Pakistan to join the pact. Anyhow, I imagine Putin is arming and possibly coordinating funding to the Taliban. Once in power the Taliban will become China’s problem in the region and may very well have some excursions past their border with China. So Putin will be able to swoop in to assist with additional military might. It may even become a showcase for the SCO as a NATO-like coalition. It’ll achieve two objectives: showing that China now is a regional military influence in a former US sphere of influence, and that Russia is still itself a military power that can throw its weight around. And just like the US in Afghanistan and the Soviets before it, this will become China’s problem to deal with long term.

nitwit005 5y ago

It doesn't sound like they had to do much of anything. The repeated complaint from defending troops is running out of food and ammo. They didn't really even have the option to fight. Every soldier is also 100% certain their government is unbelievably corrupt, which can't help. If you read about Castro and his men taking over Cuba, they got people to give up military outposts just by firing at them few times. They had no real interest in fighting for their leadership.

angelzen 5y ago

The Taliban simply need to show up, and the locals are submitting to them. Why? * Because everybody can see which way the balance of power is tipping. The US is too weak to stay, and unlikely to ever come back. The Talibans are right there, hungry for blood. * Because many would rather have Sharia law than US backed corruption. Mullah Omar was publicly executing bacha bazi perpetrators. 'One of the original factors mobilizing the rise of the Taliban was their opposition to the practice.' The US was turning a blind eye if not actively protecting them. In an infamous case, they pushed out a SOF captain and almost fired a decorated SOF sergeant for doing something about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar#Forming_the_Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar#Forming_the_Tali... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/green-beret-who-beat-up-afghan-officer-for-raping-boy-can-stay-in-army.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/green-beret-who-beat-u...

rhino369 5y ago

Because they haven't been just barely managing to survive for two decades. They got their asses kicked in 2001-02, retreated to relatively safe territory in Pakistan. And then have been fighting for the past 20 years. They've occupied territory in Afghanistan for over a decade. It's just never included cities before now. While their land in Pakistan isn't totally safe, it's their refuge. They have to worry about drone strikes and hush-hush raids, but they are relatively safe there.

pydry 5y ago

>how do they have weapons, transportation, logistics etc to be able to basically get their act together Aid from Pakistani Pashtuns. Different country, same tribe.

spfzero 5y ago

>Anyone have theories/guesses on how the Taliban are able to pull this off? No one in the US agencies who planned the pull-out and advised the Biden administration, apparently.

dredmorbius 5y ago

You don't have to die for your country. You don't have to convince the other guy to die for his. The easiest way to win is to convince the other guy not to die for his country. Very loosely paraphrasing Sun Tzu.

chewz 5y ago

> I would expect that a group that has been hunted for 2 decades to be only just barely managing to survive - how do they have weapons, transportation, logistics etc to be able to basically get their act together like the past 20 years never happened? ----- > Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply. As of 2017, opium production provides about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan, more than the Afghan National Security Forces [0] > In 2020, the area under opium cultivation expanded to 224,000 hectares from 163,000 hectares - overwhelmingly in areas under Taliban control. [1] [2] > Meth is even more profitable than heroin—and is turbocharging the insurgency. > The officials described the Taliban as the world’s biggest drug cartel and said the group is using heroin transshipment routes to push methamphetamine into new markets in Australia, Asia, North America, Europe and Africa.[4] > Later, a NATO report, accessed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, claimed that Taliban's annual budget had increased to USD 1.6 billion in the financial year 2019-20. It said that the militant group had increased its profits through illicit drug trade, illegal mining, and exports. [3] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista... [1] https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/current-affairs-trends/narco-state-in-afghanistan-taliban-opium-trade-to-fund-power-grab-insurgency-7334791.html https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/current-affairs-tre... [2] https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-what-the-conflict-means-for-the-global-heroin-trade-165995 https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-what-the-conflict-me... [3] https://english.jagran.com/world/explained-how-do-the-taliban-fund-itself-and-its-fighters-in-afghanistan-all-you-need-to-know-10030688 https://english.jagran.com/world/explained-how-do-the-taliba... [4] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-trade-meth-heroin/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/19/taliban-expanding-drug-...