The United States’s second retreat from Kabul 

When the United States finally left Afghanistan amid the chaos that claimed the lives of 170 civilians and 13 U.S. service personnel on Aug. 30, 2021, at Hamid Karzai International Airport, it was not the most disastrous retreat from Kabul ever suffered.  

In January 1842, nearly 16,000 souls, mostly civilian men, women and children, escaped from Kabul under the command of British Maj. Gen. William Elphinstone headed for Jalalabad 90 miles away. Only one survived — the surgeon William Brydon.

But for the Biden administration, this incident brought back memories of the last helicopter lifting off the U.S. Embassy in Saigon as the North conquered South Vietnam. And the incompetence of this noncombatant evacuation will be an issue in the 2024 election.  

Unfortunately, that such an outcome would occur was predictable.

The rule of thumb is that any crisis that one administration inherits from its predecessor in which force is used, will only get worse. And if that crisis explodes in the first months of the new administration, it will be a disaster. History is clear.

The Nixon administration inherited the Vietnam War from the Kennedy-Johnson administration. It would take five years before the United States left the field, humbled and humiliated as it fled from Saigon. More than 58,000 U.S. service members died in Vietnam.

Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden all inherited the failed Afghan and second Iraq wars and were unable to undo the damage caused by George W. Bush’s nation and democracy building in both states. Although it vehemently denies any responsibility, the Trump administration’s actions made what followed in Afghanistan inevitable.

Anxious to rid ourselves of the Afghan mess, on Feb. 29, 2020, the Doha Agreement was signed with the Taliban. That agreement specified that the U.S. would leave in 14 months, the Taliban would provide security, and the Taliban and Afghan government would negotiate future terms. The accord was so short-sighted that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not sign, directing U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to handle the honors.

Inexplicably, the Afghan government had not been represented in these proceedings. It would not take a foreign policy genius to predict the consequences. All Afghans who could tried to leave the country before May 1, 2021, and the Taliban takeover. And the Afghan security forces who knew they could neither operate nor survive without foreign contractors understood what lay ahead.  

However, the Trump administration obviously did not.

The story only becomes grimmer. President Biden had to extend the deadline to the end of August in an attempt to have as smooth a drawdown as possible. Yet the State Department’s in-house investigation and testimonies from Gens. Mark Milley and Frank McKenzie revealed that no one was in charge. The incompetence was legion.

In fairness, the administration was new, and because of the hideously slow confirmation process had many vacancies in the national security sector. Three groups of people needed to leave: U.S. employees, civilian and military, Americans living or working in Afghanistan and Afghans who worked for the U.S. and whose lives would be in jeopardy after the Taliban takeover.

The situation became untenable. On Aug. 15, 2021, President Ashraf Ghani and his government fled the country leaving the Taliban in charge. An evacuation was essential. As it turns out, the State Department has the sole responsibility for declaring noncombatant evacuation operations.  

But who in the White House was watching or informed of these deteriorating conditions? How could evacuations be conducted in a war zone when the U.S. could not provide security?

In a smaller sense, this question mirrors those that should have been answered about the wisdom of nation-building in Afghanistan and the certainty Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. However, history shows that those crucial questions remain unanswered, and the only certainty is that the U.S. continues to make this blunder no matter which party holds the White House.

The State Department’s 2023 investigation and the generals’ responses to members of Congress were scathing. But post-mortems on Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, likewise, were scathing. The only conclusion is that U.S. elected leaders never seem to learn.  

Learning why that is the case, however necessary, is less important than taking corrective action. The U.S. should know what to do. But will we ever do it? The retreat from the next Saigon or Kabul will prove that the answer, tragically, is no.  

Harlan Ullman, Ph.D., is a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council and the prime author of the “shock and awe” military doctrine. His 12th book, “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD:  How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large,” is available on Amazon. He can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman.