Invasion of Afghanistan Delayed, 2001-2002

[Japhy]

This can all be taken with a major dosage of salt considering some of the sources out there and the need to try and make things dramatic but the Invasion of Afghanistan, by the US, NATO and Australian forces in 2001 was kind of a shoestring operation. Not that thats too crazy a thing, the allies were operating out of hastily developed bases in Uzbekistan, and thanks to the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud on September 9th, the only possible allies in country we had, the Northern Alliance were on the verge of utter collapse and were already starting to shoot at each other. On top of all of this putting troops on the ground any later would have pushed the time table firmly into the start of the Afghan Winter, when the means of fighting the war would have been shut down.

On one hand, going in when we did worked. The Special Operations Teams with Northern Alliance "Regular" (IE Paid) contingents and their militias were able to land some major body blows against the Taliban and six weeks after the invasion began US Army Special Forces and Northern Alliance troops were in Kabul. Kandahar followed but the price of using a few elite units was paid in Early to Mid December at Tora Bora, when OBL got away. At which point the war turned into pretty much what we still deal with today, the ISAF was put in place, the new Afghan government begain to form and insurgency would continue across Afghanistan and over the Pakistani border.

Not to get super Hollywood about it but the initial actions in October involving very limited numbers of Allied Special Forces and the Northern Alliance were up against pretty massive numbers of Taliban troops, Air support thanks to the SF units played a decisive role but end of the day anytime you have a thousands and thousands of hostiles up against local allies and some A-Teams things don't have to go the Hollywood way. For example the battle of Mazar-i-Sharif, the first big victory that the movie with Thor fighting the terrorists comes from, was a total shock to CENTCOM who figured the Taliban wouldn't be forced out of the city until sometime in 2002.

So what happens if the Allies don't go into Afghanistan as successfully as they did or at all in 2001? And what does six months delay mean politically in the west and operationally in country as the Coalition is forced to wait until Spring to come for a real push?

 

[Japhy]

If @Burton K Wheeler or anyone else thinks this is just moronic thats fine too, I'll admit that this is a few decades after the periods of military history I'm most comfortable with

 

[The Lone Centurion]

Doing nothing ("peacenik") was politically impossible and even hinting at delay might have unleashed a storm (pun intended).

 

[Japhy]

Doing nothing ("peacenik") was politically impossible and even hinting at delay might have unleashed a storm (pun intended).

I never suggested doing nothing?

But if things develop slowly enough to the point that offensive operations run into the winter what kind of storm do you see happening?

Its also worth pointing out that even while ground operations might be held up there can still be an air campaign. The US was bombing airfields and tank parks before the offensive.

 

[Death's Companion]

I think that delay would only lead to bad things. The Taliban were not exactly unused to fighting irregular warfare, if they had time to think and prepare they would probably just melt away into the countryside and prepare for a more conventional invasion. Hitting them hard and fast early on left them paralysed.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

It seems very unlikely that the Taliban could have that much success in defending against NATO and the Northern Alliance, knowing what we do now. They had fairly recently conquered a big whack of country and didn't have very firm control over it. I also don't think they anticipated how seamlessly American airpower and Afghan landpower would integrate and how big a threat it was. Overall the Taliban were very poorly suited to acting like a state and outside of Kandahar they had no real power base, just varying degrees of alliance with regional warlords like Jalauddin Haqqani. Their conventional army was basically a mob in Toyotas with rifles that didn't have much of a chance against a mob in Toyotas with rifles and forward air controllers.

I know your question is less about if it could happen and more about what would happen if it did, but I'm really racking my brain to think of a scenario where the Taliban can hold the country after their initial battlefield defeat at Mazar-e-Sharif. The only thing I can think is some type of intrigue between rival U.S. aligned warlords, but that doesn't seem very likely.

It could be argued that the failure did happen with the botch at Tora Bora, which was almost entirely down to poor command and control between U.S. conventional troops, the Canadians, and various branches of American SOF. The whole campaign in Afghanistan was on a total shoestring, but it's inevitable that the U.S. and allies will respond quickly and aggressively and the Taliban wouldn't be able to survive any major military campaign.

 

[Japhy]

Thanks @Burton K Wheeler I'll toss it then, I'm not keen to waste time on a dead end thought experiment. Thank you though, this really is 25 years after my military understanding ends.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Thanks @Burton K Wheeler I'll toss it then, I'm not keen to waste time on a dead end thought experiment. Thank you though, this really is 25 years after my military understanding ends.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but the impetus for the POD would have to be on the side of the Afghans and not the West. There are a lot of interesting questions around the fall of 2001 in Afghanistan. What if Ahmed Shah Massoud and Abdul Haq had survived, just for one.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

I guess as I think about it all I can think of is to make things in Afghanistan go better. From a military perspective the whole thing was a total shitshow outside of a few bright spots and the Army largely treated the initial entry into the country as a failure and an impetus for major reform. Then the Taliban assassinated the two best opposition leaders and forced the U.S. to rely on heroin trafficker Hamid Karzai and Abdurrashid Dostum, the worst war criminal currently walking free.

 

[Japhy]

There are a lot of interesting questions around the fall of 2001 in Afghanistan. What if Ahmed Shah Massoud and Abdul Haq had survived, just for one.

Massoud escaping his 9/9 death is really worth a timeline on its own for sure.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Massoud escaping his 9/9 death is really worth a timeline on its own for sure.

Abdul Haq is even more interesting, though he didn't have the fame in the West that Massoud did. As a Pashtun, he would be more likely to end up in charge than Massoud would.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

I'm pretty sure I could go off an an @Archibald -style rant about Abdurrashid Dostum. He's literally the worst monster in a position of global power today. Excluding him from the invasion and subsequent political process would have been impossible, and he'll probably die in his sleep untouched and still in power.

 

[The Lone Centurion]

The Taliban and Osama weren't completely stupid, that's why they killed Massoud before unleashing 9/11. They weren't Republic Pictures serial villains.

 

[Archibald]

I'm pretty sure I could go off an an @Archibald -style rant about Abdurrashid Dostum. He's literally the worst monster in a position of global power today. Excluding him from the invasion and subsequent political process would have been impossible, and he'll probably die in his sleep untouched and still in power.

Even cholera died when he tried to contaminate Dostum. Nah, happy ?

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

The Taliban and Osama weren't completely stupid, that's why they killed Massoud before unleashing 9/11. They weren't Republic Pictures serial villains.

And they'd been trying to get Abdul Haq for years. Those two assassinations in particular really were brilliant, because it definitely crippled the ability of the Afghan opposition to build an effective government. As many flaws as Karzai has, we're lucky they didn't get him as well. That random Kabuli guy who was killed by Karzai's American bodyguards after taking out an attempted assassin is really one of the heroes of modern Afghanistan.

Even cholera died when he tried to contaminate Dostum. Nah, happy ?

Thank you. I just can't express my feelings about someone like Dostum as well as you can.

 

[Md139115]

This would have been completely out of character for the US, but what if we had decided to restore the monarchy instead? Mohammad Zahir Shah was in poor health, but after Massoud’s death, he was probably the last man in Afghanistan everyone respected, and he had a proven track record of being a liberal and competent ruler.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

This would have been completely out of character for the US, but what if we had decided to restore the monarchy instead? Mohammad Zahir Shah was in poor health, but after Massoud’s death, he was probably the last man in Afghanistan everyone respected, and he had a proven track record of being a liberal and competent ruler.

The monarchy was restored as much as practical. Mohammed Zahir Shah was given the official title "Father of the Nation", and Karzai was a kinsman of his.

The idea of having one strong leader fixing everything in Afghanistan isn't a practical one, especially in 2001. There were too many power bases to placate and leaving any out would mean disaster. As it is, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar stayed out and is still fighting the government, along with the Haqqani Network and the Noorzai/Eshaqzai tribes from Kandahar who had been the Taliban's first supporters (they're archrivals of the king's Popolzai/Mohammedzai power base). If Ismail Khan or Abdurrashid Dostum had also chosen to fight the government, Afghanistan would have never gotten off the ground, and considering their roots in neighboring countries besides Pakistan, there would have been huge geopolitical effects.

Afghanistan has to operate on a basis of compromise and consensus and all parties need to have a stake. Putting a king actually in charge doesn't do that, since he doesn't have any sort of universal appeal.

 

[OHC]

IIRC the idea of restoring the king was tossed around by a few people in US intelligence in the early 80s, but the idea was quickly scrapped because there was no royalist resistance to give money and weapons to. Zahir Shah's political power had evaporated by the early days of the Soviet invasion, let alone by the 2000s.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

IIRC the idea of restoring the king was tossed around by a few people in US intelligence in the early 80s, but the idea was quickly scrapped because there was no royalist resistance to give money and weapons to. Zahir Shah's political power had evaporated by the early days of the Soviet invasion, let alone by the 2000s.

The CIA plan for Afghan independence was to install Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a strongman dictator. Hekmatyar might have been (might be currently) the only single candidate who could keep order in the country.

Of course, what actually happened was that Hekmatyar (with the help of Abdurrashid Dostum) pulled out of the governing process and massacred 20,000 civilians in Kabul, then let the country collapse into civil war that the Taliban emerged from.

 

[Md139115]

Afghanistan has to operate on a basis of compromise and consensus and all parties need to have a stake. Putting a king actually in charge doesn't do that, since he doesn't have any sort of universal appeal.

I understand the argument you are making, but it seems like even you don’t hold out much hope of this happening.

I am just going to play Devil’s Advocate here: If operating a nation of Afghanistan is such a complex operation, why not just dissolve it instead? Make de jure what is already de facto and carve up the nation into hundreds of little statelets a la HRE. Much of Pakistan’s fears would be solved about a two-front situation, the Central Asian stans could make protectorates out of their ethnic kinsmen, and the US could browbeat each of the warlords into giving it military access to their states in exchange for protecting them from getting overthrown by the Taliban.