 We have about a minute to go, but I'll just introduce myself real quick. My name is Professor Hayat Alvi. I'm a civilian academic in the NSA department, National Security Affairs. Welcome to the lecture of opportunity on Afghanistan, the events in Afghanistan. I do see 12 o'clock now, so we'll officially get started. Thank you all for joining us today to hear this panel of very esteemed scholars. Here's the format. We will begin with Professor Jim Cook and then Professor Rabia Zafar and Professor Nick Gosdav. Each speaker will speak for between 10 to 15 minutes. This will be followed by the Q&A session. Just a couple of quick notes. This is being recorded and once we get to the Q&A session, the recording will be stopped. You can start putting your questions in the chat as we go along and I will be screening the Q&A questions and if you have a specific panelist, if you want to direct a question to, please make sure you indicate that in your question posted in the chat. And one last thing I have to give the official disclaimer, which is that everything that the panelists and I say during the presentations and Q&A of this lecture of opportunity represents each person's personal views and not those of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Navy. So with that, thank you again for joining us. We will begin with Professor Jim Cook. Thanks, hi, my name's Professor Jim Cook. I'm a professor of National Security Affairs, but in addition to writing about and examining Afghanistan, I'm also a practitioner in that I'm a retired Army officer who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan. And so what I want to talk about is kind of the military aspects of the conflict. And I think it's especially important because in the aftermath of the loss of 13 US service members following last week's suicide bombing at H. Kaya, President Biden said that there will be a time for addressing criticism and self-examination later. Well, when that time comes, one of the many questions that senior US leaders and policymakers will have to address is why did the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces or the A&DSF fail to fight for their country? And this is an especially important question because Biden's withdrawal plan relied on the 300,000 A&DSF troops that were quote, well-equipped as well-equipped as any army in the world and supported by the Afghan Air Force. After all, the United States invested some $83 billion in creating and maintaining this force. But given the unexpected speed and success of the Taliban's offensive across the country, his faith and their capability seemed this place that wildly optimistic, if not completely delusional in retrospect. During the Taliban's lightning fast offensive where one provincial capital after another fell over an 11 day period, it clearly frustrated Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that this is their country. These are their military forces. These are their provincial capitals. They're people to defend. And it's really gonna come down to the leadership that they're willing to exude here at this particular moment. But despite the administration's demands, it appears that the Taliban simply weren't challenged on the battlefield. Instead, local and national commanders negotiated surrender deals with the Taliban in exchange for money and security guarantees at the expense of the country. And of course, this leads to the all important question, why? Well, as many things with this conflict, the answer is complicated. First, the argument that the A&DSF did not fight for their country is simply incorrect as over 66,000 were killed over the course of the 20 year conflict. That said, one can make a distinction between the sacrifice that the A&DSF made over the years and its performance or lack thereof during the Taliban's final offensive and end game for the Afghan government. The notion that a well-trained and equipped Afghan security force would simply melt away, reflects the lack of faith in the Afghan government's leadership and the poor state of morale, exacerbated by the hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops and critical enablers such as close air support and logistics. The fledgling Afghan Air Force was overwhelmed by calls to support Afghan forces while the simultaneous removal of U.S. defense contractors required by the bilateral Afghan peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban simply decimated their maintenance capabilities. In fact, some have argued that the U.S. termination of its longstanding support actually helped pave the way for the Taliban's return to power. Thus, while the aggregate troop numbers would suggest that Kabul held the upper hand, this episode demonstrates the psychological impact on a numerically superior force against a determined enemy. And a stark reminder that wars are simply not fought on paper. Moreover, the peace agreement prohibited the Taliban from attacking U.S. or coalition troops while the ANDSF was not afforded this protection. It's also worth remembering that this agreement did not include the Afghan government in Kabul. They sent a clear signal to the ANDSF about U.S. priorities and intentions. Afghans are pragmatic and could see the direction of U.S. support. Unsurprisingly, the Taliban targeted the ANDSF that paid a horrible price in casualties while the Taliban correctly claimed that they were still adhering to the peace deal. I strongly recommend that you read the recent New York Times op-ed authored by Lieutenant General Sami Sadat who commanded the 215th Maywan Corps in Helmand Province before being ordered at the last minute to secure Kabul an impossible task. Sadat wrote emotionally but accurately about the sense of betrayal he felt from both U.S. and Afghan governments. He brings the credibility of someone who had to endure the agonizing impact of decisions made in Washington and Kabul on the ground as he fought for his country. Unfortunately, the surrendering of Afghan security forces included the transfer of U.S. provided vehicles and weapons systems, making the Taliban an even stronger and more capable fighting force. Additionally, major bases in Afghanistan such as Bagram Airfield were turned over to the Taliban without resistance. Worse, Bagram also houses the Parwan Prison and an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 prisoner were released including hardened Taliban fighters but also presumably members of al-Qaeda and maybe ISIS in the Karazhan Province or ISIS-K. Now, all of this is profoundly disappointing for those of us that helped create, train, equip and fund the Afghan national security and defense forces. That said, I wanna make clear that the Afghan government and security forces have some agency here and Biden used their lack of willingness to fight as a reason to double down on his decision to withdraw. Essentially saying that we cannot want it more than them and that another year in Afghanistan would not have made a difference. But while this may be true, it does not excuse the chaos created by the horrendous and tragic way the U.S. withdrew from the country. Now I'll close with my belief that the original sin in all of this is the 2002 bond agreement that paved the way for U.S. defeat in Afghanistan as we never really matched our lofty goals with the necessary resources. The agreement called for the creation of a central government in an historically tribal country, as well as a Western-style military under the control of that government instead of a more decentralized system of security. In essence, we replaced the traditional warlord and militia structure with a more centralized system that would turn out to be an enormous effort in both frustration and futility. Over the years, we stood up, Task Force Phoenix and the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan or CSTCA that created and maintained a large military organization that included the Ministry of Defense and the Afghan National Army with its seven corps, special operations, and even an Air Force. In addition to generating security forces, however, this massive enterprise was riddled with bureaucracy and corruption. Worse, we created an army in our image, one that relied on sophisticated equipment and technical support that would prove simply unsustainable without that continued US support. The Sami Sadat Abed explains this particular aspect in some detail. Now, while all of this was occurring, the Taliban had reconstituted as a fighting force following the initial US invasion and was waging a growing insurgency against the newly formed government in Kabul and US and coalition forces. In response to the growing insurgent threat, then-President Obama announced the surge of 100,000 troops that also included an 18-month deadline to begin a withdrawal of those same forces. Now, while this calendar-driven approach was domestically and politically popular, it sent the Taliban a message that they could simply wait out the United States. So the Obama administration ended the US combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014 and turned over the major fighting to Afghan security forces. This allowed the US to significantly reduce its military footprint in the country. To facilitate this transition, NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, stood down, it was replaced by Operation Resolute Support that focused on a trained, advised, and assist mission for the AMDSF. And while the surge certainly weakened the Taliban, what followed was a relative stalemate, where the Taliban was slowly able to gain and expand influence in the rural areas of the country while the AMDSF focused on protecting the more populated areas. Of course, that stalemate ended with the termination of Operation Resolute Support in July, along with the subsequent US and coalition air logistics intelligence support. Simply put, the AMDSF saw the writing on the wall. Their government was cut out of the bilateral USP deal with the Taliban, and the coalition drew down its military footprint and eventually cut off all support. In response, Afghan political and military leaders cut deals with the Taliban, and even some fled the country. So the question is, why would AMDSF soldiers fight and die for their countries when their leaders would not? Over time, America's view of Afghanistan went from the good war to the forgotten war and a forever war that spanned two decades. I don't need to tell this audience that some of the children of Afghan veterans were sent to the same combat theater as their parents. Moreover, the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were and are unpopular among the American public. A recent public opinion poll conducted earlier this month showed that some 60% of the public still thinks those wars were not worth fighting. Contrast that with polls taken at the beginning of the conflict that showed overwhelming support, 88 plus percent for the good war. Now, the Afghans have a saying that you Americans have the watches, but we have the time. And that seems quite a prescient observation today. The phrase points out that even though the US has technology, the watches on their side, time is ultimately on their side because Washington simply lacks the political will to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely and will eventually leave. It also means that the Taliban could afford to be patient and wait until the time was right to strike. And that's exactly what they did. So while the national attention and bandwidth are rightfully focused on completing the US evacuation from Kabul, there are serious longer-term challenges that must be addressed. First and foremost, will this be a repeat of the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 that saw the rise of ISIS and necessitated the return of US troops? Initial indications are not positive. And I'm happy to discuss this or other issues during the question and answer period. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Cook. And now we turn to Professor Rabia Zafar. Thank you so much, Haif. I'm Rabia Zafar. I'm a postdoctoral fellow in NSA. My research is on the incentives for extremist violence, which is what I'll be talking about today. I've conducted field research in Pakistan and also served as an intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency. I'd like to preface my comments today by acknowledging the fact that much of the analysis that we are seeing, especially in the popular press, is devoid of Afghan voices. That doesn't necessarily make it incorrect, but it does make it incomplete. And by that metric, what I'll present to you today is in many ways incomplete. I've tried my best through phone interviews in the past week or so with people in the region, in Pakistan, mostly to kind of fill this gap a little bit. These are people with on the ground knowledge who speak Pashto, who have sources within Afghanistan. So I've tried that and also based some of my analysis on reporting from journalists currently inside Kabul. So like I said, I'll focus my comments on extremist violence and the current and future incentives for this type of violence in Afghanistan. As we saw from the heartbreaking breaking events in the past week at Kabul Airport, incentives for extremist violence are high. And I believe they will continue to rise unless there is some sort of major exogenous shock to the incentive structures that are beginning to take root. So why are these incentive structures taking root? These particular incentive structures. What is it actually contributing to the rising incentives for extremist violence? I believe that there are three related and overarching factors. Number one, I think there's a great deal of uncertainty. So people have described this as a political vacuum, but more precisely, I believe that the problem is a bureaucratic vacuum. An uncertainty of resource allocations, resources of all types are up for grabs. And by resources, I'm talking firstly about official state resources, right? Who controls jobs, building contracts, who gets to collect tax revenue? Who are the new patrons? And I use that term very meaningfully patrons, because there were definitely old patrons, right? The idea that at any point in the past 20 years or even before the Afghan government was a formalized, regularized system of governance is a little bit of make-believe. There were informal irregular mechanisms of governance in place throughout this period and prior, of course. Officials in the Afghan government acted in unofficial capacities and service provision and access to basic governance was at least partially dispensed with within patronage-based systems. But those patrons no longer exist and that really is the vacuum that's the gap. Secondly, by resources, I mean illegal funding streams, criminal rackets, extortion rackets, and then very practically the houses, property, businesses of former Afghan government officials, political elites, those are all up for grabs. There have been reports coming out of Afghanistan about criminals showing up to places demanding property, knowing that some people have two or three cars and saying, give over the keys, give over payment. In some places, those people are saying that they are Taliban and in others, they're saying that they're ISIS, ISIS-K or Daesh or also known as ISIS-KP, ISIS Islamic State or Islam province. And how do we know that their criminals are not actually either ISIS or Taliban fighters? It's because the locals are telling us this is the case. The locals are saying, well, we know that this person was a criminal gang member or extortionist and now they're positioning themselves as Taliban-linked or ISIS-K-linked. So all this to say is that this uncertainty is what's heightening incentives for extremist violence. Claimants, potential patrons are trying to establish legitimacy and credibility. They need to first be able to physically secure and maintain control of these resources. And then they need to show potential clients that they have the street credibility deliver, deliver the services, meet the needs of ordinary Afghans who are there. The second factor that I believe is raising incentives for extremist violence is ironically a desire for Taliban to be seen as a legitimate government, right? So the Taliban officials have given assurances to the Chinese, for example, that Uighurs, Uzbeks, Tajiks will not be given safe haven in Afghanistan. They've made assurances to the international community that women's rights will be protected under the confines of Sharia law. I'm not saying that I believe the Taliban, but what I am saying is that these kinds of concessions give ISIS-K an in. It gives them a way to define themselves in contrast to the Taliban, who they're not painting as the newer, more bearded version of the Afghan government, right? So there have been videos circulating of Taliban fighters dancing in the streets, doing the traditional Afhan-Patan dance, Pashtun dance. And they're showing these videos as evidence of the Taliban's lack of Islamic credentials. When this is telling, the Taliban is the new establishment and ISIS-K is the opposition, the rebels who are going to bring true Islamic rule, Islamic governance to Afghanistan. This is a dangerous dynamic that's being created because it forces the Taliban and forces them to kind of engage in this religious outbidding with ISIS-K, to prove themselves religious or extremist outbidding, to really prove their credentials. And to be clear, this is not ideology. These are incentives, it's incentive-driven. So the enforcement of social codes like dress, beards, banning music, these all provide opportunities for money-making, for exerting authority in a very public way, right? And this has always been the case. It's always been the purview of these low-level members of these groups. This is how you get the 20-something-year-old Taliban fighter, something to do, to endow them with a sense of authority, power, and income, very importantly, to otherwise unskilled labor. So this enforcing of burqas and beards with a whip in particular is empowering and profitable for these young, uneducated men. The third factor is a bit of a wild card. It's a potential factor that could raise incentives for extremist violence, and that's Pakistan, and Pakistan's behavior. So as of now, I would argue that Pakistan has an incentive in contributing to a stable Afghanistan, right? It has 3 million or so Afghan refugees prior to this time, and the UN has asked Pakistan not to close its border checkpoints. So Pakistan at this moment has an incentive in maintaining stability in Afghanistan. But a worse situation for Pakistan than a civil war in Afghanistan would actually be a rise in its own domestic terrorism. The kind that it saw in the mid-2000s, right? There are reports that anywhere from 300 to 800 TTP fighters, that's 30 hit on Pakistan, fighters that have been released, including Pakir Mohammed from Bajar province. He's the TTP number two, reports that he's been released. So Pakistan literally can't afford instability within its borders, especially against the $60 billion or so worth of CPAC infrastructure, right? The Chinese have made this very clear to Pakistan in the past month or so, there have been two where, you know, we're kind of positioned as, you know, a technical blast, but you know, there were some inclaim that they were terrorists related or a form of terrorism. And there's been, you know, in no uncertain terms, the Chinese have said this is not acceptable to Pakistan. So Pakistan can't afford this type of instability within its borders. So if it comes down to it, the Pakistan military establishment will do what it takes to contain that instability within Afghanistan. And this would mean supporting the most capable actor, which by definition almost, has to be the most violent actor, the ones with the means and ability to both incite violence, but also to quell that violence. So the good news in all of this is that these incentive structures, I believe are still in flux, right? These incentive structures for extremist violence. And that means that there's room to influence them. And granted, in some cases, it's very limited, but there is that room because they're still malleable in some ways. So my first point about the uncertainty of resources, I don't think there's much that can be done about that in the immediate term. But going forward, any humanitarian aid or resource provision needs to be managed very skillfully. It's the work of development professionals and diplomats. I saw the Pakistan International Airlines report today that they conducted the first humanitarian aid flight of medicines from the WHO into Kabul. So that type of humanitarian aid is of course very much needed, but it cannot become a new funding stream. It cannot aid in incentives. It cannot give to the rising incentives for extremist violence, what needs to be managed. On my second point, and this may be controversial, but I think that the international community should stop publicly demanding concessions of the Taliban. And make no mistake, I believe that those concessions, especially on women's rights, minority rights need to be demanded very forcefully and be directly tied to any future aid or any type of international recognition. But those demands need to be made in private through back channels, right? We can't give fuel to ISIS K's narrative of the Taliban being a new, less bearded Afghan government. We cannot allow ISIS to paint itself as the more religious and therefore more credible group in opposition to the Taliban. So this religious outbidding that I spoke about, we can't allow that process to actually happen by giving more credibility to those narratives. The Taliban is clearly playing this two-level game between the international audience and the domestic audience. And if pushed by the international community, if the international community forces its hand, I don't think there's any question that the Taliban will go all in on the domestic front. And finally, my third point about Pakistan, in order for Pakistan to play a positive role in Afghanistan, it needs to feel secure domestically. I don't believe this means throwing more money at the military establishment, but I do think it means pulling back on this sense of diplomatic isolation that Pakistan has been feeling, toning down the hashtag sanctioned Pakistan rhetoric and helping its civil society. It doesn't have to be always a military establishment engagement, working with civil society, NGOs to respond to humanitarian needs of Afghan refugees in the country, engaging with Pakistan civilian government, particularly at the provincial level with its law enforcement, which suffers the brunt of any uptick in domestic terrorism. So those are certain, kind of my first takes on how to respond to these still kind of malleable incentive structures. And I'll leave it there and hopefully continue the conversation in the Q and A. Thank you, Professors Afar. We now turn to Professor Nick Gosdev. Thank you. Thank you very much. I thought I would start by looking at what this has been having in terms of the domestic US discussion, both about Afghanistan, but also more broadly the question of US engagement in the world, as well as the question of whether or not we're seeing a grand international relations theory experiment play out in real time with regard to the US and NATO departure from Afghanistan and what this means for regional security and for the other major players in the region. The first is taking a look and Rabia talked a bit about two level games that the Afghan, the Taliban are playing a two level game and they're aware that there is a two level game here in the United States. And Jim also referred to this that the termination of US involvement in Afghanistan is something that carries a broad bipartisan support. The recent polling done by the Chicago Council shows that this is actually one of the few issues on which self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents largely agree. Certainly there's a lot of concern about how the withdrawal has been handled, whether mistakes were made both by the Trump and then by the Biden administrations. A lot of, well, it should have been done better or handled differently, but on the fundamental question of whether or not it was time for the United States to wind down any kind of active involvement in Afghan affairs through the use of the military. This is an issue that, as I said, has broad bipartisan support. It's one of the issues, few issues on which you have agreement across party lines among Americans that it was time to wrap this conflict up. And even what we have seen over the last two weeks has not really changed the needle. So subsequent polling data indicates that while there might be some support for prolonging the evacuation, creating conditions for the evacuation to occur more stably, doing more to rescue people who might be trapped, the idea of reversing the decisions taken by the Trump and Biden administrations is not something where you're seeing a ground swell of support. To some extent, I would also attribute this to fatigue. We have seen this fatigue, not only with regard to Afghanistan, but also to two other news items that go beyond the remit of our discussion today, but which are worth mentioning, which is yet another earthquake in Haiti, yet another outbreak of fighting and famine in Ethiopia, and to which the American population, by and large, feels that the US has done what it could. It offered help. That help was not taken or was squandered or whatever excuse is presented. And there's a sense of fatigue of not continuing to provide support. This may have implications, by the way, for humanitarian aid and assistance that right now Afghanistan is in the headlines in a week or two, it may not be. And the humanitarian crisis that will continue to develop there may not get the level of attention or even sympathy from the American public as we pivot to two other issues. And so this sense that the United States, well, we should have stayed or that the United States was wrong to leave is not something that I think you're going to see a lot of political movement on. I don't think this is going to be an issue in domestic politics. I don't think you're going to be seeing people running next year on the slogan of we should have stayed in Afghanistan. The one caveat being that if there is a major terrorist incident in the United States that can be shown to have occurred from Afghan refugees, that might change that discussion. But as we've seen in recent years, terror movements have dispersed, they've become more digital. Certainly the Taliban understands, I think this generation of Taliban leaders understands in a way that their predecessors did not that the essential bargain that their control over Afghanistan is less likely to be contested if there are no incidents that are traced back to areas under Taliban control in Afghanistan may lead to some sort of modus vivendi moving forward. And this of course then raises the issue of ISIS-K, also the Haqqani network, which has also not shown in its activities that it respects borders or that it feels bound by borders in distinguishing where it feels it should carry out its activity. And so this may be something very interesting to see how the Taliban shapes Afghanistan moving forward. At the same time, all of this discussion, well, what does this mean for the United States and for credibility and so on and so forth and that is a useful vein of conversation we may wanna take in the Q&A. But one of the related issues to that is how many governments in the region essentially assumed that the United States was always going to be carrying the load or that the United States when push came to shove would not actually in the end leave Afghanistan. We certainly, this was the belief of the Afghan government President Ghani, ex-President Ghani right to the end still believe that, well, the United States isn't serious and they see that things are changing. They're going to come back in force and that did not happen. But other countries surrounding Afghanistan are now dealing with that reality, starting with China, which was very happy to have the United States take the lead in the security mission while it attempted to see what economic, geo-economic benefits it could gain in Afghanistan itself but also for its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is a vital part of Chinese geo-economic strategy. The question about whether China is prepared to defend its interests by becoming more involved in Afghan affairs we'll have to see. But in essence, the security subsidy that was provided by the United States and its NATO allies and partners in Afghanistan for China has been removed and whether or not China will play a more active role is something we should continue to watch. This will be a first major test of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which brings together Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, the countries of Central Asia. For a number of years, very content to sit on the sidelines and snipe at the United States. You're doing everything wrong. You're not providing security. If only we could step up and take up the challenge. And essentially the United States, this may not have been a guiding force in the part of the Biden administration's timeline and decision, but in essence, whether deliberate or not on our part, we are responding to that by saying we are leaving. We have left Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Now's your chance to step up. If you can do a better job of creating a stable framework for Afghanistan and therefore creating a more stable regional framework, lots of luck to you. Good luck. And this is why I said this is an interesting test of international relations theory. We talk a lot about what would it mean for the United States to retrench, the United States to return to being a position of an offshore balancer, to return to an over the horizon position in terms of, particularly in this case of Afghanistan, and what would happen for other powers in the region. Now they're going to have to face an Afghanistan where the United States is not going to be the primary bill payer in terms of trying to create regional security. And it will be up to them to decide what they choose to do, what risks they're willing to take. Certainly in Russia, there's a very mixed reaction to this. In the one hand, Moscow sees this as a vindication of its view that the United States is losing influence. On the other hand, now it's up to Russia to decide what it's going to do to try to prevent spillover from Afghanistan into Central Asia and from Central Asia into Russia proper and from Russia proper perhaps into Europe. This was certainly the subject of discussions between outgoing Chancellor Merkel and President Putin in Moscow last week is the question of what is Russia going to be doing to in essence try to help contain the situation in Afghanistan from spilling out and affecting other countries. What this means for the US-India strategic relationship is also going to be interesting to monitor. This may have an impact of reinforcing some voices within the Indian national security establishment that caution about too close of a relationship with the United States that the United States might be seen as perhaps unreliable or that the United States is only prepared to do so much and that this is why India should not forego its position its traditional position of its omnidirectional foreign policy of keeping its ties to Russia of trying to not necessarily automatically align with the United States against China. So there may be some impact there as well. What this has created, of course, is it's putting the rising powers on notice and perhaps the world as a whole that the United States, which has been a consistent bill payer for global security for the last 30 years and we've done it not simply for altruistic reasons but because we derive some real benefits from it, including this was a way to try to prevent great power rivals from acquiring more capabilities that could then challenge the United States. But in essence, we're saying we're not gonna be paying the bills for Afghanistan and it's up now to other countries to decide whether or not they're willing to take the risks or whether they're going to step up and do more. It should also be a warning again to our allies and partners both in Europe and in Asia not to make the assumption that President Ghani unfortunately did based on my read of the situation that when the United States essentially says that we're going to be pulling back and cutting back on our costs and expenditures that saying, well, we can just sit back and wait for a crisis in the American cavalry will come riding back over the hills, perhaps to both our European and Asian allies of a greater degree that they should be paying to self-reliance that the United States may not be completely underwriting their security or regional security arrangements moving forward in the future. And so what this means for intra-alliance relationships particularly in Europe as we move towards what NATO will be doing in the coming year. We'd be quite interesting to monitor. I think we'll continue to see some of these ramifications playing out for the foreseeable future and not just connected to what happens in Afghanistan in particular, but what this is saying about the United States rebalancing the role that it's prepared to play in the world. So I'll stop with that. Thank you very much. I am going to stop recording now as we transition to the Q and A.