Surge And Strategy: Examining The Troop Increase In Afghanistan

The number of troops in Afghanistan has fluctuated since the US war in the country began in October 2001. The initial force was about 1,000 special force troops, but by the end of 2001, there were 2,500 US troops in the country. This number continued to increase, with 7,200 US troops in Afghanistan by March 2002, 9,700 by the end of 2002, and 13,100 by the end of 2003.

The number of US troops in Afghanistan peaked at 100,000 in August 2010, but by December 2013, this number had dropped to 46,000. In May 2014, President Barack Obama announced his plan to withdraw all US troops by the end of 2016. However, in October 2015, he reversed this decision, stating that the situation was too fragile for a complete withdrawal. By March 2016, there were still about 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan.

In July 2016, Obama again changed his plan, announcing that he would maintain troop numbers at 8,400 through the end of his term in January 2020. This was due to the growing Taliban threat, and the need to repel them.

In April 2021, NATO decided to withdraw all Allied troops from Afghanistan within a few months. The last US troops left Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, bringing an end to the 20-year conflict.

The US had 1,000 more troops in Afghanistan than disclosed in 2021

In March 2021, it was revealed that the US had 1,000 more troops in Afghanistan than disclosed. While the official figure was 2,500, the real number was closer to 3,500. This discrepancy was due to some Special Operations forces being put "off the books", as well as the presence of temporary and transitioning units.

This undercount complicated President Biden's decision on whether to follow through with a complete withdrawal of troops by May 1, 2021, as per the deal struck by the Trump administration and the Taliban. The additional 1,000 troops added a layer of complexity to the swirling debate at the White House. Members of Congress had repeatedly called for an increase in troops if the United States decided to stay past the withdrawal date.

The scope of the US presence in Afghanistan had become a contentious issue. The Taliban wanted American troops gone, while the Afghan government's beleaguered security forces relied on US air support. The practice of strategic undercounting is common and allows the executive branch to avoid public oversight in long and entangled conflicts.

In August 2021, the US deployed 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate the US Embassy as the Taliban seized control of multiple cities. This raised the number of US troops in the country to around 5,000. The last US military planes left Kabul airport on August 30, 2021, marking the end of the 2001–2021 war.

The US war in Afghanistan was its longest war in history

The war was fought between the US-led coalition and the Taliban, with the coalition supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. The conflict officially ended in August 2021, with the Taliban retaking control of Afghanistan.

The US-led coalition drove the Taliban from power and built military bases near major cities across the country. However, most al-Qaeda and Taliban members escaped to neighbouring Pakistan or retreated to rural or remote mountainous regions. The coalition remained in Afghanistan, forming a security mission (ISAF) sanctioned by the United Nations, with the goal of creating a new democratic authority in the country that would prevent the Taliban from returning to power. A new Afghan Interim Administration was established, and international rebuilding efforts were launched.

By 2003, the Taliban had reorganized under their founder, Mullah Omar, and began a widespread insurgency against the new Afghan government and coalition forces. Insurgents from the Taliban and other Islamist groups waged asymmetric warfare, fighting with guerrilla warfare in the countryside, suicide attacks against urban targets, and reprisals against perceived Afghan collaborators. By 2007, large parts of Afghanistan had been retaken by the Taliban. In response, the coalition sent a major influx of troops for counter-insurgency operations, with a "clear and hold" strategy for villages and towns. This influx peaked in 2011, with roughly 140,000 foreign troops operating under ISAF command across Afghanistan.

The war was not without its controversies. The CIA created Counter-terrorism Pursuit Teams staffed by Afghans, which were considered one of the "best Afghan fighting forces". However, the US was criticized for focusing on aggressive counter-terrorism and vengeance for 9/11, which provided significant momentum to the Taliban. The US also faced criticism for its handling of Afghan women's rights and for failing to secure a better outcome for Afghans.

The US war in Afghanistan incurred staggering costs. The US government spent $2.3 trillion, and the war led to the deaths of 2,324 US military personnel, 3,917 US contractors, and 1,144 allied troops. For Afghans, the statistics are unimaginable: 70,000 Afghan military and police deaths, 46,319 Afghan civilians, and some 53,000 opposition fighters killed.

The US and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020 for the withdrawal of international forces by May 2021

The US and the Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020, known as the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, or the Doha Accord, to end the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan. The deal was negotiated by Zalmay Khalilzad and signed in Doha, Qatar, on February 29, 2020.

The agreement laid out a timetable for the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan, in return for the Taliban's counter-terrorism commitments. The US agreed to an initial reduction of its forces from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days, followed by a full withdrawal within 14 months (by May 1, 2021), if the Taliban upheld its commitments. The deal also included fighting restrictions for both parties and secret annexes that were not released to the public.

The intra-Afghan negotiations were scheduled to begin on March 10, 2020, in Oslo, Norway, and the deal required the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the start of the talks. However, the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, objected to this provision, stating that the release of prisoners was the authority of the Afghan government and not the United States. Despite this objection, negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban for the release of prisoners began as planned on March 10, 2020.

The agreement was welcomed by several countries, including Pakistan, China, Russia, and India, and it received unanimous endorsement from the UN Security Council. However, there were concerns that the deal excluded the Afghan government, which had not been a party to the negotiations.

The US-Taliban agreement was a significant step towards ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan, which had resulted in the deaths of more than 157,000 people and cost the United States an estimated $2 trillion. While the deal addressed key issues such as reducing violence, withdrawing foreign troops, starting intra-Afghan negotiations, and counterterrorism assurances, the bigger challenge remained in achieving a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

The US continued to draw down troops from 2014 to 2016

By the end of 2014, the US had reduced its troops in Afghanistan to 16,100, down from 34,000 in March of that year. The US had 32,000 troops in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2014, and 101,000 at the height of its involvement in 2011.

In 2015, Obama announced that the US would keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016, reducing to 5,500 by the end of the year. However, in July 2016, Obama announced that the US would maintain 8,400 troops through the end of his term in January 2017.

The US dropped bombs in Afghanistan in October 2001

The US-led attack on Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the United States' "war on terror" and a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The conflict in Afghanistan would span two decades and become the longest war in US history.

The US military, with British support, began a bombing campaign against Taliban forces, officially launching Operation Enduring Freedom. The war's early phase mainly involved US airstrikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, assisted by about 1,000 US special forces, the Northern Alliance, and ethnic Pashtun anti-Taliban forces. The first wave of conventional ground forces arrived twelve days later.

The initial targets of the bombing campaign included Taliban troops, training camps, and air defenses. The first strikes began at around 8:45 pm on Sunday, October 7, and targeted the Taliban's air defense installations, defense ministry, airport-based command centers, airfields, electrical grids, and other energy production facilities.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said about 15 land-based bombers, 25 strike aircraft, and US and British ships and submarines fired about 50 Tomahawk missiles against terrorist targets. There was no immediate news on damage assessment, but the Pentagon used spy planes and surveillance satellites to gauge the success of its first night of bombing.

The US dropped about 1,228 CBUs (Cluster Bomb Units) with 248,056 bomblets in 232 strikes during the first six months of the war. The use of cluster bombs generated wartime criticism from governments and NGOs and gave new life to the push for cluster bomb regulation.

The first few days of the war consisted of "strategic" attacks on fixed military targets, followed by weeks of "tactical" attacks on moving targets and command-and-control activities. As part of Operation Enduring Freedom, US planes dropped bombs daily on military bases, airfields, terrorist training camps, communication facilities, and other targets.

On October 19, a small number of US ground troops were deployed to help work with and coordinate airstrikes with Afghan proxy forces. With help from the skies, these anti-Taliban forces fought their way toward the country's major urban centers. During the second week of November, they captured Mazar-i-Sharif and Taloqan in the north, Herat in the northwest, and Jalalabad in the east. The string of successes included the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, on November 13. Kunduz and Kandahar, the last Taliban strongholds, fell on November 25 and December 7, respectively.

On December 22, interim Chairman Hamid Karzai and the new government took office. The Taliban regime is generally considered to have ended on the date when the Taliban surrendered Kandahar and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar fled the city, leaving it under tribal law administered by Pashtun leaders.

The US-led coalition remained in Afghanistan, forming a security mission (ISAF) sanctioned by the United Nations, with the goal of creating a new democratic authority in the country that would prevent the Taliban from returning to power. A new Afghan Interim Administration was established, and international rebuilding efforts were launched.

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