The wagons had better be circled

Even a quick glance at a map tells the story:

The Taliban, already strong among the Pashtuns in the east and south, are encircling the country in the mostly non-Pashtun north and west, capturing a string of provincial capitals and other population centers. They will eventually want to close in on Kabul.

What could stop the Taliban advance? Three things, in combination:

1. US air power
2. Diplomatic pressure
3. Consolidation of the Afghan security forces

The first two are happening. The US appears to be upping its air strikes and is trying to convince the Taliban it will be a pariah if wins the country by force. Pakistan is key in the international arena, as it provides the Taliban with safe haven. But there is little sign of the third: the Afghan Armed Forces (AAF) are giving in to the Taliban in many places without a fight.

It is hard to imagine they would do that in Kabul. But holding Kabul and surrounding areas will be little comfort if the rest of the country falls. Already many civilians are fleeing from the countryside toward the capital, worsening conditions there and making relief both vital and difficult.

President Ghani may still be able however to hold on, at least for a while. A lot of Afghans don’t want the Taliban back. There is little pressure in Washington so far to cut off the funding that goes mainly to the AAF, though that specter could still emerge. Withdrawal of Soviet troops and then cut-off of Soviet aid to Afghanistan in 1992 precipitated the fall of the Communist government there, just as an agreement to withdraw troops and reduction of American aid to South Vietnam contributed to the collapse of its army and goverrnment in 1975. With the American and NATO troop withdrawal virtually complete, Ghani will be watching the American budget process attentively.

In the meanwhile, he can do little more than withdraw his security forces from contested areas and try to hold only a relatively few vital population centers. At some point, a mutually hurting stalemate could create conditions for a negotiated outcome, but the Taliban role in that outcome will be enlarged by its growing control of territory.

Around 2015 I rejected an offer to join a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan. It didn’t take clairvoyance to know that the cause there was already lost. The question now is not whether it can be won, but how many more people will suffer and how much more damage will be done before the political outcome is clear. A great deal depends on deliberations among the Taliban about how much further they want to fight, but the omens are not good. The wagons had better be circled.