Surprise visit yesterday to Kabul by the US Secretary of State Antony blinken, the day after Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by 11 September. An inevitable decision for the American president, but probably made not without some stomach ache within his administration. According to some sources close to the White House, not all of Biden's advisers and closest collaborators would have agreed, with the opposite opinion expressed by some of the Pentagon and State Department leaders. Among the most determined to oppose the withdrawal order, CNN reports, would have been the chief of staff Mark milley and the leader of Us Central Command Frank McKenzie.
Meanwhile, the Taliban sing victory: "We have defeated America“, They exult, as Blinken met the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani and senior US officials in Kabul to reassure them of the future. But also to reiterate the need to put an end to what has come back to be defined as "an eternal war", which began after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
"I wanted to show with my visit that the commitment of the United States to the Islamic Republic and the Afghan people continues", The head of US diplomacy then said:"The type of partnership changes, but the alliance will last over time".
Meanwhile theEuropean Union takes note of the decisions of the United States and NATO to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan starting May XNUMXst":"In light of these decisions - said Nabila Massrali, spokesperson for the EU external action service - a firm and constructive commitment to peace negotiations by all sides will be essential. And the EU will continue to work with international partners to encourage a politically negotiated solution through continuous direct talks between the parties and will continue appeals for an end to violence ".
The head of the Farnesina, Luigi Di Maio explained how the ministries of Foreign, of DEFENSE and Major state, together with Palazzo Chigi, will elaborate a road map for the training camp of the Italian troops.
The reasons for the withdrawal explained by General Pasquale Preziosa
A couple of years ago the general Pasquale PRECIOUS, former Chief of Staff of theair Force until 2016 and today president ofEurispes Safety Observatory, had extensively studied and analyzed, and in some ways predicted, the withdrawal of the United States from Afghan territory.
At the time, according to some American analysts, Afghanistan's National Security had deteriorated since NATO, in 2014, reduced its presence on the ground and had not allowed the Afghan security forces to reach the training levels provided for by the US plans. , General PREZIOSA believed in this regard: "Not so, this is just a little "superfine" way to remove responsibility from those who hold the authority ".
The reasons, the true ones, must be sought through the historical analysis of all the events and strategic decisions that have affected that tormented country, specified the general.
The level of National Security of Afghanistan has never depended on the levels of NATO presence in that theater both because the NATO military component has always been very small in size, and because the strategic choices and points of fall of this strategy they have been developed by the USA and illustrated to allies for the sharing of politically, economically and legally sustainable parts.
Trump had already stated in a speech at that time that Afghanistan needed to take more responsibility for the war and its future.
In the same speech, the American president also pointed out that India would be the US partner country in South Asia.
Official speeches must be purged of the usual rhetoric to examine the salient geopolitical aspects of interest, General Pasquale PREZIOSA pointed out.
The first aspect that emerged from the examination of the president's speech is the indication of who must be responsible for the conflict in Afghanistan and not for the resolution of the conflict, thus allowing us to glimpse a probable removal of the coalition's military support for the current government of that country.
With these premises, the Doha talks with the Taliban continued, where the Special Assistant for South Asia, the US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, was negotiating the conditions for the passage of the country into Taliban hands.
The negotiations included the following points: to abide by the Constitution in force in the country, not to grant training bases for terrorists and to fight the ISIS formations present.
We recall that in the 2011 there were 100.000 US soldiers, British 10.000 and 30.000 NATO soldiers in addition to American contractors, such forces were not enough, to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
In the following years, with the Western troops on the ground reduced to a flicker, the possibility that it was the Afghan forces we trained to defeat the Taliban was pure fantasy., indeed it was questionable with what spirit the Afghan soldiers could have fought the Taliban if, in the short term, the Americans and allies would then leave Afghanistan in their hands, "Afghanistan under the Taliban had been a brutal theocracy"Said the gen. Tommy Franks (Centcom Commander until 2003).
Once again the strategic plan for Afghanistan was in US hands and not in NATO decisions, as it naturally should be.
20 years in Afghanistan
Let us now examine some important dates of these 20 years spent by the coalition in Afghanistan, to verify the existence of strategic flaws in the conduct of operations.
When US troops intervened in the 2001 in Afghanistan, there were the Taliban who ruled the country, who had given hospitality to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorism and Afghanistan was the first world producer of Marihuana.
The objectives set at the time were: elimination of both the Taliban and the Al Qaeda organization, eradicating opium crops, freeing women, renewing the country in a democratic sense, so that it could no longer pose a danger to humanity. . The US thus proclaimed the "Global war on terrorism".
The levels of ambition established for Afghanistan in the wake of the emotion of 11/XNUMX were very high, as were the budget allocations for both the country's funding and military operations.
The participation of individual nations in support of US operations also reached the considerable number of 53 countries, and NATO for the first time in its history, following the terrorist act of September 11, he invoked on October 2, 2001 theArticle V of the Atlantic Pact, which states that an armed attack against one or more members of the Alliance must be considered as an attack against all the countries of the Alliance itself.
In the 2003 the US greatly reduced troops in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq, without waiting for the completion of the work begun in Afghanistan: Bush already in the 2002 spoke of axis of evil e Rogue states, such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
The opening of two war fronts, unfortunately with the same amount of US forces present in that operational area, led to the need to feed Iraq not with new military forces (170.000 units), but at the expense of fighting units in Afghanistan .
The absence of sufficient military forces on Afghan soil, since 2003, it allowed the Taliban to rise again and begin the gradual reconquest of the lost territory.
The few US reinforcements then sent by the 2009, after 6 years of absence, little they could do to conquer what regained by the Taliban,
The new 2011 reinforcements, resulting from the new US focus change from Iraq to Afghanistan, with troop withdrawals from Iraq and repositioning in Afghanistan, were ineffective to eliminate all the terrorist and criminal metastases developed since the 2003 with the first change of operational focus (strategic strabismus) USA from Afghanistan to Iraq.
The terrorist situation was further complicated by the withdrawal of US troops from IRAQ, which saw the budding of a further terrorist organization: the ISIS which also affected Afghanistan, aggravating the already critical security level of the country.
Therefore, the current problems of insecurity in Afghanistan are only the consequence of the decisions taken in the far 2003 by the USA, which decided the significant reduction of military forces on the ground, which could not consolidate and stabilize the results achieved with the victory achieved with the invasion started on 7 October 2001.
America and its interests in India
There are not many strategic insights to be made on this subject: the choice of India by the US, automatically makes Pakistan's strategic and operational support for operations in Afghanistan lapse, pushes Pakistan into Chinese, Russian, and for certain also Iranian.
According to the Trump administration, Afghanistan and terrorism, reduced in their revolutionary aspirations, would have had a lower priority in the new geopolitical cycle, compared to the new element that was on the horizon but has now consolidated, China.
The USA and consequently China have already identified the new allied countries for the next geostrategic comparisons.
In fact, we are witnessing today the consolidation of this confrontation between the further Chinese economic and commercial expansionism and the US response, linked to both the "Trade War with the world", And to the policy of containment of Chinese expansionism.
This new confrontation was born in the digital age and is characterized by the new dominance in the cyber dimension with the “information trade”.
According to some scholars, the domination of cyberspace is the key factor in gaining power.
Therefore, today's Afghanistan is immersed in a different geopolitical framework than it was 20 years ago for three reasons: the end of the terrorist cycle linked to religions, China's interest in stabilizing Afghanistan for national convenience. and reached it "Dominance" of the USA in the energy field thanks to the large reserves of "shale oil"Identified on their territory.
David Rapoport, in his studies on the terrorist waves that have characterized our history (four), has foreseen the term or rather the attenuation of this cycle, started in the 1979, in the not far 2025, with the birth of a new cycle of different typology and not in Afghanistan.
China, which has established itself as a great power, has an interest, today more than ever, in the stabilization of Afghanistan for economic, strategic and internal security reasons (Limes); in Xinjiang "a tough anti-terrorism campaign is underway to stem the extremist fringes of ethnic Uyghur, Muslim and Turkish-speaking minorities."
Furthermore, the protection of infrastructure projects along the route of the new silk route, requires a more stable Afghanistan.
Finally, Afghanistan, despite having no oil, is important for the transport of oil from the Caspian Sea to the warm Pakistani seas through the obligatory Khyber mountain pass, part of the old silk road, a crossing point between Central Asia and Southern: US interest in the passage of energy resources through Afghanistan has faded due to the achievement of "dominance" status in the energy sector thanks to the "Shale oil and gas" discovered in its own territory.
The US then, assessed, not profitable to remain in the Afghan area, which today presents a lower terrorist risk than the 2001, in a framework of resource prioritization (Resource Triangle).
From a geostrategic point of view, "Beijing wants to embrace Kabul to erode India's sphere of influence"(Limes).
With the withdrawal of the USA, Afghanistan is preparing to enter a possible Chinese orbit with the support of Pakistan, a bitter enemy of India which in turn is not good friends with China.
With all due respect to the US analysts, NATO has operated as a valuable ally alongside the US, bearing costs and paying for its contribution with human lives, as has Italy (55 deceased), without however any influence on the geostrategic decisions that have been operated independently by the USA and without great recognized honors. Sometimes in the accounts of the costs of participation in the Alliance, we add one more line, to consider what has been done and paid in the 20 years by the Allies and Italy as a national contribution to our collective security and we avoid putting others on their responsibilities .
