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I think that the Afghanistan war/occupation is not discussed enough. Perhaps we are all so used to government failure that we just nod our heads and ignore what happened over there.
The US occupied that entire country for 20 years. It spent an estimated $2.3 trillion. When the US went in there, the place was controlled by authoritarian Islamists who oppress women. Today, the place is controlled by authoritarian Islamists who oppress women.
People's sense of what is important is so delusional sometimes. Here in the US, people often argue over minor issues like who gets to go into what bathroom, or whether there are enough strong women in television shows. Meanwhile, the US taxpayer spent $2.3 trillion on Afghanistan, there was a major opportunity to actually do some real feminism, to actually reshape Afghan culture to make it more liberal, and it just didn't happen. I'm not sure how much it was even attempted.
I get that the original reason for occupying Afghanistan was 9/11, but the US was in there for 20 years. There is no way you can tell me that you can't reshape a society of just 40 million people when you're there for 20 years, you spend $2.3 trillion, and you have overwhelming military force. Societies have been forcefully reshaped in the past and they will be in the future. Take Germany or Japan for example.
Did the US even try over there? Was the whole thing just an excuse to put taxpayer money into rich people's pockets? People just nod and smile about the whole thing, like "of course we spent $2.3 trillion and got nothing for it other than neutralizing Al Qaeda, that's just how the government works". It's kind of weird to me that there isn't more outrage about the whole thing. Neutralizing Al Qaeda did not use up 20 years and $2.3 trillion. One can argue about whether foreign interventionism and nation building is good or bad, and there are good cases to be made for both sides, but that's not really my subject matter. My point is that since there was a supposed attempt at nation building over there, we at least should have gotten something out of it. If the taxpayer supports you to the tune of $2.3 trillion, and you achieve no nation building after 20 years despite having overwhelming military force, then it seems to me that the taxpayer has been massively ripped off.
Nobody discusses it anymore because it 's widely understood to have been a bad decision - there's no friction. The problems of Afghanistan and Iraq didn't disappear from US domestic politics. Obama arguably ran because he was untainted by Iraq, Hillary suffered because her selling point was foreign policy experience ("bad experience" as Trump said) when the entire US populace was angry or tired of dealing with these adventures and the lies their own governments spun about them for no gain.
Remember the GOP foreign policy establishment bashing their heads against Trump and being the ones who were dismissed by their voters? What do you think all of that was about? Both sides had challengers to the establishment on this but the GOP was utterly unable to fend them off because it was seen as the most guilty.
These were advanced modern nations that had already done most of the work to build state capacity and a national identity (and the Soviets were around to play bad cop). We're talking about Afghanistan.
Yes. The Afghanistan Papers goes through the omnishambles that was the attempted development. Turns out, ancient problems of legibility and legitimacy don't disappear, even for the most powerful nation on Earth. There's a reason empires just didn't bother trying for effective control of some regions.
The US was dealing with a poor and alien culture with a weak central government and a limited view into things. There's all sorts of weird stories of money or the US military's efforts being wasted because the US government just had limited visibility (especially early on) into Afghanistan and its politics. No amount of money can help if it isn't being directly properly or the new institutions aren't accepted by the people.
We should expect this no? We see all sorts of corrupt countries being showered with oil or aid money and failing - even when they make real efforts - to reach developed world status. This hurts even major nations like Russia with an autochthonous elite that isn't living thousands of miles away. Rampant lying and corruption gave the central government a false view of its military readiness.
There's also probably just unavoidable tradeoffs between beating the Taliban and building a minimally viable state and attempting massive social engineering you wouldn't dare pull on your own people (like having a quota for female legislators). The US was at war with an apparently ineradicable insurgency and was trying to prop up a weak state and give it legitimacy but was also offending people and providing an incentive for corruption and nepotism in the name of feminism. Even America can't do everything at the same time.
Indeed, they are arguably the best in the world at obeying an empire.
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