I don’t disagree with keeping the promise at all. Where he completely demonstrated his competence was in the implementation. I am an IT guy and I would have done a much better job.
My point being that the bar was so low on the implementation that anyone with a shred of intellect could have done a better job. But for the sake of discussion I would have for starters left the military on site until the civilian component was safely out of the country. Don’t need a diploma in strategic retreats to see that.
I don't think it takes a military strategic expert to say get civilians out first, then the military and equipment. If you can't take the equipment, destroy it.
As far as I can remember - one thing that our military personnel are taught, especially in the field, is how to render equipment inoperable. Which in fact is one of the things we've done with left over equipment there. Source: family of veterans.
The Taliban paraded driving US military vehicles through the streets, so I don't think we did that. I am sure it is normal procedure to disable equipment in this situation, but nothing about that exit was normal.
Those vehicles were left behind by the Afghani armed forces and were no longer US assets.
Of course, our failure to predict the afghani military's collapse is a huge error but that just proves that even world's best and most well-funded intelligence agency is not foolproof.
You can’t tell me with a straight face though that there wasn’t a report on someone’s desk that predicted exactly that - the Afghani military collapse. It was likely buried because it didn’t support whatever narrative was required at the time. So.. well funded? Absolutely and with a cherry on the top. Best? Nope. Way too infused with agendas and politics. No offense to the great people who work there.
>Of course, our failure to predict the afghani military's collapse...
It was obvious to people who had any inkling of Afghanistan.
First, the US created an Afghani army that was dependent on US weapons and logistics, but stopped helping to maintain it even before the withdrawal was done. What does one expect to happen to an airforce when one stops maintance?
Second, every intelligence estimate predicted the Taliban would eventually win post-withdrawal (since they still got a state to support them), and the Afghanis knew about those estimates. Why should a sane Afghani keep fighting, when they could switch sides and live? To make Biden look better?
Ultimately, there was a political decision to leave Afghanistan, and the intel was adjusted to the decision rather than the other way around.
Every non ideological person would have done a better job. There wouldn't have been a hasty evacuation or the bombing in Kabul, if the army kept Bagram until the withdrawal was done, or if the US had accepted the Taliban's offer to retain Kabul until the withdrawal was done - and that's just the smallest of the tactical failures...
Those are both poison pills. The army didn't want to be responsible for the security of the entire Kabul area and Bagram to Kabul is not a next door situation.
We’ll see on China. Proof is in action not talk.