The recent collapse of the Afghani government and the Taliban takeover of Kabul offers a fascinating lesson in political science.
We normally associate a nation’s presidency with pomp and privilege, but one of its stark realities is the occasional need to fight for the defense of the established political order. The single person most responsible for the Afghani debacle seems to be Ashraf Ghani, who decided not to stage a defense of Kabul, and left the country instead.
The Biden administration repeated assured the American public that the Afghan government and army would fight when their backs were against the wall. The flaw in this logic, apparent now in hindsight, is that nobody with a five million dollar personal net worth really has his back against a wall.
Contrast this with the situation in Sarajevo after the Serbian invasion of Bosnia in 1993. The Bosnian government decided to fight, and Sarajevo endured a four year siege before international pressure finally brought an end to the war.
Would the outcome of the 2019 Afghani presidential election been different if Ghani had told the nation that he would abandon Kabul without a fight if surrounded by the Taliban?