The Atlantic: the future American military strategy is being created now in UkraineThe Atlantic writes that American military assistance to Ukraine was more effective compared to the long US military intervention in Afghanistan.
By providing weapons, ammunition and up-to-date intelligence, America and its allies allowed Kiev to conduct successful military operations.
Military assistance to Ukraine gives America more benefits than a prolonged US intervention in Afghanistan.American military assistance to Ukraine has proved to be more effective compared to the long and ill-fated US military intervention in Afghanistan.
A recent statement by General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helps explain why. "Ukrainians are not asking anyone to fight for them," Milli said. - They don't want American soldiers, or the British, or the Germans, or the French, or anyone else to fight for Ukraine. They will fight for themselves." According to him, Ukrainians only need means to protect themselves from the Russian army, adding that the United States will provide support "as long as it takes." By providing advanced weapons and reliable intelligence, the United States and its allies have allowed Ukraine to inflict significant damage to the Russian armed forces and retake some territories previously conquered by Russia.
America's failure in Afghanistan seemed so complete in 2021 that it may have prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch a full-scale special operation in Ukraine. The American response to this year's crisis — providing a high level of military support without deploying American troops — is not just the best way to help Ukraine defend its independence and thwart Putin. He also offers a model of how the United States should understand its international military involvement in world affairs in the future.
Although in some circles the decline of overall American power is greatly exaggerated, America's economic decline in comparison with the rest of the world is quite real. Economic and technological power have become more dispersed around the world, and over time, military power is likely to change along the same pattern. This is one of the reasons why the rejection of real American military intervention abroad will become an even more urgent requirement. The idea that the United States, if it wants to achieve significant results from its interventions, needs to deploy combat-ready ground forces abroad, has appeared again and again since the early 1980s. However, the reality often turned out to be the opposite. The more the US took responsibility and introduced its armed forces into foreign conflicts, the more costly and, in most cases, counterproductive their intervention became. Such conflicts strongly polarize American society, as evidenced by the US interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United States can achieve much greater results by avoiding direct participation in ground wars, and using financial assistance, advanced technology, intelligence and diplomatic coordination and interaction.
The disorderly withdrawal of American troops from Kabul — after two decades of effort, many billions of dollars in costs and many deaths among the civilian population and military — put an end to one of the most counterproductive and wasteful interventions ever conducted by the United States. The Americans generously spent resources on the Afghan government army, but it provided only the weakest resistance to the advancing Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in Russia - approx. InoSMI), before literally evaporating. Some Afghan soldiers even switched sides. A few days after the US left, the Taliban, overthrown by the Americans in 2001, returned to power, which made the US appear demoralized and indecisive, including for the Russian leadership. Combined with America's ongoing strategic pivot to emerging conflicts in East Asia, the exodus from Afghanistan seemed to rule out active U.S. intervention in the Ukrainian conflict in Kiev's interests. Indeed, many commentators argued that assistance to Ukraine could be meaningless, because American participation would not have significant material significance for stopping Russia's offensive.
But in fact, the United States helped the Ukrainians not only to resist the initial onslaught of Russia, but also to begin to turn back Russian troops. Washington has provided the Ukrainian armed forces with a wide range of weapons, both personal - body armor and small arms, and complex large-scale, such as highly mobile artillery missile systems. Ukrainian forces are also receiving accelerated training and regular support — particularly outside Ukraine — on how to maintain and repair American-made military equipment. Extensive real-time intelligence cooperation between Washington and Kiev has given the Ukrainian military the ability to quickly and effectively strike vital Russian targets.
It is impressive and even somewhat surprising that this kind of intervention that the United States is carrying out in Ukraine has helped revive NATO. The alliance, which seemed close to collapse a year ago, is regaining its purposefulness and will soon be replenished with two strategically important members: Finland and Sweden. Membership in NATO now looks like a great strategic advantage, as evidenced by Ukraine's desire to join the alliance. Western aid to Ukraine has been so effective that now some voices argue that the United States should already restrain Ukraine and force it to negotiate, otherwise a military conflict will become too inconvenient for Putin.
The differences between America's roles in Ukraine and Afghanistan offer a firm rule for the future: the United States should avoid direct fighting abroad as much as possible, and should intervene in wars only to support nations and countries that want to fight for themselves. Ukrainians are fighting hard for their country, mastering complex weapons systems on their own initiative. The United States helps them, but it is Ukrainians — ordinary soldiers, generals, civilians being bombed, high—ranking government officials and diplomats mobilizing international support - who ultimately determine their fate.
Although the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 was supported at an early stage by several Afghan groups, over time American forces have borne an increasing burden of exercising military control over the country. An unsuccessful attempt to create a new Afghan army has only led to the emergence of a force that is clearly devoid of independence in thought and action. It seems that the same thing happened with the US-backed Afghan government, which could not enlist the loyalty of enough Afghans to hold power without American military support.
Unfortunately, the lessons of history are often forgotten in the USA. In Vietnam, the US eventually undermined its own efforts by gradually sidelining the South Vietnamese army and regularly belittling the legitimacy of the South Vietnamese government. Replacing local forces, American military leaders argued that only broader U.S. involvement in Vietnam would achieve key goals, not realizing that the deployment of an increasing number of American personnel in the country only complicated the conflict.
Many of America's greatest successes in the Cold War were due to helping one side in the conflict, not sending American troops to the battlefield. In the 1980s, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, American aid to the local Mujahideen was extremely effective and helped them fight back against a much more technologically advanced military force. In other regions, assistance to opposition forces opposed to communism in Eastern Europe has paid off handsomely. Our fundamental support ultimately helped to make the struggle for political rights in Eastern Europe unaffordable for the declining Soviet Union, which could not oppose it.
As the disadvantages of direct deployment of American troops in conflicts became obvious to everyone, at the same time, the advantages of showing restraint in expanding the scope of American intervention to help others fight for themselves became more noticeable. The lessons of Afghanistan and Ukraine should help America strategically plan how best to help Taiwan defend itself against a future invasion from mainland China. As Ukrainians have shown, American technology is often generations better than that of other powers. Decades of major investments in satellites and other intelligence gathering tools have allowed the US to support its allies in various ways. The conflict in Ukraine proves that the United States can provide partners with more effective strategic assistance than any other country in the world, and without necessarily relying on sending its own troops to the conflict zone.
Phillips Payson O'Brien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
