Wars Rooted in Political and Social Dysfunction Cannot Be Solved by Military Force Alone

-

 

The Misperception America Needs to Correct

Wars rooted in political and social dysfunction cannot be solved by military force alone

Americans tend to blame wars that go badly on the people running them. In a recent Washington Post column, Theodore R. Johnson asks whether President Trump will fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and argues that the Pentagon's deeper problems would remain even if he does. He is right to look past one secretary. But his argument points to a larger misperception: we rarely ask whether the military was ever capable of solving the problem it was given.

The twenty years the United States spent in Afghanistan teach a lesson that should have been learned long ago: political dysfunction cannot be repaired by military power alone. Washington spent two decades and billions of dollars building Afghan security forces, yet those forces collapsed within weeks in 2021. The problem was never just whether soldiers had enough weapons or whether American troops were at the right checkpoints. It was whether the institutions those soldiers served were legitimate, trusted and able to deliver basic services.

The war outlasted four presidents and a long line of defense secretaries and commanders. Each brought a new strategy or surge. The underlying political problem stayed the same. In insurgencies and civil wars, the battlefield is where conflict becomes visible, not necessarily where it begins.

The best argument for staying

Since the 2021 withdrawal, many argue that Afghanistan did not have to end as it did. The strongest version is not that a few thousand troops could have won, but that a small, sustained force could have contained the Taliban at low cost. After 2014, a limited presence did help keep them from taking the country. Delay has value.

But even at the surge's peak, with roughly 100,000 troops, the United States could not eliminate the corruption that hollowed out Afghan institutions, reconcile factions inside the government or build a political order Afghans would fight for. A residual force could buy time; it could not supply what was missing. Containment is a strategy only if the time is used to build something. In Afghanistan, much of it was not.

The same question applies to Iran. Military pressure may weaken a government's ability to threaten America or its allies. But weakening a regime is not the same as creating a legitimate political order afterward. If Washington cannot define the political outcome it wants, military success may leave the hardest problem untouched.

Force can preserve a government. It cannot make it legitimate.

Syria shows this. Russian airpower kept Bashar al-Assad in power for roughly a decade, a real military achievement. But it did not resolve the grievances that produced the war. When external support weakened and the army proved unwilling to fight, the regime collapsed with astonishing speed in late 2024. Yemen tells a similar story: a fragmented state, a broken economy and rival foreign patrons. Years of strikes have shifted the balance of power without producing a durable settlement.

These conflicts share a political sclerosis: rigid institutions, entrenched corruption, scarce opportunity and governments that answer frustration with repression.

Colombia offers a more hopeful example, though a qualified one. Military pressure on the FARC may have helped bring the group to the table, but the peace that followed rested on negotiation, and on addressing rural inequality, land ownership and political participation. The agreement remains fragile. Still, the lesson holds: pressure may open the door, but only politics can walk through it.

What should change

Critics will say this is the old reconstruction argument, noting that the United States spent more than $140 billion in Afghanistan without producing a durable state. They are right, and that is precisely the lesson. The failure was not that Washington spent too little. It supported a partner government without examining its incentives, its legitimacy or its relationship with its people. Governance was treated as an accessory to a military campaign rather than its foundation.

Three disciplines would help. First, define the political end state before deploying troops. If policymakers cannot say what legitimate authority should look like when the fighting ends, the mission has no endpoint. Second, make support conditional on concrete governance benchmarks, so that no government assumes American backing is permanent. Third, understand the political structure first: who holds power, how patronage works, which institutions are trusted. Military intelligence can tell us where an enemy is, not why people fight.

None of this is isolationism. Deterring invasion, defeating terrorists and protecting allies are legitimate uses of American power. But insurgencies and civil wars demand a different question at the start: What political problem are we asking the military to solve?

America must learn the difference between losing a battle and misunderstanding a society. The first is a military failure. The second is a political one, and no general can fix a problem that civilian leaders never understood.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Taliban's Illusion of Exceptions

-
Image
  The Taliban’s Illusion of Exception. On August 16, the Taliban mark their so-called “victory day” in Afghanistan. They present themselves as an exception to Afghan history, claiming permanence where others failed. Yet the history of this land tells a different story — one in which rulers, no matter how powerful, are ultimately forced to flee. Nearly two centuries ago, on August 3, 1839, Amir Dost Mohammad Khan abandoned Kabul and fled north toward Bukhara. His flight came after the British, fearing his growing ties with Russia, backed his rival Shah Shuja and marched him into Afghanistan with British forces. Kabul fell, and Dost Mohammad had no choice but to escape. His downfall was not only a matter of battlefield defeat but also the result of great-power politics and internal weakness — forces that have toppled Afghan rulers again and again. Shah Shuja himself did not escape this fate. On April 5, 1842, he was killed while trying to flee the country by supporters of Wazir Akb...
Read more

From Mosque to Throne: Why Mullahs Keep Returning to Power in Afghanistan

-
  From Mosque to Throne: Why Mullahs Keep Returning to Power in Afghanistan When political order collapses, religion remains the only organized force capable of restoring law and order.   The term “Taliban” is loaded, evoking images of religious zealots and Pashtun dominance. It is true that most Taliban leaders are Pashtuns from the south and east, Sunni Muslims from rural areas, who were further indoctrinated in Pakistani religious schools, or madrasas. Yet this contemporary image obscures a deeper historical reality: in Afghanistan, when political order collapses, religion has often been the only organized force capable of restoring law and stability. The Taliban, the seeker,  are not merely a militant group—they embody a recurring pattern in Afghan society. Historically, religious leaders have acted as a reserve force, stepping in to fill political vacuums during times of crisis and retreating to the mosque once stability returned. The Taliban’s rise—from mosque ...
Read more

Who Does Afghanistan Belong to? It's an Unsolved Problem

-
  Who Does Afghanistan Belong To? It’s an Unsolved Struggle By Wahab Raofi   Forty-five years ago this Christmas Eve, Soviet tanks crossed into Afghanistan, launching a decade-long occupation and a cataclysm that would shape the country for generations. Since then, Afghanistan has been portrayed as a land condemned to perpetual bloodshed — a so-called “graveyard of empires,” trapped in endless conflict.   This belief in the country’s intractability has hardened not only a war-weary population, but also the minds of global leaders.   After two decades of Western military and political engagement, the verdict echoed that of the Soviet Union when it spent time and treasure on a war deemed unsolvable. American presidents have been unusually candid in expressing this view, with one dismissing Afghanistan one of “ Hellholes ” Yet this fatalism — born of repeated intervention and failure — rests on a profound misdiagnosis.   Afghanistan’s confli...
Read more