Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in days. That’s after the United States spent $83 billion on training and equipping the military and police forces.
- Jason Dempsey, veteran of the War in Afghanistan and adjunct senior fellow for the Military, Veterans and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the training of Afghan forces was a bureaucratic endeavor and the American military is to blame for propping them up as a “house of cards” without sustainable structure.
- Dempsey said the institution did not properly resource the operation, as there was significant fraud, waste and abuse in the reconstruction efforts.
- Dempsey said the U.S. should ask the hard questions, including who it is listening to, what incentives it has to reform and what lessons it is actually learning.
