Exsanguinate

The logical argument goes that the War in Afghanistan will ultimately come to an end by means of some political settlement with the Taliban, and it seems like they, or at least some fraction of the network of groups which can be called the Taliban, are not close minded to having talks with the U.S. Suppose this changes though, and the Taliban decide it is in their own best interest to simply continue fighting the U.S. for however long it takes - what would this mean for America? Can American win this war if the Taliban refuses to surrender, and how much longer can we continue to pour our military resources into the region?

Since 2001 we've spent $400,000,000,000 in Afghanistan alone, and twice that in Iraq for a total bill of over one trillion dollars. With spending in Afghanistan on the rise, and no end to this war in sight, at what point do these wars begin to seriously affect the American economy, our spending power as a nation, and our influence in the world? Suppose some conflict were to arise somewhere that needed our attention - how weakened would the U.S. military be if they are quagmired in Central Asia? How well could we respond to a threat from, say, North Korea? It seems to me that by dragging out this war, the Taliban have very little to lose, and we have everything to lose. And yet, at this point we may be far too deep into this thing to simply leave like we did in Vietnam. I think the U.S. strategy right now should be to very seriously begin preparations to negotiate with the Taliban so some sensible end to this war can come - otherwise we may have realized we've bitten off far more than we can chew, and there's no hope of spitting it back out.

I see some major issues with simply cutting our losses and leaving Afghanistan. The first is that this will probably lead directly to another civil war, one which the Taliban would probably win unless we provided some serious resources to the Karzai government. The cynical and natural next question to ask would be - who cares? Well, I think we should care, for several reasons.

First, it simply makes the U.S. look bad. We've seriously damaged our reputation in the region, killed tens of thousands of people and lost thousands of American lives, spent hundreds of billions, and in the end we are defeated by a bunch of kids from Pakistan wielding AK-47s? I think just up and surrendering would be a big embarrassment for the U.S. military and would hurt our credibility with the rest of the world - especially with our allies who have also invested resources and people in this war. How would we look if we simply gave up and basically wasted ISAF's time for the past ten years?

Secondly, Central Asia is unstable enough as it is - and I think its in our interest to see that that things do not worsen. Another Afghan civil war can not be good for the region, or our interests. Further, a civil war opens the door the countries like China to begin extending their influence over the region - and that can lead to a whole other can of worms for the U.S. The real frightening possibility though, is that India may seek to try and fight some proxy war with Pakistan by supporting the Karzai government while the ISI will almost certainly be supporting the Taliban. This could very seriously lead to a real war with Pakistan - something that is definitely not what we want.

Afghanistan is just too important to let everything go to shit - and that is mostly because of who lives in its neighborhood. Central Asia sits at the crossroads of the main rising powers in the world - Russia, China and India, and Afghanistan is right at the heart of it all. We simply can not afford to pull out of the region, and yet it doesn't seem like we can defeat the Taliban. If, hypothetically speaking, they refuse to negotiate, what does that mean for the U.S.? To me, it means a very long and expensive commitment to re-building Afghanistan, and one which will require a significant increase in the amount of money spent on Nation building - including dramatically increased over-sight on how those funds are used to prevent a large portion of them being squandered by corruption and unscrupulous contractors.

At this point, we are simply too far into this thing in my belief, and there is no easy end in sight. I think Afghanistan will prove to be a wound that the U.S. will not recover from easily, and the worst may be yet to come. The Taliban can continue to bleed the U.S. for years, but how long can the U.S. continue to devote huge amounts of its resources to this small part of the world when there may be very serious conflicts to come in the future?