Posted on 07/05/2021 5:39:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
Afghanistan has always been in the “too hard” box. However, China is succeeding where others have failed, and to our distinct strategic disadvantage.
Alexander the Great, who along with many others, attempted to subdue Afghanistan and failed said: “May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger, and the revenge of Afghans.”
Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires, effectively thwarted and eventually drove from their lands many would be conquerors, Alexander, the Persians, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, the British, the Russians and now the USA. China may well be the first in history to dominate, or at least, get the Afghans to cooperated to China’s significant advantage as the USA summarily withdraws after 20 years of expending vast treasure in lives lost and those wounded and severely altered as well as three-trillion USD wasted.
China has been rather quietly to the western observer, positive and potentially lucrative and strategically advantageous relationships with the Afghans for years. What is China seeking and how are they working to achieve their goals?
China’s aims are nearly parallel and complementary. China allied with Pakistan, never a loyal ally of the US, wants the abandoned southern bases vacated by the Americans as well as access to Indian Ocean warm water ports in Pakistan. With the US leaving particularly Bagram Air Field as well Kabul International and Kandahar Air Field, the nearest US air support facility devolves to 1,300 miles distant Qatar or a carrier group in the Indian Ocean or Persian Gulf. The US is then militarily far removed from the China mainland and the quickly evolving and changing Indian sub-continent.
Afghan mineral wealth is vast, considerable, strategic and a long-standing goal of China. As with most of the involvement of the US in Afghanistan, American citizens, as well as our politicians, diplomats and most of or military leadership have ignored what China is now on the cusp of controlling. China is also negotiating and expanding the infrastructure necessary for transport of resources and military hegemony by development of the Belt Road Initiative and related road, rail and air initiatives across central Asia.
Afghanistan’s estimated $ 1 to $3 Trillion in mineral wealth includes their famous rare semi-precious gems in abundance, copper, iron, gold (potentially several $100 billion), uranium, rare earth elements and the critical lithium so vital to batteries for alternative energy sources. Afghan sources of lithium may well be the largest in the world. China already controls 73% of the world’s production vs. 12% for the US. Add to this extensive, already known natural gas and petroleum deposits for which China negotiated production arrangements with the Afghan Government beginning in 2011 with production beginning in 2012.
Why were all these natural resources heretofore ignored by the US? They were not. The Washington, D.C. establishment as well as we troops on the ground knew well of these specified and partially explored riches. Efforts were made by previous US administrations to work with the Kabul government for the mutual benefit of both the Afghans and the US. The issue was, as it continues to be in Iraq, securing the production sites and transportation capability to mine, refine and transport these riches. The security situation was simply too difficult to permit exploitation of the resources.
How is China succeeding where others have failed in this endeavor? First, with the departure of the US and NATO forces a major impediment to China’s operation in Afghanistan is not only eliminated, but the ability of China to operate in and transport plunder from Afghanistan is greatly enhanced. Second, China is cagey sufficiently to better and more accepting than were US officials to understand the tribal warlord nature of the significantly decentralized governance of Afghanistan that is tribal, local and controlled by dictatorial warlords who can be optioned and bought off by cunning and ruthless Chinese methods. Remember, the Chinese are the decedents of the most successful conquers of Afghanistan who ruled this land for 500 years by use of the horrendously aggressive and brutal methods.
I have walked the ground of the city Balkh, northwest of Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan where Genghis Kahn and his sons in 1220, brutally murdered the entire population of over one-million souls and absolutely leveled the city. The Chinese will do whatever is needed to bribe, steal or eliminate any Afghans who stand in the way of their agenda.
With the US leaving, the Taliban and their allies, Al Qaida, are in ascendency and gaining ever more control of Afghan territory. As a result of this resurgence, the disrespected, largely incompetent, and highly corrupt central Afghan government largely only in partial control of Kabul, leaves Afghanistan ripe for piece-meal conquest by bribes, intimidation or force by the well-organized and single-minded Chinese.
How and why have we ended here? One only needs to hear the recent opinions of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former National Security Advisor, Gen. H.R. McMaster to validate our reason for our strategic failure after 20 years of mis-guided efforts in Afghanistan. Panetta admitted: “I think the bottom line is that we did not ever develop a comprehensive and tight mission for what we were going to do in Afghanistan.”
Sagely and right on target, McMaster added:
I agree with the secretary that we never had a sustained and sustainable, reasoned approach to Afghanistan. I think our experience there is little understood… I don’t think we’ve ever really integrated all elements of national power and efforts of like-minded partners to accomplish well-defined and commonly understood objectives and goals in Afghanistan.
These two accurate strategic assessments lead one to ask, “Why did not these two, along with their similarly empowered government and military predecessors, with significant national power and influence as to the strategy for Afghanistan not take the necessary actions?”
We should leave the quagmire of Afghanistan because we have failed. However, the way we are leaving without a residual plan by the Biden administration continues the long-demonstrated completely incompetent manner in which we have handled the Afghanistan campaign to our strategic disadvantage.
Moo Goo gai Pan Alahwahoo Snackbar?
Its a laugh.
Afghanistan should’ve been left with the Soviets in the 1980s. “Rescuing” them from occupation was the worst strategic mistake in a generation.
The Chinese won’t give a damn about Afghan girls being able to go to school, and their Uyghur work camps are merely a rehearsal for how they will treat the Afghans. Their occupation forces won’t have JAG approved ROE based on perceptions of the international community and their atrocities and abuses will be buried by the western media.
Thank you, George W Bush, mastermind of “bringing our freedoms to the people of Afghanistan”. Don’t hear a peep out of him, do we? Yet, he speaks up repeatedly with criticism of Donald Trump, the Jan. 6th incident, and his own party. Maybe its to deflect criticism from his own abomidable record.
The Chinese want to get their hands on the trillions in rare earth metals in the mountains. And they will do it. They won’t impose their culture onto the Afghans. The Chinese don’t care if girls go to school.
The Chinese don’t “occupy”, they buy.
Good.
China will start to care when IEDs start going off and killing their people and people with suicide vests start self detonating....
Sure they will be more ruthless than we would ever consider, but eventually the Taliban and other forces are not going tolerate a foreign power ruling over them, so the attacks will start and China will eventually get bogged down in Afghanistan.....
I say let them have it.....and deal with the consequences.
Neither do I.
I think China going to Africa and Afghanistan is a marvelous idea.
China thinks they are going to be the pushovers that EU or USA are. WRONG!
Look at what they did to White Dutch et al, and Russia and America.
We should wait and watch. They have the endurance that China has.
20 years, Thousands KIA and scarred for life and Trillions spent/lost. We retreat from another “war” with nothing to show for it.
Yes, China has no use for Islam either. And they will waste no time coddling the bastards.
The Chinese will absolutely guarentee the Taliban that the export routes and sale of heroin will be protected and preserved. In return any mining project of interest to the Chinese will be granted and protected. The Chinese , as in Africa, will be allowed to maintain their own “security” forces in the areas of concern. IMHO ~20% of the current Afghan population will emigrate mostly to the US and the EU.
Didn’t work for the Soviets, didn’t work for the US, I’m sure it will work out fine for the Chicoms.
I predict whatever the Red Chinese do, they are too smart to get bogged down in Afghanistan. They will buy loads of opium and ship it over to the Biden Administration in exchange for military ordnance to the Taliban. The Chinese may even advize and equip the Taliban to attack the USA. The USA is being gradually encircled via Iran in Venezuela, China in Cuba and in the Pacific, Russia in the Arctic.
At some point we need to start treating this fact strategically.
But I predict that Red China will not get bogged down in Afghanistan with any territorial aspirations.Afghanistan is a country full of camel effers and drugs. It’s functionally worthless to the Chinese other that as a proxy to wage war on America.
The precious blood of how many of America's best and brightest were shed there? Even one was too many.
And then there are the countless trillions of dollars it cost us.
What a waste.
They can have it. Good riddance.
They still don't get their fallacy of nation building. They saw some purple thumbs once the Aftgans could vote and thought all was good. Is history no longer taught in the War College?
They still don't get the tribal mentality of Aftganiscrap. I recognize a similar culture in early American history. If the strength of the new US wasn't so over-powering in its weaponry, the Native Americans would have continued be warring amongst each other while murdering, raping, enslaving, and kidnapping children.
Aftganiscrap developed cave systems and guerilla tactics over centuries and then later procured modern weapons like the Stinger missile that took down the Soviet invasion. They put aside their tribal warfare to fight a outside aggressor, the same as Native Americans did. Some cultures should just not exist. Palestinians?
I don’t buy the economic case. Sure Afghanistan has huge coal and iron reserve, but how are you going to get them anywhere?
You would have to take them by train line that don’t yet exist on a long trip over some of the world’s most difficult terrain.
Much, much, cheaper the continue to get your resources from Australia and Brazil where they can be loaded by ship.
I said it was China’s turn , they’ll have to conscript more walking dead
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