How and why the Taliban won the high-tech war in Afghanistan

Things were quite different for the coalition. Western forces have been able to access a wide range of technologies around the world, from space-based surveillance to remotely operated systems such as robots and drones. For them, the war in Afghanistan was not a war for survival; it was a chosen war. That’s why there was a big part of the technology aimed at reducing the risk of death instead of a complete victory. Western forces have invested heavily in weapons to disarm soldiers — air force, drones — or in technologies that could speed up the provision of immediate medical treatment. Things that keep enemies at great lengths or protect soldiers from damage, such as the detection of weapons, armor, and road bombs, have been the focus of the West.

The main military priority of the West has been elsewhere: in the struggle between the major powers. Technologically, this means investing in hypersonic missiles to match Chinese or Russian ones, for example, or trying to carry them out in military artificial intelligence.

The Afghan government caught between these two worlds bore a greater resemblance to the Taliban than to the coalition. This was not a chosen war, but a key threat. However, the government was unable to advance what the Taliban had done; its development was hampered by the provision of major technologically advanced forces by the foreign military. Although the Afghan army and police have certainly provided combat corps (many lives have been lost in the process), they have not even been in a position to create or operate advanced systems on their own. Western nations did not want to supply Afghans with cutting-edge weapons, fearing that they would not keep them or even end up in the hands of the Taliban.

Take the Afghan air force. It was equipped and trained with aircraft with less than two dozen propellers. This allowed for close air support, but it was far from the vanguard. And working with the US meant that Afghanistan was not free to seek technology transfer elsewhere; in fact, it was stalled in the development phase.

So what does this tell us? That technology is not the cause of the conflict, nor the guarantor of victory. Instead, it is evil. And some basic weapons can also take the day into the hands of motivated and patient human beings who are ready and able to make the necessary strides.

It also tells us that tomorrow’s battlefields may resemble Afghanistan: we will see the pure technological conflicts that the military with the greatest firepower is winning, and more old and new technologies side by side. This already seems to be the case in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and is a pattern we can see more of over time. Maybe technology won’t win wars, but innovation will, especially if one side is waging an existential struggle.

Christopher Ankersen He is an associate professor of global affairs at New York University. He served in the United Nations in Europe and Asia from 2005 to 2017 and with the Canadian Armed Forces from 1988 to 2000. Author and editor of several books, among others Civil Military Cooperation Policy and TThe Future of Global Issues, holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mike Martin Pushtu is a former British army officer who spoke, and made several trips to Afghanistan as a political officer, advising British generals on an approach to war. Now King’s College is a student of war studies in London and is an author An intimate war, Which explains the war in southern Afghanistan since 1978. King’s College is a doctorate in London.