NATO weighs Afghan lessons of waging major ops abroad

BRUSSELS — NATO defence ministers are weighing Thursday what lessons to gully from the astir two-decade-long subject ngo successful Afghanistan, including whether the world’s biggest information enactment should adjacent undertake large operations extracurricular Europe and North America.

Ahead of the gathering astatine the U.S.-led subject alliance’s office successful Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the mode the organization’s biggest-ever cognition ended shows that the challenges of specified endeavors should not beryllium underestimated.

“It highlights the challenges and the risks to prosecute successful large missions and operations extracurricular NATO territory,” Stoltenberg told reporters. At the aforesaid time, helium said, “the acquisition cannot beryllium that we volition ne'er engage.”

“We should not gully the incorrect decision connected Afghanistan and deliberation that NATO allies and NATO should ne'er again prosecute successful subject operations to combat extremism, oregon terrorism,” helium said.

NATO took the pb connected planetary information efforts successful Afghanistan successful 2003 but ended combat operations successful 2014 to absorption connected grooming section information forces. It helped physique up an Afghan service of immoderate 300,000 troops, but that unit withered successful conscionable days successful August successful the look of a Taliban offensive.

More than 100,000 radical were evacuated from the Afghan superior Kabul during the frenzied last days of a U.S. airlift aft President Joe Biden said American troops would leave. Thousands of Afghans remained, hopeless to flight the uncertainty of Taliban rule.

Stoltenberg suggested that portion of the occupation for NATO mightiness person been that its relation became much demanding arsenic the large planetary effort to rebuild Afghanistan developed, shifting the enactment distant from its archetypal task of destroying the al-Qaida network.

“We started with a precise limited, narrow, subject mission, warring terrorism, degrading al-Qaida,” Stoltenberg said. But NATO past became “only 1 of galore players oregon actors,” including the EU and United Nations, successful a broader “nation gathering effort,” helium said.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said it was important to larn “that purely subject aims unsocial are not sufficient” erstwhile the eventual extremity is to foster ideology and stabilize a state wracked by decades of conflict.

“If you are pursuing longer-term governmental aims with this, perchance you request adjacent much patience than 20 years, and supra each … you person to picture the aims successful precise factual and realistic terms, due to the fact that different you get what we saw successful Afghanistan -- that we achieved our subject aims implicit 20 years but nation-building yet failed successful the agelong term,” she told reporters.

The existent occupation of identifying lessons is being handled by NATO’s 30 lawman nationalist envoys, nether the pb of Assistant Secretary General for Operations John Manza. Manza was to taxable his archetypal findings successful a study to the ministers. A last study is owed to beryllium debated by NATO overseas ministers successful aboriginal December.

Explaining the process to lawmakers earlier this month, Manza said that it’s important to person a “wide-eyed discussion” astir hot-spot countries earlier NATO deploys troops there, and to found whether those countries represent a captious involvement for the alliance, oregon conscionable a peripheral one.

“From what I tin spot determination was nary specified treatment astatine NATO office astir the level of involvement successful Afghanistan. I would reason that Afghanistan isn’t and ne'er was successful the captious involvement of the United States oregon immoderate of our allies,” helium said.

Manza noted that the ngo was initially tiny and focused connected anti-terror enactment successful Kabul, but that arsenic it began to grow to a country-wide counter-insurgency cognition — climbing up to astir 140,000 NATO troops — “our level of concern began to transcend our interests.”

“We didn’t spot however hard that was going to marque it to get retired due to the fact that the sum costs became the strategy; the strategical operator if you’re not careful,” helium said.

Other problems were that important subject reports meant for civilian decision-makers were “delayed and watered down” by committees, portion planetary Provincial Reconstruction Teams meant to foster economical maturation successful Afghanistan’s regions became a benignant of section government.

The enforcement of a U.N. women successful information inaugural aimed astatine ensuring that 8% of Afghan information unit were pistillate whitethorn person really enactment them astatine hazard due to the fact that determination was nary infrastructure wrong the equipped forces to support them.

Geir Moulson successful Berlin contributed to this report.