[krustyburger]

“The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.”

You seem to be conflating a theocratic regime being in charge with the bloodshed of war, or as you call it, occupation. A great many people died and were horribly injured throughout the 20 year war. But you think the wrong regime would have been a “more complete destruction?”

[rank0]

So the way I see it, there no way we can tolerate the Taliban facilitating attacks on US soil.

So after the initial invasion and defeat of Taliban forces, what is the correct move? Occupation didn’t work, but leaving after overthrowing the theocracy just allows the theocracy to reform.

It seems to me that a more thorough elimination of the remaining Taliban is the only other option here. I am legitimately asking what the other options are.

[remarkEon]

I've spent the better part of a decade thinking about this question, and I've settled on one answer: if the objective was to erase the theocracy and install a western-style or western-aligned government, we should've treated Afghanistan like an Imperial colony. Fully erase all traces of how Afghans managed themselves, force them to pay taxes to the US government for providing security and administering their government, and hand off administration of that government in pieces over the course of a generation as the civil infrastructure matures.

I think this is a stupid objective, however. It would be astronomically expensive, it would've cost untold amounts of blood, and "doing Colonialism" in the 21st century is frowned upon for good reason. What would we gain? What would the Afghans gain? Money from mineral extraction? In the end, we did psuedo-colonialism anyway, and it got us nothing but dead Americans and dead Afghans.

[fighterpilot]

I had one idea. Invest $60-80 billion dollars a year in infrastructure and humanitarian projects inside Afghanistan from 2002-2020. That's about triple their total GDP and similar to the cost of war. That investment gradually leads to deradicalization, both because people become better educated and happier, but also because they start to see the US as a legitimate friend.

[distances]

There were lots of infrastructure and state building projects. Not only by US, many European countries funded development projects too. It was hard due to the ongoing violence, sometimes a project was funded and outcome couldn't even be inspected in situ, but only from satellite images.

[fighterpilot]

I was quite specific in my idea. $60-80 billion worth, without ousting the Taliban. That's different to the current state of affairs, which is a much smaller number than that, and which involved military intervention.

[remarkEon]

I'm genuinely surprised that people still think "do more NGO investment" would've worked. What do you think we did for 20 years there? I walked I don't know how many patrols where we went to hand out money to Afghan "contractors" for building a road, and they'd just disappear after they got paid.

>That investment gradually leads to deradicalization, both because people become better educated and happier, but also because they start to see the US as a legitimate friend.

Nope. They see us as rubes.

[rmsaksida]

I imagine that's what China is going to do. It's too good an opportunity to pass up.

[shadowgovt]

I haven't seen China give any indication that it wants to touch the graveyard of empires for any reason.

[robgibbons]

There have been plenty of indications in the news, if you've been paying attention. It is in China's security interest that its neighbor does not fall into chaos. The CCP have already met with a delegation of Taliban leaders.

China will reportedly offer infrastructural investment in exchange for a modicum of peace. There are also many natural resources which China is eyeing.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1232262.shtml