The war in Afghanistan is the consequence of the attacks suffered by the United States on 11 September 2001 against the twin towers in New York and against the Pentagon in Washington. On 13 September 2001, two days after the attacks, President George W Bush demanded the extradition of the al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, from the Taliban leaders in power in Kabul. Two military operations were quickly organised against Afghanistan and al-Qaeda. The first, purely American, was called Operation Enduring Freedom. Thirty thousand men strong, it began on 7 October 2001. The second, undertaken by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) brought together more than 85,000 troops from 48 nations, intervening under a UN mandate⁽¹⁾. This Force arrived in Afghanistan on 20 December 2001. NATO assumed command of ISAF in August 2003. Both operations were intended to eliminate terrorism. Commander Massoud’s Northern Alliance militia, essentially composed of Tadjik fighters cooperated forcefully with the foreign troops and soon became an embryonic new Afghan Security Force on 4 January 2002 by a technical military agreement, with ISAF providing simply ‘assistance and security’. Within three months the Taliban were chased from power.

However, nine years on, the prospect of peace seems to be receding. If the Americans and NATO - with the United States the dominant power – find themselves in 2011 in such a complex situation, it is perhaps because initially Washington committed some political mistakes that have led to the military impasse and the dubious results of ‘reconstruction’.

Initial Political Errors and their Military Consequences

For a decade, the United States has suffered from the consequences of ‘keeping bad company’ in the Cold War period, when it was judged that the Soviet Union was the main enemy, and to weaken it, all measures were justified.