Channel 4's 'Evacuation': Opening Old Wounds
Last week, Channel 4 screened a hard-hitting three-part documentary ‘Evacuation’ which told the story of those from across Defence involved in the chaotic evacuation from Kabul in August of 2021. Known as Operation PITTING, the evacuation successfully recovered over 15,000 Afghan civilians from Kabul in under 14 days – the largest humanitarian airlift undertaken by the UK in over 70 years.
Despite the tragic scenes in Kabul over those chaotic days, the military evacuation operation is seen as a remarkable success. Faced with a collapsing timeline driven by a resurgent Taliban, a wildly inaccurate picture of who was eligible for evacuation, and a rapidly deteriorating security situation, British forces faced an almost impossible task of bringing those eligible to safety.
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Despite showcasing the obvious success of those involved directly in Operation PITTING the documentary has also rekindled a number of serious questions about the UK’s strategic direction in Afghanistan over the preceding two decades and which perhaps marked the hubristic peak of a western liberal interventionist doctrine.
Looking at the events in August of 2021 it is difficult to see the inability to anticipate both the rapid advance of the Taliban and the equally swift collapse of the Afghan national security forces as anything other than a monumental intelligence failure. If it was anticipated through a supposedly vast intelligence network (and against a pre-agreed and widely known deadline to leave Afghanistan) then as simply put by Parachute Regiment Sergeant Major Adam in the documentary: “we should have gone earlier”. There remain unanswered questions as to why our evacuation operation was put under considerable self-induced pressure by the decision to initiate the operation so late.
The misplaced faith in the capabilities of the Afghan national security forces is symptomatic of an optimism bias that existed throughout our two-decades-long presence in Afghanistan where the political hope continued despite the evident but somewhat inconvenient situation on the ground. A corrupt political regime in Kabul that had lost the provinces; a collective failure to really understand a fragmented, proud and in many instances feudal society; an inability to stop civilian casualties rightly interpreted as disregard for the lives of Afghans; and an inability to transcend the Taliban narrative for most Afghans are all factors in a collective western failure to fundamentally change Afghan lives for the better. While the immediate military objective of tackling the Al-Quaeda threat was achieved early on, those wider strategic aspirations to improve governance, create economic opportunity and provide better education for all remain unfulfilled. And the poppies continue to flourish, underpinning a living for so many while enabling clan-based criminality to thrive, thus leaving unchanged those conditions that seeded a terrorist movement that created shock waves through the US and the west.
The military lessons from the Afghan campaign are familiar to many: inadequate intelligence and a poor understanding of the nature and structure of Afghan society; underwhelming military force and a half-hearted commitment from other government departments; reliance on technology as a substitute for military mass… the list goes on. While there are some military positives (galvanising NATO into action and proof-of-concept for the Alliance to operating outside Europe and the development of low-level tactics, including counter-IED capabilities and technologies), we are left with an overall feeling of western strategic overreach resulting from a military enthusiasm which overlooked the tenets of campaign planning and sustainment while seducing a political cohort that was willing to overlook the evident national and military risks. The cost in UK money and lives for little result is stark and the distortion effects of the sustained campaign on the UK’s military plans and thinking, and especially the Army structure, equipment and tactics, may take years to overcome.
While the war in Ukraine now dominates daily headlines, ‘Evacuation’ was a forceful reminder that the nation is far from coming to terms with its recent history in Afghanistan. Despite over two decades of multinational effort it remains one of the most desperately poor, underdeveloped and poorly-governed places on earth. Many questions may remain unanswered, especially as NATO now shifts focus to a more clear and present danger on its Eastern flank, but while the West is clearly finished with Afghanistan, the polished documentary left viewers with a distinct feeling that Afghanistan and the Taliban may not be done with the West.
