Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley in an interview with the Associated Press explained that Afghan defense and security forces are reasonably equipped, well trained, and are reasonably well-led.
He admired the Afghan troop’s resilience against global terrorism and the Taliban, but Milley refused to comment whether Afghan government forces are ready to face militants without the direct support of the US and NATO.
Milley mentioned that Afghans are facing an uncertain future, in a worst-case scenario, “some bad possible outcomes” in the battle against the Taliban insurgents following the completion of the withdrawal process.
“Your question: The Afghan army, do they stay together and remain a cohesive fighting force, or do they fall apart? I think there’s a range of scenarios here, a range of outcomes, a range of possibilities”, Milley added, “on the one hand you get some really dramatic, bad possible outcomes. On the other hand, you get a military that stays together and a government that stays together”.
“Which one of these options obtains and becomes reality at the end of the day? We frankly don’t know yet. We have to wait and see how things develop over the summer”.
A possible political settlement between the Afghan government and Taliban will prevent Afghanistan from plunging into “massive civil war”, that some predicts about it coming.
In the recent year, Afghan defense and security forces have operated with less reliance on US and Coalition forces and mentors, and for the most part, even no advisers were needed.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while talking to CBS news on Afghanistan said, “We have to be prepared for every scenario, and there is a range of them. And we’re looking at this– in a very clear-eyed way”.
“We’ve been engaged in Afghanistan for 20 years, and we sometimes forget why we went there in the first place, and that was to deal with the people who attacked us on 9/11. And we did. Just because our troops are coming home doesn’t mean we’re leaving,” Blinken said.
“We’re not. Our embassy’s staying, the support that we’re giving to Afghanistan when it comes to– economic support, development, humanitarian, that– that remains. And not only from us, from partners and allies,” Blinken noted.
