Biden/Harris Presidency Discussion Thread

Editorial on CNN this week, on how Biden is now having a very bad week.

Whether it is GOP stonewalling or internal Democrat bickering (and both are happening), the end result is the same. His approval rating is now below 50% and he has a slew of problems which aren't getting fixed. He has two choices. Either successfully deflect the blame, or fix the problems and get the credit.

[quote] How was this Taliban resurgence even allowed to happen?[/quote]

Two reasons.

1) The Taliban don't play fair. When one side is asking nicely and maybe adding some quality of life improvements over the course of time, and the other side just strolls in and chop's someone's head off immediately, you can imagine which is going to get more attention. As the British Army's counterinsurgency manual observes, winning hearts and minds is not 'throwing candy to kids' as commonly observed, and what is considered the best counterinsurgency campaign, Malaya, was won by not being nice to the population. Or, to put it in Roosevelt's words, when you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. However, such techniques are not politically acceptable to today's western populations, but those populations similarly don't care enough to put in the resources necessary to prevent the head-chopping-off problem whilst playing nice. Who is winning in Syria, again? Oh, right, the mean guys.

1b) Related to this last bit about populations, the lack of multi-national support (read Pakistan), and the lack of will by everyone else to do much about it.

2) A unified, motivated opponent with a goal, vs a collection of tribes who don't care much about anything beyond their valley. The Afghan government failed because it didn't get buy-in from the populace, and because many of the members of the government organisations weren't too vested in it either. On the other hand, you have a large group of people with a shared ideal who know what they're actively trying to do.

There are only three likely possibilities I can see.

1) Foreign boots go back in on the ground. As the Taliban become bolder in their movements, they become much closer to the conventional fighting force that Western militaries are extremely good at dealing with. Bolster Afghan army forces who are now more concentrated.

2) Afghan forces realise that if they don't win, they die, and sort themselves out, dealing with the Taliban themselves.

3) Taliban win. The rest of the world doesn't care, as long as the Taliban leaves the rest of the world alone.

I wouldn't place money for or against either of those three.