The pandemic took lives far too soon. How much human potential has been lost?
This year, Catalina Castillo is unsure whether her family of five will congregate for a holiday photo shoot. It’s a simple concern, but a traumatic one. Historically, it’s been her mother, Carola Montero, who urges Catalina and her four siblings to pose for a portrait — for memory’s sake. But this past December, Carola died of complications of Covid-19. “She was the reason we did a Christmas photo or any family photo,” Catalina said. Now someone else will have to make sure this ritual goes unforgotten.
For so many people like Catalina, who have lost loved ones during the pandemic, they look out on their futures and see these missing spaces. They think about the things their loved ones would have done. They think about the loving actions that are so small but that in sum are what fill family life with such richness.
More than 518,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the United States, but that figure hardly begins to explain the magnitude of the loss.
It’s easy to look at such a big number — half a million — and feel a bit numb about it. Death, in any single case, can be hard to fathom and make sense of. But with half a million deaths in the US, and millions more abroad, how many family photos won’t be taken? How many holidays will feel emptier? What human potential has been wiped off the earth?
No number will suffice in answering this question. But there is a statistic that helps. It’s what public health researchers call “years of potential life lost,” and it’s a statistic commonly used to calculate the toll of premature death. It can help shatter that feeling of numbness.
When researchers calculate years of potential life lost, they are asking a simple, devastating question: Were people taken by Covid-19 too soon? How much time would they have had left? They do this by essentially subtracting the age someone died from that person’s estimated projected life span.
On average, a new analysis from researchers at the University of South Florida and the Baylor College of Medicine finds, every Covid-19 death in the US has led to 9.2 years of life lost. For men, it’s a little higher, at 9.5 years. For women who died, it’s a little lower, 8.8 years. That’s eight or nine years of Thanksgivings, birthdays, weddings, and so much more.
This figure recognizes deaths from Covid-19 are not a one-dimensional statistic. Yes, death is a moment, a point in time. But the effects of death ripple out across years. What does it mean when a person isn’t there to make a favorite dish for a holiday meal? What projects have been left unfinished? What garden will go untended? What paychecks won’t provide for families anymore? What children won’t get to know and be cared for by their grandparent? What dreams died?
In all, it’s estimated that, as of January 31 and about 420,000 US deaths, there were 3.9 million years of potential human life lost. (Keep in mind that in February, tens of thousands more deaths occurred, and they’re not accounted for in this figure.)
This number — 3.9 million years lost — is staggering. But also, it’s not that abstract. Each of us can imagine a year of our own lives, and all the richness contained within it.
Consider a year of life — of your own, of a loved one; think of that being lost. Now try to multiply all that 3.9 million times. That’s the scale of what these deaths mean, not just in the moment but over time.
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Christina Animashaun/Vox
The years of life lost metric can also help us understand ethnic and racial disparities produced by the pandemic in a starker light. Minorities in the US have been more likely to die of Covid-19 at younger ages than white people. When a person dies younger, more years of potential life are lost. And so these groups are left with an undue burden of lost potential.
These numbers aren’t meant to be absolutely precise. They’re meant to demonstrate the scale of what’s lost. In calculating years of life lost, the researchers have to make overly broad assumptions about how long people would have lived. In the case of the 3.9 million years lost figure, the researchers reduced the average life expectancies of those who died by 25 percent in their analysis. This accounted for the fact that people who die of Covid-19 are more likely to have underlying conditions, which could lead to a lower-than-average life span.
Even with this reduction in mind, these numbers are still haunting. But they’re also just numbers. We wanted to breathe some life into them and figure out what long shadows these deaths will cast.
To do that, we reached out to the families of three people who died of Covid-19 to learn what their loved ones were planning for the rest of their lives. We heard stories of celebrations and singing, of long-awaited reconciliations and nightly dinners, of people who lived and had so much more living left to do.
Hector Cantu, 50
San Diego, Texas
When Michelle Reneé Cantu thinks of her father, Hector, she is reminded of music: vibrant mariachi tunes, hit songs from the ’80s, and the sound of the trumpet, his favorite instrument. Hector, 50, died of Covid-19 complications in January. He had spent more than two decades teaching music to high schoolers in Premont, Texas, before moving to San Diego, Texas, where he worked for six years as assistant band director and head mariachi director. Just last year, the mariachi group he led won the state contest.
The loss of Hector has devastated the communities he was so involved in; he was the first teacher from the San Diego Independent School District to die of Covid-19. Former and current students, parents, and colleagues expressed their condolences across social media.
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For Michelle, who is 28, Hector was “everything [she] had,” and his untimely loss left a gaping hole in her family’s future. Hector married her stepmom, Melissa, whom he met while teaching in Premont, just last March, after spending 24 years as a single parent. Melissa was the love of Hector’s life, Michelle said, and the pair wasn’t able to go to Colorado for their honeymoon, since stay-at-home orders were implemented a week after their wedding. “Our family had a lot of travel goals we missed out on because of the pandemic,” Michelle said. “We didn’t get together as much, and we kept just saying and thinking, ‘When all this ends.’ And it ended up with my dad being taken away from us.”
Hector raised Michelle and her younger brother, Jacob, as a single father. He encouraged them to play various musical instruments. As the siblings matured into adulthood, so did their relationship with Hector — but the fun remained. “I miss going out and cruising with him, and listening to all types of music, from ’80s tunes to bachata,” Michelle said. “At home, we loved watching movies, or sometimes we played Name That Tune, where we put on different songs and guess the title. If we didn’t get it, we’d have to take a drink.”
The Cantus were big on celebrating holidays, and Hector was always eager to bring the family together, whether for Halloween or Christmas. This past Christmas Eve, which was his last, Hector had the idea to host a pajama party at his mother’s house. “He was always living his best life,” Michelle said. That’s what makes the sudden loss so hard. Hector’s enthusiasm was so infectious and his love so consistent that it’s difficult for Michelle to imagine a world without it.
“After my dad passed, people would tell me and my brother, ‘He was so proud of you. He loved you,’” she said. “But I always knew that. He told us, and he always believed in us.”
There is a sense of comfort, though, that Hector achieved some of his biggest milestones in the months before the pandemic: leading the mariachi group to the state competition and marrying his true love. Yet there are countless small moments that Michelle finds herself missing: The post-football game Bud Lights, when Hector would talk about the marching band’s performance. The family dinners and drinks over hearty home-cooked food. The jokes and the stories he would tell. “He had so much more love to give,” she said. “It feels wrong that he isn’t a text or a phone call away anymore.”
Carola Montero, 46
Milwaukie, Oregon
Grocery shopping used to be a weekly errand Catalina Castillo enjoyed with her mother, Carola Montero. But since Carola, 46, died of Covid-19 complications in December, Catalina, the second-eldest sibling, has taken on the shopping duties alone for her family of five. The 21-year-old sometimes aimlessly circles her car around the supermarket parking lot, reminiscing about her mother. “I was extremely close with my mom,” she said. “I would take her grocery shopping and to doctor’s appointments. She was my mom first, but also my best friend.”
Throughout Catalina’s and her siblings’ childhoods, Carola had been there every step of the way: as a chaperone on field trips, a front-row audience member at concerts and graduations, and a trusted confidante. Carola, an immigrant from Chile, had spent more than two decades as a full-time mother and homemaker before returning to the workforce in February 2020, when the Castillos needed additional income to pay their bills. At the time, Catalina and her older sister, Constanza, 23, were still in college and couldn’t work.
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Carola sought out a job at Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon and worked in the environmental services department as a housekeeper and cleaner. She was saving up to get her youngest son, Mathias, a computer for middle school, Catalina said, and extra funds for family vacations. “My mom had always wanted to go to amusement parks like Universal Studios, since she never got the chance when she was younger,” she added. “She also wanted to go back to Chile to see her cousins and uncles, then to San Francisco and other major cities, but we had to put those ideas on pause until the pandemic cooled down.”
The entire family, with the exception of Constanza, contracted the coronavirus in late November, and everyone recovered, except for Carola. It was a life-altering blow at the end of a traumatic year; their kitchen had caught fire the month before, and the family was temporarily residing in a nearby rental home.
Carola’s death still feels like a fresh wound for the Castillos. She was the glue that held the family together. One of the most painful realizations for Catalina is that her mother would no longer be around to experience the “common life things” with her and her siblings, as they enter young adulthood. She always cooked the Thanksgiving turkey, and knew how to appease her children’s picky appetites. She calmed them of their anxieties, and loved to go hiking and plan movie nights so the family could bond. “She was the reason we did a Christmas photo or any family photos,” Catalina said. “She also loved Detroit Lake in Oregon, where we go for our annual family trip.”
Catalina’s siblings and her father are seeking therapy to help them process the loss of Carola. That doesn’t make living through it any easier though; she was such a constant presence in each of their lives.
“I always thought she would be at my wedding or by my side in the operating room when I’m in labor,” Catalina said. “We all relied on her to be there, and we all feel like a part of us is missing.”
Epati Ala’ilima, 62
Duarte, California
Manumalo Ala’ilima, or Malo, remembers their eldest brother, Epati Ala’ilima, as a protector. As the youngest of seven siblings, Malo naturally saw Epati as their role model in adolescence: He was a Marine, a gifted musician, and a martial artist. Malo, 47, said their roles as the youngest and eldest siblings “defined where everybody’s position was in [the] family.” After Epati, 62, died of Covid-19 complications in July, they felt like they lost “the other bookend.”
Epati had retired in Southern California a few years earlier, and hunkered down with his wife, Sheila, and teenage daughters Jaylen and Kianna when the pandemic hit. He was the only one going out to get groceries and essentials for the family, since his wife and daughters were immunocompromised. “He was very devoted to them,” said Epati “Junior” Ala’ilima, 36, the oldest of Epati’s six children. “They really took every precaution and measure, so it was a big surprise to us that he got Covid.”
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There is a lingering sense of incompleteness now that Epati has passed, Malo said: “I really felt like there were years that have been taken away from me, our family, his wife and children, prematurely.” Epati won’t get the chance to grow old with his grandchildren, and he had yet to see his youngest daughters go through the milestones of young adulthood, like dressing up for prom, receiving their diploma at high school graduation, and being sent off to college. There were so many moving parts in Epati’s life, even after he retired, that Covid-19 suddenly halted.
“We used to see each other, if not daily, at least once a week,” said Junior. “In our culture, you know, Samoan people are very family- and community-oriented. All of those things had to be altered with the pandemic. I rarely saw my dad face to face, and it was hard, knowing that’s how he spent the last year of his life.”
The week of Epati’s funeral was the weekend Malo had originally planned to wed their fiancée in Portland, Oregon, where they lived. Epati was one of the first people who preemptively booked a trip to Oregon to celebrate with Malo. “He was so excited to visit us, and it was beautiful to hear that from my eldest brother,” Malo recalled. “His excitement to my joy means a lot. He is a reborn Christian and has dedicated his life to the Christian God. Yet he was so excited for me. I remember a long time ago sharing that I was queer, and he really took the time to understand and figure out what made me happy.”
Junior believes that, if not for Covid, his father would’ve gotten more involved in the church ministry. Church became a big part of Epati’s life after his retirement, and Junior said his father felt like he had a calling to serve others. That’s why he always felt like the family’s protector, as Malo described. “He was a loving and caring father,” Junior said. “It’s unfortunate that he won’t be present at these family reunions we’d planned for after the pandemic. He was patient and kind, and we miss him so much.”
Brian Resnick is a science reporter at Vox, covering social and behavioral sciences, space, medicine, the environment, and anything that makes you think, “Whoa, that’s cool.” Before Vox, he was a staff correspondent at National Journal, where he wrote two magazine cover stories and reported on breaking news and politics.
Terry Nguyen is a reporter for The Goods by Vox. She broadly covers consumer and internet trends, and technology that influences people’s online lives and behaviors.
President Biden must decide by May 1 if the US will stay in or leave Afghanistan.
This is a two-part series examining the arguments for and against withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan by May. Read the case for the withdrawal here.
President Joe Biden has a big, looming decision to make by May 1: whether or not to withdraw all 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan and end America’s 20-year war in the country.
Biden very broadly has two paths to choose from. He can abide by former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban, which would require all American service members to leave Afghanistan by that deadline. Or Biden can extend the US military mission, either unilaterally or by negotiating an extension with the Taliban, as a way to pressure the Taliban to strike a peace deal with the Afghan government.
Both options are fraught with risk. Experts warn that ending America’s presence will almost certainly lead the Taliban to take over the country, including the capital city of Kabul. Staying, though, will invite the insurgent group to restart killing American personnel in the country, adding to the over 2,300 US personnel who have already been killed since the war began in 2001.
There’s simply no overarching consensus on which is the best course of action, underscoring just how difficult Biden’s decision — expected in a few weeks — will be.
But Lisa Curtis, a senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, DC, is firmly on the side of continuing America’s military footing in Afghanistan.
“There are some costs associated with keeping US troops, but the risks of going completely to zero far outweigh the costs of keeping a small number of troops in,” Curtis, who also served as the top Afghanistan official on former President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, told me.
Not only will keeping troops in Afghanistan help defeat terrorists operating there, she said, it also will enable Washington to use “leverage with the Taliban to greater effect to get a real, genuine peace process in place.”
I called Curtis and asked her to lay out the best case for why Biden should keep US troops in Afghanistan past the May 1 deadline. A transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.
Alex Ward
What’s your main case for wanting US troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 deadline?
Lisa Curtis
There are three options for a way forward.
The first option would be what you presented as pulling out all US troops. That would risk a civil war, the reemergence of a terrorist safe haven, and a tremendous loss of US credibility built with our allies. It would also empower a generation of extremists. And frankly, we may have to send troops back in: Look what happened in Iraq after US troops withdrew and ISIS took over. We sent forces back in.
One other option would be to completely drop the peace process and just keep a minimal number of troops in the country. We could provide financial assistance, air support, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for the Afghan forces.
This would risk that the Taliban would resume attacks against US forces, which might be an unacceptable risk for many. But it would provide the Afghan government a fighting chance and mean that the US is not completely abandoning our partners of the last 20 years. Of course, it would also mean continued cost to the US taxpayer.
The last option — and this is the option that I would support — would be using US leverage with the Taliban to greater effect to get a real, genuine peace process in place, which would mean keeping US forces in the country until that peace process is further along and shows more signs of progress.
This would mean more costs and resources for something that admittedly may not work, but it would allow the peace process to continue, preserve US credibility, and reduce risks to Americans from terrorism.
I think that the question really is this: Is the US willing to spend $5 billion annually, which means a small US force presence of about 2,500? Is that worth it, as an insurance policy to prevent another 9/11-style attack? I think if you ask most Americans, they would agree that that is worth it.
Alex Ward
You say that withdrawing US troops will lead to civil war in Afghanistan, but one already exists, and there will be one regardless of how many Americans fight in Afghanistan. There’s no question it will get worse without US forces in the country, but there’s little America can do now with 2,500 troops there anyway. Simply put, we can’t stave off a broader civil war forever.
Lisa Curtis
But if the US left, that war would be much worse, and you’d probably see the Afghan government collapse pretty quickly. Even though we do have war now, it’s not an all-out civil war with no state: We have a state, we have an Afghan security force.
This is important: Afghanistan’s forces, which are backed by an Afghan state, continue to help us in fighting terrorism. Senior al-Qaeda leaders were taken off the battlefield in the last 18 months with the help of Afghan security forces. By contrast, we’re never going to be able to rely on the Taliban to protect our counterterrorism interests.
There may never be a full solution to the fighting in Afghanistan, but we have to remember we’re still protecting ourselves against terrorist threats.
Alex Ward
Why doesn’t the US completely remove itself from the civil war then — tell Kabul and the Taliban to duke it out — and then just lead a counterterrorism operation? President Biden suggested such a plan during the campaign.
Lisa Curtis
That’s pretty much what we have now. Most American forces remaining there are involved in a train, advise, and assist mission. We also provide air support, but we’re not out there fighting on the ground with the Afghan forces.
There’s a misunderstanding of our role: Our combat role ended back in 2014. Since then we’ve really been focusing on the counterterrorism mission, which does involve backstopping the Afghans by assisting and advising. But it’s not as if we’re going at it hand in hand with the Taliban.
But remember also that if the Taliban came back to power, you’ll see terrorists from all over the world — not just al Qaeda — you’ll see a convergence of extremists and terrorists back in Afghanistan. It’s likely to be a worse terrorist safe haven than it was before 9/11.
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Alex Ward
Isn’t the Taliban going to take over anyway, even if we kept 2,500 troops in the country? Why put their lives at risk? Surely there are other ways for the US to keep tabs on terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
Lisa Curtis
The troops that we have there now are partnering with the Afghans, but also are enabling 8,500 or so NATO troops. If we left, the NATO troops would likely follow. What we’re doing is we’re an enabling force for other countries to also be there to ensure that the Afghan state remains intact and the Afghan forces can continue to fight. That is a good reason to keep a small number of troops in the country.
Let’s not forget that the US provides moral support, too. Having the US there is a source of reassurance for the Afghans. The minute the US says “we’re going to zero troops,” you’re going to see a lot of Afghans flee the country, you’re probably going to see a refugee crisis, which the Europeans are really worried about. There are a lot of impacts that happen when the US takes that ultimate step of going to zero.
That’s why I come back to this: There are some costs associated with keeping US troops in the country, but the risks of going completely to zero far outweigh the costs of keeping a small number of troops in.
Alex Ward
One of those costs, as you’ve mentioned, is the possibility of another 9/11-style attack. But it’s 2021, not 2001, and the US and its partners have far more robust ways to stop that attack. We’ve made terrorism a larger intelligence priority than in the past, for example. Isn’t the risk of such a catastrophe exceedingly small, even if the US fully withdrew from Afghanistan?
Lisa Curtis
You make a very good point. We are obviously much more equipped to prevent that 9/11-style attack from happening on US soil, no doubt. The argument that I’m making is that if we withdraw to zero, the Taliban comes back, and terrorist groups and extremists pour back into Afghanistan.
That gives the Taliban a dangerous narrative to propagate, which is they were able to kick out the US and its NATO partners. “We succeeded,” they could say. That is the real danger, that we lose to terrorists and extremists and we provide an opportunity for them to regather strength.
And yes, you’re right, we do have the ability to stop terrorism much more than we did 20 years ago at our border. But it’s still a high cost for us to pay when we could continue to support partners that we’ve been supporting for 20 years. There’s no indication the Taliban feels pressure to break with al-Qaeda. Even the UN has said the Taliban has not changed its relationship with al-Qaeda.
Alex Ward
I get that giving the Taliban the ability to say “America lost” stings and is unpalatable. But haven’t we already lost? Is spending billions to somewhat deny the Taliban that narrative a wise investment?
Lisa Curtis
Let’s look at Iraq. When the US withdrew troops, ISIS rose and took over Mosul in 2014. We had to put troops back into Iraq and in even greater numbers, and we had to redouble our efforts to stem the rise of ISIS.
We should learn from past mistakes that it’s not always a win-lose situation. We’re trying to manage threats, and we can manage the threat from Afghanistan by empowering and working with our Afghan partners who also don’t want the Taliban to take over their country.
We’ve been there a long time, but at the same time, we have built up Afghan forces and Afghans have seen real improvements in their lives. It’s not as if there was nothing gained — there have been tremendous gains in Afghanistan. That just means that we may not be able to withdraw troops as soon as we’d like.
And let’s face it, we’re down to 2,500 troops. We had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at one point. We really have right-sized our engagement there. We’re not looking for quick, easy solutions. We’re trying to manage threats and being able to manage the threat at roughly $5 billion a year, that seems like a good investment from a national security perspective.
Alex Ward
Perhaps the fundamental question here is why should the US care so much about Afghanistan anyway? We have bigger issues to worry about, like China and Russia and climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.
I feel for the people of Afghanistan whose lives will get worse if the US withdraws by May 1, but America also has limited resources and limited power. We can’t do everything and be everything for everyone.
Lisa Curtis
You’re right, we have many threats that we’re facing across the world. Strategic competition with China is where we should be putting the majority of our military and financial resources right now.
But we also have thousands of troops fighting off terrorists around the world. Is terrorism the number one threat? Maybe not. Does it deserve some of our resources and attention? I think it does. We’re a global power. We’re going to have our resources, our troops, in different parts of the world at any given time. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Maybe it’s time to draw down the resources that we’re investing in Afghanistan, but let’s right-size it, let’s not throw out the whole objective that we went there for in the first place. Let’s draw down responsibly, and let’s give the peace process time.
President Biden must decide by May 1 if the US will stay in or leave Afghanistan.
This is a two-part series examining the arguments for and against withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan by May. Read the case for staying in Afghanistan here.
President Joe Biden has a big, looming decision to make by May 1: Whether or not to withdraw all 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan and end America’s 20-year war in the country.
Biden, very broadly, has two paths to choose from. He can abide by former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban, which would require all American service members to leave Afghanistan by that deadline. Or Biden can extend the US military mission, either unilaterally or by negotiating an extension with the Taliban, as a way to pressure the Taliban to strike a peace deal with the Afghan government.
Both options are fraught with risk. Experts warn that ending America’s presence will almost certainly lead the Taliban to take over the country, including the capital city of Kabul. Staying, though, will invite the insurgent group to restart killing American personnel in the country, adding to the over 2,300 US personnel who have already been killed in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.
There’s simply no overarching consensus on which is the best course of action, underscoring just how difficult Biden’s decision — expected in a few weeks — will be.
But retired US Army Col. Chris Kolenda, who commanded troops in Afghanistan and also served as a senior adviser on the country to top US civilian defense officials and four-star generals, believes that, absent a short, six-month negotiated extension agreed upon by both the US and the Taliban, it’s time to bring the troops home.
In 2018, Kolenda and US diplomat Robin Raphel also privately engaged in secret talks with the Taliban aimed at bringing the war to an end. Those talks helped pave the way for the agreement the Trump administration later signed with the Taliban.
Should the US overstay its welcome, said Kolenda, now the founder of Strategic Leaders Academy, “The Biden administration will own the consequences of what looks to be an increasing calamity in Afghanistan.”
I called Kolenda and asked him to lay out the best case for why Biden should withdraw all remaining US troops from Afghanistan. A transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.
Alex Ward
Why should the Biden administration lean more toward leaving Afghanistan than staying?
Chris Kolenda
The administration should aim for a six-month extension to see if we can get the stalled peace process back on track. If we don’t get that extension, and getting one will require a heavy lift, then we should pull out the remaining 2,500 troops and apply penalties to whichever side breaks the peace process.
The US is in a reverse-Goldilocks position: 2,500 troops is too little to really do any good with what’s coming from the Taliban, and too big to get away quickly. We’re entertaining a lot of risk if we simply abrogate the agreement [signed between the Trump administration and the Taliban]. The United States will blame the Taliban for not meeting their end of the bargain, but at the end of the day, it’ll be the United States making the decision to tear up the agreement.
What happens then? From the Taliban’s point of view, the West can’t be trusted, and they’ll decide to go on an all-out offensive. The Taliban right now are surrounding eight to 10 provincial capitals. With 2,500 troops and the limited airpower that we have in Afghanistan, the math just simply doesn’t work that [we would be able to] sort all of that out. The Taliban is likely to gain some serious momentum.
For the Taliban to thrive, they’re going to need support from the West. But if the West proved itself untrustworthy by breaking the deal, then they will look to Russia and China, even knowing any aid will come with huge strings attached.
Alex Ward
Why seek an extension agreement at all? Why not just continue the status quo military mission as a way to keep the pressure on the Taliban? That would provide the US leverage in any peace-deal talks, wouldn’t it?
Chris Kolenda
Staying beyond May 1 without any extension agreement encourages the worst behaviors on the part of all of the actors.
The Afghan government is slow-rolling talks in hopes that we will stay. The Taliban is slow-rolling talks to see if we’re going to leave. And the regional actors are transferring security onto our shoulders while they stir up their proxies within Afghanistan.
And what are the advantages of the status quo? The status quo locks in misery that the 38 million or so Afghans are living in. The only ones who are outside of that misery seem to be the elite bubble within Kabul. Afghanistan has among the most perennially corrupt governments in the world; it’s the second-worst place in the world to be a woman right next to Yemen.
That status quo is just not sustainable.
Alex Ward
The status quo is terrible, sure, but withdrawing all US troops condemns Afghanistan to an even worse fate. If the US leaves, so will other NATO countries, which will invite a free-for-all for terrorists and extremists to settle in. Won’t that imperil the lives of Afghans further and spark another refugee crisis Europe desperately wants to avoid?
Chris Kolenda
I’m just not convinced that 2,500 troops is going to stop all that from happening.
The Taliban have already prepared militarily for this scenario. We’ve had a false sense of confidence over the past 14 months in which the Taliban have not attacked any US bases or facilities. If we tear up the agreement, we can look forward to a Vietnam-style, Tet-like offensive by the Taliban in the summer of 2021. Some of those major attacks are going to be much more successful than the Tet Offensive was.
The Biden administration will own the consequences of what looks to be an increasing calamity in Afghanistan. One of the biggest risks for the United States is the specter of a C-17 [plane] screaming out of Bagram [Air Base] on the heels of a Taliban offensive army.
The risk is, it replaces the fall of Saigon in 1975 as a black eye for America. The alternative is that you leave in the manner in which it was agreed, while putting the peace process on a more stable platform.
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If fighting resumes, and it’s likely to resume, the Afghan government is going to be forced to get its act together and stand up and fight the Taliban to a new stalemate, which is what I personally think is likely to happen. Or they’re just going to collapse. And after 20 years of international investment, the Afghan government needs to earn the public support.
To the fears about a refugee crisis out of Afghanistan, it’s already happened, for the most part, and most of the refugees in Afghanistan are internally displaced people in a very, very bad state of affairs. Again, the longer the status quo remains, the more we lock in the misery already felt by millions in that country.
Alex Ward
Well, let’s even put the civil war aside. What about the terrorism problem? If the US leaves, and NATO follows, won’t it be harder to keep tabs on al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other groups operating throughout Afghanistan? Won’t they have an easier time planning a 9/11-style attack if they want to?
Chris Kolenda
I’m not convinced the evidence for those assertions exist. There’s no evidence that 2,500 troops is a difference-maker in maintaining stability in Afghanistan.
And al-Qaeda is a shadow of its former self in Afghanistan. There are a lot of groups, the Taliban included, that are interested in fighting ISIS. You also get all sorts of reports coming out of the Afghan government about 20 or 25 terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Well, maybe they exist, and maybe they’re about three or four people sitting in a cave.
Again, I’m just not convinced that a withdrawal is just a prelude to another 9/11. The evidence for that is almost nonexistent.
Plus, our capabilities 20 years after 9/11 — to detect and to strike any sort of emerging terrorist threat in a place like Afghanistan — are much, much higher. Our information networks in Afghanistan itself, as well as our detection and strike capabilities, really are the best insurance against a terrorist attack against the United States. It’s far better than keeping a small force presence in the country.
Alex Ward
But if we leave, the Taliban will get to say it defeated another empire. It can credibly claim it won against the US, and that might excite other groups to consider joining the Taliban or carry out their own extremist plans.
Chris Kolenda
The Taliban are going to say what they want to say, and we can’t control that. But their narrative will be a lot more credible if they pull off a Tet Offensive of their own this summer and then the US flees in a panic.
We therefore might as well leave when we said we would, absent an extension agreement. Let the Taliban say what they want to say — who really cares? At the end of the day, if Afghanistan is at peace with itself and its neighbors, if Afghanistan is no longer an international terrorist threat and stays that way, and Afghanistan as a whole becomes a better place to live, then I’d say that the United States attained its interests in Afghanistan and the future of Afghanistan became much brighter.
Alex Ward
Let’s talk about the peace process for a moment. What gives you confidence the Taliban would agree to an extension? And even if they did, shouldn’t the US keep troops in Afghanistan beyond the agreement to ensure the insurgent group sticks to the deal?
Chris Kolenda
Right, wrong, or indifferent, the US-Taliban agreement is fraught with problems. One of those major problems is that a sitting US government said all troops would leave by May 1. The Taliban’s side of those agreements are much less demonstrable. Outside of no attacks on the US or its allies, the other elements are much more difficult to prove or disprove.
That gives the Taliban the ability to say, “We held our end of the bargain, please leave.” They can claim no attacks on the US or its allies coming from Afghanistan, that they’ve told foreign fighters they’re unwelcome, that they’ve relieved commanders who have had foreign fighters in their ranks.
If the US proves itself untrustworthy by abrogating the deal, though, then it’s no-holds-barred. It’s back to the war, and they’re in a much stronger position than they were 14 months ago to pull off a major offensive.
So we need to put the peace process on a more stable footing. We should look at the peace process in terms of a three-circle Venn diagram. Those circles are an internal peace process, a regional peace process, and then international guarantees. They’ve all got overlap.
Until now we’ve been too focused on internal Afghan politics, and not focused enough on the regional relationships. Part of a reset in the peace process, then, is getting the regional and international components moving forward. The hope is an extension helps with all that.
Alex Ward
Say we get an extension, we try to do all that, and we fail. If the US leaves at that point, won’t that just be rewarding the Taliban’s bad behavior and unwillingness to deal?
Chris Kolenda
It takes two to tango, and the Taliban has had their share of prevarication during this peace process. But the Afghan government has had more of the prevarication. Both parties are at fault here.
The United States is going to find its diplomatic leverage with both parties and with the region increased when we no longer have to have 2,500 troops in the mix of this. The US is going to be able to apply much more diplomatic leverage to gain productive behaviors from the Afghan government, the Taliban, and regional actors, instead of encouraging their worst behaviors.
Alex Ward
This war is personal for you. You’ve fought and killed in it, you’ve had friends die there, you still have friends living there. You also worked secretly to open the door to Taliban talks. What are you personally feeling as the May 1 deadline approaches?
Chris Kolenda
The US has a history of missed opportunities in Afghanistan, and we’re at risk of adding another one. In 2001, the Taliban in effect offered to surrender. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai not only said “No,” but “Heck no,” in terms of accepting the Taliban’s offer to stop fighting and just live in peace.
There were also other overtures, some written about and others I’ve personally heard about, and again the United States and the Afghan government said, “No, we don’t agree.”
In the negotiations I was involved in as the secretary of defense’s representative from 2010 to 2012, the United States did not put the political capital behind the effort. Washington just simply couldn’t get its act together to move forward [in] a peace process. The result was the Taliban eventually got frustrated and left the talks.
Each time we forfeited these opportunities — the last time, when there were 100,000-plus international soldiers on the ground — the Taliban’s only demands were to do a detainee exchange, [Bowe] Bergdahl for the Gitmo Five, open a political office in Doha, and lift sanctions on their version of diplomats.
You fast-forward all these years later to what we’re left with — an agreement where we essentially traded no troops for no terrorism with the Taliban — and it’s the best we could’ve gotten at this point.
Are we ready to miss another opportunity? It breaks my heart to see the suffering of Afghans, and it breaks my heart to see continued policy- and strategy-making in the United States that is leading us to worse outcomes at huge costs in blood, treasure, and time.