Troop withdrawal from Afghanistan: Faced with a fait accompli

Witnesses from the Federal Foreign Office will be heard today in the Bundestag’s Afghanistan investigative committee. Confidential documents show how much irritation there was in 2020 about the Trump administration going it alone.

“In together, out together” – this has always been the NATO mantra with regard to the military mission in Afghanistan. But how much the USA was at times going it alone within the alliance is shown by numerous documents that ARD Capital Studio and WDR investigative present.

One example is the agreement concluded by the USA with the Islamist Taliban at the end of February 2020 on the withdrawal of western troops, with which the German government was not at all happy: “I’m confused/need clarification on the content of the US/TLB (ed.: Taliban) agreement communicated,” says a confidential e-mail from the speaker at the time of the Permanent Mission to NATO in Brussels on March 5, 2020 after a meeting with his US counterpart.

The man who wrote these lines at the time is now being heard as a witness in the investigative committee. Shortly before this meeting, after an informal exchange between the Foreign Office, the Defense Ministry and the Chancellery in Berlin, the following line had been agreed: “Dissatisfaction with the US-Taliban agreement should be communicated to the USA in a suitable way.” This is what it says in a confidential note from the NATO department in the Federal Foreign Office on the meeting, also dated March 5.

“Again strayed from consensus”

But it was not only with the Taliban agreement that the United States, then governed by President Donald Trump, presented the Germans and their other allies with a fait accompli. In 2020, they were also surprised by new and uncoordinated troop withdrawal announcements. “Contrary to previous commitments and NATO decisions, the USA has once again backed away from the agreed consensus,” says a Foreign Office paper dated November 19, 2020 – shortly after the Trump administration announced that the number of US troops would be reduced by mid-year January 2021 to reduce to 2500.

However, Germany has always tried to insist that the withdrawal decision should be linked to conditions – such as the progress of the peace talks with the Taliban in Doha – and the situation in Afghanistan, and not to predetermined timelines.

Chaotic state of the NATO alliance

The communication sheds a disturbing light on the chaotic state of the NATO alliance at the time. And how little consideration the Trump administration took towards Germany and the other allies in Afghanistan.

It’s no secret that communication changed again when Joe Biden took office. The new US President also stuck to Trump’s decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan. With the known consequences.