Afghanistan and its Taliban Takeover: Tomb of Empires or Afghan Women?

After 20 years of war, Afghanistan is back in the hands of the Taliban, with many accusing Biden of an epic defeat. After the seizure of the presidential palace and the flight of President Ghani on 15 August, a Taliban spokesman announced the rebirth of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which led the country from 1996 to 2001.

An unexpected collapse?

Despite talks of a Taliban ‘offensive’, from Mazar-i-Sharif — the main center in the north — to Jalalabad on the border with Pakistan, districts and provincial capitals have fallen one after the other without much of a fight. Regular soldiers of the so-called ‘Afghan army’ often surrendered without firing a single shot (although special forces fought valiantly). The Taliban, employing a strategy well-tested in the 1990s, had promised to spare those who would have laid down their arms and allowed them to peacefully return home. Furthermore, it was evident no reinforcements would arrive from Kabul or other provinces. But this is not enough to explain the proportions of a defeat so epochal as to deserve — like it or not — being compared with Vietnam.

The return of the Taliban to power depends, ultimately, on a divided military, despite the two thousand billion dollars allocated over twenty years for training and equipment, and on…