The German government, following the hasty withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and the fall of the previous government to the Taliban administration, decided to review its 20-year presence in Afghanistan. The results of this review have recently been released and indicate that Western countries, particularly Germany, pursued misguided approaches to address the challenges in Afghanistan over the past two decades due to a lack of understanding of the cultural and social complexities within Afghanistan.
This report, prepared by three ministries, including the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aimed to examine the two-decade-long presence of Germany in Afghanistan and draw lessons from it. The review has shown that the strategies employed by the German government to address Afghanistan’s complex problems were flawed because the country was either unaware of or disregarded the cultural and social challenges within Afghanistan. Instead, they were overly optimistic about their ability to bring about change in the country and solve its problems.
The government formed after the 2021 Bonn Conference in Afghanistan had aspects of a Western-style structure, and foreign countries, led by the United States, had both military and non-military presence in the country for 20 years. However, this prolonged presence came to an end with the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.
Germany’s report covers the non-military presence in Afghanistan, stating that dependency on Afghan politicians who were not accountable to the people and overlooking cultural and social challenges was mistaken. It also highlighted that corrupt local authorities and public distrust in the previous Afghan government were major factors that paved the way for the Taliban’s return.
The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitted to a significant failure by Germany and other international factors during their 20-year presence in Afghanistan. It stated that the outline of societal structure, its development, efforts toward the rule of law, a flexible economic system, and civic participation from outside were all wrong, and this complex version of nation-building was doomed from the start.
Germany is the first country to review its 20-year presence in Afghanistan. It has been learned that cooperation with unsuccessful Afghan political figures to establish a rule-of-law government in Afghanistan, disregarding societal structures, and not emphasizing the global community’s desires were major mistakes of the past two decades.
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