America’s Endless War: What was it all about?

Let’s talk a little bit about Afghanistan. Someone in the comments section asked me to discuss or analyze Afghanistan over the past 40 years, but that’s a bit much; so let me just talk about more recent history and what is going on now and in the short to medium future.

Talking about the recent history of Afghanistan means we are talking about the invasion, occupation, and war by the United States, and of course, their withdrawal a short time ago, 20 years later. So, what was that all about?

First, let’s talk about what it wasn’t about. It was not about killing or capturing Usama bin Laden, it wasn’t about destroying the Taliban, and it wasn’t about spreading democracy and freedom to Afghanistan. I think it is safe to assume that most of us already know this.

However, many people, particularly Muslims, think that the war and occupation in Afghanistan was about geostrategic control over historically important territory on the old Silk Road, and they invoke the Great Game narrative, and something something, oil and gas pipelines, something something China. So on and so forth. Or maybe they will talk about the $1 to $3 trillion worth of minerals, rare earth, gems, gold and coal hiding in the soil of Afghanistan. Making the war a simple land grab for precious resources — something everyone can understand very easily.

But I am here to tell you that none of that has anything to do with the war, not really. All of that constitutes the contrivances of think tanks and pundits to make it look like the invasion and occupation were somehow politically justifiable from a neo-imperialist perspective. That is, to make a convincing argument that controlling Afghanistan was, by one way or another, useful to the United States as a nation. Either, it was vital from the geostrategic point of view, or else, it was a manoeuvre that would secure the US access to a treasure trove of raw minerals and natural wealth.

The truth is, Afghanistan is irrelevant, and that is why the US declared an endless war against it. It was an impoverished, undeveloped and undevelopable, defenceless, land-locked country in which nothing of consequence was at stake. It was perfect.

Let me explain. The budget for American defence spending — that is, money spent by the United States to finance research and development and acquisition of technologies from American defence and aerospace companies –rose steadily for 3 decades during the Cold War. In the 1990s, it plateaued for 10 years. By 1999, funding for R&D and procurement were, in real terms, actually less than half what they were in 1985. By the year 2000, military spending in the United States was at its lowest point ever as a percentage of GDP.

The defence industry, then, appears to have made a business decision. They increased their political spending; backing George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election with more contributions than they had ever given any candidate before. In fact, their financial support for the Bush campaign was almost triple what they had spent in the 1996 campaign of Bob Dole. They also drastically increased their spending on lobbying and funding for congressional candidates, investing over $10 million more in lobbying in 2000 than they had four years before. This bought them a very accommodating government, and war was an inevitability, with or without the 9/11 attacks. And, again, Afghanistan was the perfect target. Not only was it perfect because it did not matter, but it also did not matter to anyone else who did matter. The war could, indeed, be endless.

It provided the optimal vehicle for funnelling public money to the defence industry, and it could go on indefinitely, with little or no serious consequences or disruption to other interests. And that is precisely what happened.

Whenever commentators talk about how much the war in Afghanistan cost, it is highly misleading, because almost all of that money is money gifted to American companies — companies like Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics — all of which have enjoyed astronomical profits over the past 20 years of the war in Afghanistan. The defence industry was insulated from the 2008 global financial crisis, and has been unaffected by the economic downturn from the pandemic; they have wildly outperformed every other sector on the Stock Market by 60%.

The war has been an enormous success; the only way for you to believe it was a failure is if you made the mistake of believing any of the official rationales for the war crafted by think tanks, pundits, and politicians. The defence industry has had a bull run of unprecedented profits for 20 years; But all good things must come to an end, and other power players have emerged to exert their influence. Big pharma is now the largest lobbying spender in Washington. The pharmaceutical industry gave Joe Biden’s presidential campaign nearly three times as much in 2020 as they gave Hillary Clinton in 2016, which is also three times more than the defence industry gave Biden in 2020. Big Pharma has also ramped up their investment in lobbyists for influence in congress; as well as spending nearly $20 million to finance congressional candidates in 2020. Accordingly, there is a shift in the policy focus; particularly when you consider the also massive amount of money poured into Washington by Big Tech — a category that includes Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and other internet and media giants. Biden received nearly $55 million more from this sector than he did from the arms industry and aerospace.

So, what about Afghanistan since the US has ceased using it as a vehicle for pumping money into American defence companies? Well, here let me address the claim of the $1 to $3 trillion worth of natural resources laying untapped under the soil. This was a story that made the rounds back in 2010 when majority public opinion had turned against the war. The front page of the New York Times excitedly reported that the Pentagon and a team of geologists had suddenly discovered that Afghanistan was poised to become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” and contained an unimaginable wealth of precious minerals. The fact is, this discovery was not a new story at all, nor was it a discovery. The American claim was based on an old Russian report from 1977 which had been twice updated by the US Geological Survey, first in 2004, then again in 2009. The findings were not findings as such, but were “probabilistic estimates of undiscovered deposits”. Which is to say, there was zero actual confirmation that this subterranean wealth really exists.

After 20 years of military occupation there is not one single American or Western mining company in Afghanistan. As vital as the alleged mineral wealth is, if it was really there, private military contractors would have been doing nothing for the last ten years but secure the operations of extraction companies, and we would be reading stories about Afghani children forced to work in mines. As it is, only one international mining contract was ever signed during the occupation, and that was with China. This was touted as the biggest deal ever for a copper mining operation, reported to be worth $2.8 billion. The actual agreement was for $800 million for a 30-year contract, and that project has been suspended.

But, now that the Taliban has taken over, and the US has left, the mythical mineral wealth is once again reappearing in the headlines; this time accompanied by predictions that China will seize Afghanistan’s treasures.

Now, the propaganda about Afghani minerals made sense a decade ago as a way to justify the occupation and bolster lagging public support for the war, while also distracting from the real function of the occupation as a mechanism for funnelling taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the defence industry; but what purpose does it serve to talk about it now?

Part of this may be wishful thinking, hoping that the Chinese (since they are the only ones to actually enter into a mining agreement with Afghanistan) might be lured into the quagmire of exploration and extraction in Afghanistan that the US already knows is a losing game. It’s a losing game because, number one; no one even knows if the hypothetical mineral wealth exists; and number two; because even if it does exist, extracting any of it will be a security and logistical nightmare pursuit of which could do considerable damage to China both domestically and around the region.

But, more likely, this is getting reported for no other reason than to boost the idea in the US that China is on the verge of world domination. This is more likely because we should always remember that the primary target audience for any country’s mainstream media is the domestic population of that country.

The US, no doubt, would like to see Afghanistan return at this point to being a destabilising force in Central Asia; a launching pad for extremism and violence and a source of refugees. They would very much like to see China attempt to pursue infrastructure projects and mining in Afghanistan, which would inevitably require China to become involved in the mission impossible of establishing security and control in the graveyard of empires. I am doubtful that China will take the bait. China already has access to the world’s biggest deposits of rare earths and minerals, and is actively initiating projects around the world to exploit these resources in confirmed and more predictable countries. While China has engaged with the Taliban government diplomatically, it seems unlikely that they will rush into much more than that any time soon. Their main concern at this stage is that the Taliban will not provide support for the East Turkistan Movement, and Uighur separatists, and they have already been given assurances to that effect.

So, what does the future hold for Afghanistan in the near term? As long as the Taliban stays out of the global jihad business, I would not expect the country to be interfered with very much, and they will be allowed to continue life as they have known it for the past several centuries. Geopolitically, the country does not have many options, and that is not something that is going to change.