Warren P. Strobel, Gordon Lubold and Michael R. Gordon
Gone are the military bases and other infrastructure that provided a platform for operatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies. Gone is the U.S.-backed Afghan government and its intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, which worked closely with American spy services. Gone, evacuated or scattered are Afghan agents and troops who fed on-the-ground information to the CIA.
U.S. officials acknowledge the military has lost 90% of the intelligence collection capabilities it had using drones before the drawdown of forces began in May.
“It is not the way you generally ever want to structure a counterterrorism campaign,” said Seth Jones, a former adviser to U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
The potential perils of the Biden administration’s from-a-distance strategy were illustrated on Sunday. The U.S. military said a U.S. drone strike killed several suicide bombers inside a car that was laden with explosives. But many Afghans on the ground said the strike killed 10 civilians, including several children. The strike was the second the U.S. military launched following Thursday’s suicide bombing at Kabul airport that killed nearly 200 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops. The military’s U.S. Central Command said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties.
Mr. Biden, long a skeptic of counterinsurgency campaigns involving large U.S. troop deployments, has promised Americans that he will deter and detect emerging threats without them.
“We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence,” he said Aug. 16. “If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan. We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.”
“Over the horizon” refers to drones that can soak up electronic intelligence and launch Hellfire and other missiles, U.S. strike jets based on aircraft carriers or overseas bases, assets such as spy satellites that can snap images of terrorists’ encampments or intercept their communications, and possibly commando raids launched from afar.
While such technologies have advanced rapidly in the two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, military and intelligence officials say they are generally less effective without U.S. personnel and local partners on the ground in conflict zones.
“We will be able to do some good with over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations from distant locations against threats emerging from Afghanistan, but we will be unable to achieve anything close to what we could once achieve by having boots on the ground,” said retired Army Gen. Michael Nagata, who held senior positions in U.S. Special Operations and the National Counterterrorism Center.
“Particularly worrisome will be our weakened ability to gather the intelligence and targeting insights we need to both understand what and where the threat is, and also be sure that when we do strike, we are…effectively attacking the threat while also minimizing the likelihood of harm to innocent people,” said Gen. Nagata, who spoke before reports of civilian casualties emerged after Sunday’s strike.
When the U.S. pulled its troops from Iraq in 2011, many officials and analysts say, it lost much of its ability to closely track the growth of Islamic State, which seized swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and prompted the U.S. military to return.
When Mr. Biden announced the pullout of all American forces in April, he said the U.S. would retain the capability to collect intelligence and conduct airstrikes to prevent the rise of al Qaeda or other groups that could pose a threat to the American homeland. Administration officials explained that the U.S. would keep forces in the region for that purpose. Some administration officials said that Central Asia would be the ideal place to deploy, even on a temporary basis, drones and other aircraft.
The American military used bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan during the early phases of its post-9/11 operations in Afghanistan but left after Russia and China pressured countries in the region to cut off their military cooperation with Washington.
While the U.S. government has been talking to Uzbekistan officials recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Mr. Biden at their June summit meeting in Geneva that he objected to any role for U.S. forces in Central Asia. Russia has sought to use its influence publicly and privately with countries in the region to prevent this, a U.S. official said. So far, the U.S. hasn’t negotiated arrangements to temporarily position forces there.
Russia’s opposition leaves the U.S. reliant on bases in Qatar and other Arab Gulf states and U.S. Navy aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean to fly aircraft to Afghanistan.
Flight times from the Gulf states are so long that a U.S. drone might spend more than 60% of its mission flying to and from Afghanistan, retired Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of U.S. and allied forces there, told a seminar hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank recently.
Drones’ flight time over Afghanistan can be extended by adding fuel tanks, but that takes load capacity that could otherwise be used for Hellfire missiles or devices to intercept militant communications, a current official said.
Intelligence agencies had estimated it would take terrorist groups about two years following the U.S. departure to reconstitute themselves and possibly pose a threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests globally. That timeline is being reassessed following the U.S.-backed Afghan government’s collapse, senior military officers said.
In the past two decades, the U.S. has significantly hardened its defenses at home, strengthening security on airlines, at ports and along the border.
In Afghanistan, officials said, the CIA and other agencies will retain some intelligence collection capability.
It “doesn’t mean you go to zero,” said a senior congressional aide. Since Mr. Biden’s withdrawal announcement “people have been preparing from the get-go…to establish the strongest counterterrorism presence we can, given the facts on the ground.”
U.S. military officials have acknowledged that they have shared some intelligence with the Taliban as part of the daily coordination with the militant group on security at Kabul’s airport and the emergency evacuation of Americans and some Afghans.
Lisa Maddox, a retired CIA analyst, said U.S. intelligence officers will maintain longstanding relations with Afghans throughout the country; modern communications will provide some insight into developments there; and some countries could establish a diplomatic or economic presence in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, providing opportunities for information gathering.
“In the end, we need humans and partners to detect and thwart terrorist threats,” she said.
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