Afghanistan : America ’ s Forever War
7 , 2001 , the same date as the initial airstrikes against Afghanistan , US Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte sent a letter to the President of the UN Security Council stating that the US had initiated the strikes in an act of self-defense . This letter acknowledged the perception of military action against Afghanistan as an act of aggression . Still , the right to self-defense permitted the US military to prosecute its alleged attacker , i . e ., Bin Laden and the haven of Afghanistan , both of which had been relatively unchecked . The same constraints bound the United Kingdom ; however , under the UN Charter , the United Kingdom offered aid under the claim of “ collective self-defense ,” meaning that a state may assist a nation under attacks should they request it . 8 The first conventional ground forces arrived in Afghanistan twelve days later , 9 marking the beginning of more than a nineteen-year American presence there .
The first and most blatant issue facing US ambitions was the reputation as a reactive nation due in part to “ soft ” retaliatory actions against the previously mentioned attacks . Because of this perception , it is not entirely incorrect to assert that the US entered Afghanistan unprepared . Asymmetric warfare , which encompasses insurgency and terrorism , was written into US National Security Strategy policy only as recently as 1997 . 10 The preface of Army Field Manual ( FM ) 3-24 underscores this lack of preparation where it states , “ Counterinsurgency operations generally have been neglected in broader American military doctrine and national security policies since the end of the Vietnam War over 30 years ago .” 11
US Troops boarding a CH-47 Chinook following a Clearing Operation in the Shah-I-Kot Valley . Gardez , Afghanistan . ( Summer , 2002 ). Author ’ s Personal Collection .
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