free c-span radio app. cspanshop.org is c-span's online store, there is a collection of c-span products browse to see what is new. your purchase will support our nonprofit operations and you still have time to order the congressional directory with contact information for members of congress of the biden administration. coaching cspanshop.org. >> has got to welcome backal off their an institution of foreign policy program director michael o'hanlon joining us today amid the new daily headlines about games and the deteriorating situation in afghanistan amid the u.s. withdrawal so let's begin there. michael do you think the collapse of the afghan government is imminent after the u.s. and nato withdrawal? >> hi john good morning. first of all i think it was regrettable that president biden made this decision. we had already reduced u.s.

forces by more than 95%. i think that was a sustainable level to give the process a serious chance cry understand the frustration i understand the frustration of most americans with thiss conflicts. we were playing a supporting role not a major combat role really for the last few years but having said that i do think there is a serious nature out though i am not to see it. [inaudible] [inaudible] the other outcome that is possible is the government holding onto a a significant chunks of the country in quite a fight developing between the government as well as militias. for some. of weeks or months to come that is the violence and refugee flow much worse before

anything is resolved. we have seen civil wars go on for many, many years in somalia, and other parts of yemen or parts of africa. there are several decades. nothing about civil war that has to end it quickly i afraid. we couldld be doing is not only resigning ourselves to the possibility of taliban takeover and i think the worst outcome but also evenif if we avoid that through our limited help withha the afghan government the possibility of a protected and worsening civil war. i think it's quite a regrettable situation pretty argue in my new book the art of war andnd age of peace. that even though we need to focus primarily on russia and china in this era of great power competition, we do not need to ensure did avoid the secondary interest were still

have important american equities. and we can find a modest way to stabilize a place like afghanistan or come prevent it from completely falling apart to be worth the effort of a few thousand troops. now we're pretty much out. >> is the afghan government up foraf that, paint the security picture the number of districts taken by the taliban the latest number from today's "new york times" has seized control of 160 h other countries roughly 400 districts just in the last two months. what does that mean on the ground? primarily it means the taliban controls the countryside release large chunks of it still returns the cities. however we know it's inevitable the taliban will attack a number of cities. and by cities everything from the population 6,000,001 to

2 million to the smaller provincial cities they tell that will take some of those at least the smaller to midsize. we could seize the afghan not some have already fallen to the taliban. of the population is not conducive to taliban- success. it will try very hard to hold onto the capitol city i think the local politics in up in the north will favor the allies and not favor the taliban. some ofli the cities, i think a stalemate of some kind probably with some back and forth motion is more likely

than an outright taliban takeover parade will have to see what happens in the next few months. >> version with the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. let me give the viewers a phone line to call anything to join this conversation with michael hanlon of the brookings institution this morning. if you support the withdrawal (202)748-8000. ifhd you oppose it withdrawal (202)748-8001. i do want to hear the storieshe and the thoughts afghan war veterans (202)748-8002 is a special line he set aside for afghan war veterans would you go ahead and start calling and as we show this picture from the wall street journal this morning. army general scott miller on the left the top u.s. commander ending over the reins of the afghan operation to marine general frank mackenzie. michael o'hanlon, what can the united states do now? what does it mean to support afghanistan from over the horizon. what is that allow us to do?nk >> will john first of all

thank you for having a special line for afghan veterans very think you want to join me in thanking all of them. this is a moment where the u.s. role is coming to an end. we have not managed at the kind of outcome we wanted. things are very fraught. but nonetheless, for 20 years to the efforts of our men and women in uniform, the state department, the agency for international development with non- governmental organizations and people from around the world we have managed too prevent another attack on the united states emanating from afghanistan. we have michelle the afghan people make a lot of progress women's rights, life expectancy, despite all the problems things are better0' than they were in the late 19 '90s it was they had been until they were sitting war. in any event i want to thank all of the americans have done so much and given so much. just because we are not at the place we wanted to be that does not in anyway degrade their sacrifice but i'm sure this is a moment for us all to

say thank you. with that said, let me turn to the issue of what comes next. i think we're going to have to try to do is twofold to start with, keep our aid flowing to the afghan army and police are able to keep up the fights. they need the resources they do not have enough themselves yet. and then secondly find aee way to keep the afghan air force operational with some degree of western contract support. i guess to your question but over the horizon counterterrorism, the afghan army and police cannot do this from over the horizon. they are the most important instrument of combat here. they've been the most important for six or eight years. and so the first think we need to do is help them keep their airplanes in the air they can deal with taliban ambush, the possibility of a bringing in multiple attacks on multiple cities all at once.

it is going to require rapid counter concentration by the afghan army and police. they need air power to do that to move their own peopleo around. and also to attack taliban concentrations from the air. so over the horizon can do some of our intelligence gathering. whether it is from aircraft operating on the persian gulf region, whether from spy satellite, whether from airplanes off a carrier in the indian ocean, we are going tond have to find some way to keep the afghan air force flying. that may mean some logistics with neighboring countries these are some of the candidate countries. maybe pakistan would allow then afghan air force to maintain its equipment in pakistan even though pakistan intelligent service has been the main supporter of the taliban over the years. it's at least worth asking for those of the some of the things we are going to to do and one since to conclude i'm afraid over the horizon

counterterrorism is a little bit aboutbi oxymoron. there away you get intelligence to go after specific terraces through on the ground human intelligence networks. c all of these satellites in faraway airplanes cannot fully compensate. all breathy taliban on allow to establish a big base or otherwise do a lot of operational planning afghan territory i think we will see that even from a remote assets than we can respond. i doo not expect a big base to be developed on afghan soil the way it was prior to the 911 attacks. i do expect to be a lot of smaller proms here or there that will be hard for us to keep an eye on from over the horizon for. >> michael hanlon is our guess the booking institution is the research and foreign-policy program director there specializing in u.s. defense strategy. also the author of the new book the art of war in the age of peace, u.s. grand strategy and resolute restraint for

joining us this morning will get right to those calls, sam and williamston west virginia on that line those who oppose the u.s. withdrawal sam, good morning. >> good morning i'm glad to hear from you. thankfully let me be on the air with you. >> host: why you oppose the afghan withdrawal of afghanistan sam? >> caller: we have establisheded a foothold in afghanistan. we have gained of friends by being over there. but if we evacuate afghanistan there's going to be a huge there we will not have any particular our enemies will use this evacuation of afghanistan as a sign of weakness. >> that is sam and west virginia.

michael before i let you jump in and i want to play at president biden's talking about the u.s. withdrawal. president biden specifically addressing those who favor continuing to keep troops in afghanistan for this is what the president said just a week or two ago. >> how many more, how many thousands more american's daughters, sons are you willing to risk? how long would you have them stay? already we have members of our military whose parents foughtan in afghanistan 20 years ago. would you send their children and their grandchildren as well? would you send your own son or daughter? after 20 years a trillion dollars spent training hundreds of thousands of afghan security and defense forces. 2448 americans killed. 20722 more wounded and untold

thousands coming home unseen trauma to their mental health. i will not send another generation to the war in afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. >> that was president biden last week. michael o'hanlon to those comments and the viewers call as well. >> first sam thank you for your words and i agree with what you said. as for president biden i understand the frustration and i understand obviously the tragic loss the nation has suffered. but that last part of his statement is where his logic does not persuade me anyway. he says i am not going to keep doing this with no reasonable expectation of a different outcome. i see a big difference of june in afghanistan and complete collapse or outright civil war versus theta afghan we have had in the last few years. that is in a norma's difference. think president biden on that point is presupposing that was

going to happen anyway if we state or maybe it can be averted now and the peace deal can be reached now. no, collapse was not happening in the last few years. it was a gradual theory slow progress the afghan government was holding onto all the major cities, most of the mid size city in most of the major roads with only about 3000 americans there to help in the process. i think that was sustainable for a while longer to give the process a chance. most of the enormous cost president biden referred to were incurred in the first dozen ears on our efforts. in other words by the time of president obama's first term coming to an end. the last and president trump's term we have not had large losses. yes it has been tragic we had any at all. but i'm afraid in this dangerous world we do not get to wish away these problems

because there's some risk to american forces. most of the military personnel i know may have been frustrated by this mission. i also think they were in most cases proud to know their help and protect the united states from the possibility of another large-scale terrorist attack that could put a lot more americans at risk than the number who were -- were losing about a dozen people a year since roughly 2014 -- 2015. that the dozen to many but it is far, far fewer than could result from another major terrorist strike against her own home and paid that is howr i look out the cost risks of the different options. think president biden made a mistake. : : : . michael o'hanlon is with us until about 845 time -- 8:45. john supports the withdrawal in sumter, south carolina. go ahead. caller: i'm a litt

i'm a little bit confused. why are we in this fashion. >> you mean why did we originally go? >> why did we originally go? >> i'll let you. >> because of course we aren't in afghanistan and longer except i must say that i risk a few hundred american troops trying to help protect them and the airport. the reason we went years ago, a good time to ask would be the 20 year anniversary in just a month and a half or two months of the 9/11 attacks we went because not 11 attacks were initially planned from afghan soil by al qaeda and al qaeda was invited by the taliban government and we chose to hold accountable fund once we were attacked, we said

we are going to hold the groupol that carried out the attacks responsible and retaliate against them. we are going to hold responsible the government that allows them a sanctuary from which they gather forces build up their movement and plan the attacks which were also planned from other places involving a number of different connections and he says in a global network but tho origin of it was around the city afghanistan in the years leading up to the 9/11 period. the taliban, the government in power in afghanistan, the same group we are trying to prevent from retaking power, that's the group that invited osama bin laden and into afghanistan to plan the attacks that tragically affected us 20 years ago. >> i get the feeling you have a follow-upp question. >> yes, what he said doesn't sense.y

it doesn't matter saudi arabia. they could be fighting each other forever. >> what i said is actually documented and not contested by any kind of u.s. 9/11 commission or u.s. intelligence agency commission. you are right that the saudi nationals congregated in afghanistan to plan the attacks and i agree saudi arabia had a certain responsibly not in terms of direct planning or support for the operation but in terms of the extremist ideology and theology they allowed to be used andus perpetrated in this area t it's the afghan government at the time that invited in these bodies is allowed them to do the planning and people from other countries as well involved in the attacks so you are right, there are other countries that had a role without that sanctuary, the headquarters,

training ground, i don't believe the 9/11 attacks could have been. >> afghan war veterans, britney had a seven.north carolina, when were you in afghanistan? >> i think around 2012 and 2014. >> what was your role there? >> i was intelligence officer. >> what are your thoughts today about the u.s. withdrawal? >> i do think we are withdrawing without a plan behind it, i don't think we have to policy to support us taking military out of their. i do think we weren't getting very far, military was doing the job they were tasked to do but i think it's up to congress and the president to form a policy for what the strategic plan is and we were there a long time without that policy so i think the military was kind of a

band-aid for our government not having foreign-policy for the big overall plan. >> what would have a winning strategy looks like? what should we have been doing? >> i think that is a tough question, i think it is a mix from a military perspective, we talk about diplomacy and information operations and monetary, in the midst of all of that and military use and economic a mix of all of it. the government doesn't want to use it political it doesn't want to take all the time and figure out this policy and the easy answer while it takes a lot of money and human lives, the easy

answer is draw the military audit and they do a good job but it's not going to be the final solution so i think it takes acmore diplomacy, more aid in te area and things like that but they need an overall plan for the military is not task to figure it out. >> michael, i'll let you strength this conversation thank you for your call and your service and i agree with you that there was never a strategy that fully worked. i do think we brought in a lot of diplomats development specialist and to some extent the afghanistan problem which is so hard even with this amazing american effort some ofwi the bt people on the ground that i have ever seen served in the united states were not able to rescue afghanistan from what we hope, people say we should not have tried the problem is initially in the early years after the

taliban, early years of the bush administration, we really couldn't do nationbuilding or limited amount of development and what happened? started to come back and haven't started to come back the afghan government wasn't strong enough to deal with that because we had not done any safe building so we decided the last year under president bush and first couple of years of president obama to try a more comprehensive approach. it was too much too late. through huge amount of military and economic diplomatic resources afghanistann for a few years and i accept personal responsibly for having support that effort, i was hopeful it would escape the situation and it really didn't. he was trying to do too much into small overtime. as it turned out for afghanistan realistically so we needed a longer time and maybe no

expectation that we could leave the foreseeable future, a few thousand u.s. troops with many years is the least bad option. three we arrived by the latter obama trump years as a policy we should have kept. >> other lessons here? happened when they withdrew from the late 80s? >> without anybody asking them. afghan wanted us in the community this was the massive multinational effort in the history of the planet. it goes to show how hard the problem was even with all of that effort the couldn't seek to the extent wee wish it's what we did versus the soviet. second, afghan government installed by the soviet survived

for about three more years after the soviet forces the country. it wasn't until the union fell apart and therefore the money stopped flowing the afghan government and other militia groups and other work take over the country and turn it into a battlefield for civil work. for economic and military aid flowing and technical support the afghan air force when he invited washington i think there is a decent chance to hold on to the country, not going to predict the outcome but i think it is the one who should be attempting even now combat forces indiana, this is kevin

support withdrawal from afghanistan. >> evan sorry about that, go ahead. >> i favor the withdrawal because i think it violates basic principles the united states constitution which bans using wars foreign-policy. i have come to the over the years since korea. >> you want to respond? >> that's good on korea, i think it is fair to says we have gret paradoxically u.s. help stabilize and prevent major power one in a way we never successfully done earlier history that the individual with got involved in afghanistan, internet away that wasn't satisfying atin all so it is

amazing from world has been stable and generally prosper and i don't think it would happen with us in our ally. these operations and it's proven to be difficult to produce stable outcomes so i agree that we need to try to be a lot more reluctant to involve forces in big wars with hundreds of thousands of u.s. troops. having said that, i don't think smaller operations can be off the table because i have seen you have seen how much worse it can be if we are not involved and by the way our constitution does not ban war but what is your is required congressional vote authorized work but that is what we have gone away from the constitution since the korean war, we have not typically had

congress be very involved. sometimes he passes authorization and has not declared for think that is a competition problem and i agree with you on that 8:30 p.m. on the east coast and michael, moving to some of the themes of your book, the art of war in asia peace 20 in the world, russia and china, iran, north korea, most concerns you. >> i don't know that i have either enough clairvoyance or we have the luxury nation to identify the others because what often happens is 136 a unborn turn, extracts at that moment. secretary of defense that we has a perfect record of preventing or forecasting the next war, we are wrong and failed to see where the next conflict would

come so even though i would probably prioritize russia myself i would also acknowledge we have to be concerned about china most powerful nation on the planet. kim johnson and north korea remained unpredictable. in the broader lease nuclear war really poses problems allies refugee a few years ago and i you and i the best way i can give, we have to focus on russia and china, north korea and iran transnational terrorist like al qaeda russia and china, north korea and iran binational

terrorist group the way i would love are concerned i don't think that list, we can say is an and our foreign policy and you will remit one other idea try to introduce in the book is there is no more plus one and there is a new four plus one in some ways exacerbates previous which would be climate change ransomware attached biological pandemic disease but also handmade from nuclear alliteration interest is more country, or try to get community here at home making it harder for us to strongly with

leadership the-year-old four plus one new four plus one. i'm giving you ten and i'm afraid that is the best i can de because i don't think we have enough to understand the future of world politics to predict with more we have to prioritize good news isit we have a system the grimmestst alliance in the history of the world and a lot of other countries to work with us against the old four + four plus one have to do it by our work in afghanistan canaveral, when were youca in. >> 2009 marine for your thoughts e.on drawing one, i think it is

ridiculous in motion there were strong troops, and, excuse my french but i think now you need to take the people out and protect u.s. allies are going to think you know what happens i don't know i may make safe on base for women to go.

the content safety and families and they are starting they are going to need to evaluate chris, thank you for making additional in the 1980s.nv there is for the previous entry i don't really, americans i know who like to travel are just a little older than i am went to afghanistan in the 70s yes it was the wilds. west but not at

work. it went to 100 soviet and then we funneled weaponry into the forces in afghanistan fought against the soviet forced the soviet to withdraw and fled tora the end of the cold war they came and partly as a result of the failure of the soviet and afghanistan invasion. the afghans help us when the cold war so when i think of rosie i also think of royalty over half a century and i don't want to leave afghanistan on its own but part of the reason it's been in conflict is because they help us when the cold war after soviet invaded and we helped them fight back and it's not a reason to do the impossible, who are focused on and not showing any progress or sign of potential success and i would have to run up the white flag but unlike president biden i do see a big difference between where things happen semi-

stable, the government in control of most of the major population centers versus where things are headed now which i believe will be much worse. >> west virginia, kelly. good morning. >> anytime congress retreats into a foreign country, we sent a man and then say okay, these other rules. if you sent u.s. military and and tell them to do their job, it would be done we sent the man and tie their hands as the rules of engagement? could you tell me why we don't use drones anymore i don't understand that the drones could seek out and find and destroy anybody we don't even use them anymore. thank you. >> two things -- first of all, rules of engagement were pretty robust. we did a lot of shooting and a lot of killing in our 20 years

and when we found what we knew were enemy target and sometimes we made mistakes but for the most part there was good leadership under people general allen, general duncan the best military military leaders are seen an action and they were very concerned about theirha own forces protect themselves and talk tod the enemy heart and tt is a very difficult challenge in a place like that where the enemy is trying to hide inside civilian populations so i agree we should have kept them which means we should have kept basis in afghanistan. not a lot but a couple and we had downsized about that level of effort under president trump and before that, president obama and i think that's what president biden should have kept our effort and then we could have kept that. most of which are relatively

short range and you can't easily fly them in and kuwait and the persian gulf, it is to difficult. we would have had to keep a couple of big american basis but that's exactly what president biden decided to eliminate. >> this is jl in utah. >> thank you for taking my call, appreciate talking. as far as how to buddy, what what success looks like and is there a way to keep this from happening again? it happened a lot since world war ii recoat try to fix things usually make them worse. it doesn't seemed like there was ever an objective here, war on

terror seems like a flimsy thing to throw a trillion dollars at. what success look like? >> very fond and very tough, initially we thought success would be just overthrowing the taliban government, the one going after bin laden about ten years and finally found him over the border in pakistan and killed a lot of his using the drones that were referred to a moment ago so we did a lot of powerful work to destroy autocratic leadership and president biden has now reminded us that role has been at least provisionally achieved end of the think president biden isen correct about that, al qaeda is a lot weaker now than it had been prior to the 9/11 attack. unfortunately set up to see after a few years in 2006, seven

and eight, we started to see the taliban getting stronger partly because pakistan helped them do so. and then the taliban were in position to start to attack afghan government and we said this looks troubling because if we allow this to continue, the taliban turned to power in the hospital again allow al qaeda to have sanctuary and reconstitute on afghan soil so that led to the more ambitious mission tried to produce and afghan army and police strong enough to prevent the taliban coming back and now you get to big debates about nationbuilding but what you are really trying to do is prevent the same bad guys from returning to power who struck us was involved in reporting for strikes against us 9/11 so always theorism was long-term objective but to get there in a durable way, you

needed to help the afghan government say out and hold the country together and backed by that expanded so i think it's a very frustrating experience, you compare it to vietnam, one must think from i want to say i think afghanistan has been good and i am grateful for the sacrifice of so many but compared to vietnam, it was not merely as negative experience for our troops, we lost about 2500 people in afghanistan we lost 55000 in vietnam. the country always stayed supportive of the afghanistan veteran at least in broad, the country was provided about vietnam even in terms of how i felt about our troops so as much as we did not get this one to the place we wanted, i still think we prevented homan coming out of afghan for the last 20

years, we give afghanistan a little better prospect of the future at least for w as long as we were there and we bought this with the right or better balance using powerful force when needed against enemies but also much more careful in how we put afghan innocent civilians at risk so i think it is head and shoulders above the vietnam experience despite frustration. >> class call from that.for veterans of the war in afghanistan jacksonville, when were you and afghanistan's at capacity? >> oh four and zero five and i was first sgt. also 69 -- 71. >> your thoughts on the withdrawal? >> there's not -- my thoughts are the afghan people one my t heart and mind and i don't think people talk enough about how bad the taliban are. they are bad people. >> do think america has come to

that realization, did we ever come to that realization over 20 years there and have weak moved away from it? >> what i found the afghan people like us more than the vietnamese like dust but saying that, i would say our soldiers and wars i served did the best they could for their government. >> thank you for the call. i will give michael the final minute. >> i think he said it right. first of all even though i look back on the vietnam experience a lot of regret. about how we wage the war, the men and women especially men who served their did amazing things in the sense that they did almost to the unthinkable, they went to a war maybe unwinnable and not even popular back home and they still fit their best so vietnam

veterans listening today, let me say thank you to you as well in some ways the board who put on you was in many ways, even greater than afghanistan because weev never really collectively appreciated what we did as a country as much as we probably should have about that were at the leadership level was not handled well at all. afghanistan leadership and strategy level was great but again i think it was a much better balance using the right amount of force against the murderous taliban and al qaeda enemy while trying to protect the afghan civilian population. the last i will say, you know there many of you out there, what ed said about being popular within the afghan population at the time he was there unfortunately, some of that went away over the years and not as popular now as we were 15 years ago so i think the taliban is

even less than nato but the afghanth government is now in a position with us it was not always completely positive self bear in mind afghan government has major problems but it has made some headway helping his own people at a minimum we should continue to provide the kind of financial technical support as well as diplomatic support and give them some chance preventing imminent collapse you alluded to at the beginning of the show still a possibility but not inevitability. >> the brookings institution, the author of the new book, the art of war in the age of peace and resolute restraint. always appreciate your time at the "washington journal". >> thank you michael. >> c-span's "washington journal" everyday we take your calls live

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