The Afghan Military Was Built Over 20 Years. How Did It Collapse So Quickly?

There never has been a unified “Afghan Army or Government” in the history of Afghanistan and likely never will be. Just a bunch of remote self serving locations with no loyalty to each other. They knew this 20 years ago, the Soviets knew this 40 years ago, and the Brits knew this 100+ years ago,

SSG Robert Mark Odom - they were never truly tested, and I would bet a good portion of the ANA that we trained has already defected to the enemy... the Taliban has been sitting and watching... learning for 20 years... the Afghan Army is a joke..

The training wheels never came off. They’ve always had US SOF, CAS, and MEDEVAC support. They’ve never been truly tested. According to a JTAC guy I talked to on one of my deployments, a lot of them were often high as a kite when on missions.