Before US pullout, watchdog warned of Afghan air force collapse

Mechanics, Air field Operations and Support, and then some. We pulled the Air Advisors out in 2014 despite our recommendations to the President. They opted to continue pilot training stateside for the Super Tucanos and switched out the MI-17 platform for the Blackhawk. All of this essentially pushed back the progress to which they never recovered from. Especially when the training for running, maintaining, and sustaining an airfield essentially disappeared by 2015. They weren't ready to take it on themselves. Furthermore, the ANA, since its inception trained around the use of air power for support. That disappeared, we continued to do it for them until the pullout last Aug. Even our own Army would be hard pressed to fight if their air power suddenly went away.

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin Roger that.

Point to note. They're referred to as Afghans, not Afghanis. Afghani is a currency.

That is correct, my oversight.

Unfortunately, we were pouring blood and treasure down a bottomless pit. Nation building, we learned the hard way in Vietnam, is doomed to failure. People need to be free to follow their own path. The Afghan government was even more corrupt than the current administration here.

I disagree with regards to our efforts training the AAF. They were progressing pretty well, although slowly. The problem really was the older/legacy members of the ANA, which we were trying to weed out through retirement incentives and such (specifically those who impeded the progress). The younger generation, along with many of the more astute mid-senior leaders, were very frustrated with their own senior leader's antics. We needed more time to bring those individuals into the senior leader positions and help break down the barriers. That 3-year roadmap like I said was briefed to Gen Dunford. It wasn't some plan to end the effort though, but rather a plan to get to the next level of maturity. We never got to execute it because of President Obama's choice to pull the advisors out. Remember that by the end of the 1990s, after much of what was one of the largest Air Forces in the world splintered down to an almost non-existent state. When we rolled in, there wasn't an Air Force to build on and it had to be rebuilt all together. Building an Air Force is not a trivial matter, especially when the service needs to recruit intelligent enough personnel to operate and maintain highly technical equipment and run complex operational support capabilities like air control, communications, maintenance, CE. All with what? A country with a significantly high illiteracy rate? Again, we needed more time, or we needed to leave a residual force to continue the Air Support efforts while continuing the training efforts. All while articulating our commitment to stick with the Afghan people until they could manage their own national security.

I don't think it would have taken another 20 years. The problem for the ANA is that their AFA was not matured. We hamstrung our own effort when President Obama pulled out almost all of the Air Advisors at the end of 2014.