preparing-future-key-organisational-lessons-afghanistan-campaign

LTC Eric Udouj
..."Executive Summary

"While the ADF's strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, contributions and lapses were on occasion magnified or exacerbated by the conflict environment in Afghanistan, none of them were created there. As for generations of military forces going back to antiquity, we fought essentially as we trained. Reflecting thoughtfully on our Afghanistan experience provides a lens through which to strengthen our training and preparation for the challenges of the future." – General Angus J Campbell, Chief of the Defence Force, September 2021

This study finds that the collapse of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in August 2021 represented a failure to achieve the primary objective of the NATO strategy: "to enable the Afghan government to provide effective security across the country and develop new Afghan security forces to ensure Afghanistan would never again become a safe haven for terrorists."

Nonetheless, this study finds that the contribution made by the ADF and other whole-of-government partners to the war in Afghanistan denied terrorists safe havens, enhanced Australia’s alliance with the US (and relationship with NATO) and provided the Afghan people with an opportunity to pursue a better way of life."...