Here's the thing. The Afghan government collapsed. That also meant the security forces stopped fighting for the government that was collapsing like a house of cards. It's a sensible speculation that there may have been some agreements by the now-defunct government or local commanders with the Taliban to surrender areas to them during the last days of the war.
The Afghan Security Forces were never what the US and Afghan governments pretended they were. Recognizing that reality is no commentary on the personal courage and patriotism of the Afghan soldiers who did fight. Their side lost. It's over. The Taliban governs the place now, although "governing" Afghanistan was a huge challenge for them the last time around, too.
This study just released from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) spells out how badly the US effort to stand up the Afghan government has gone. For the last two decades. It was still going on the assumption that the old government would still be in place for a while.
Pick a page at random and see what you find. Here's something from p. 41:
Although U.S. agencies have claimed some successes through conditionality, such as improving Afghan reporting and procedures, overall these efforts have failed because they lacked credibility. Nothing has been as important to U.S. officials as the survival and stability of the Afghan government, so reforms such as reducing corruption were often secondary. When U.S. officials imposed conditions on aid to incentivize reform, Afghan officials essentially called their bluff, knowing the U.S. government ultimately would not withhold critical assistance that Kabul desperately needed to ensure its survival. Conditions were announced, but not enforced.
For example, there do not appear to be any direct financial consequences to the Afghan government for violating the terms set by the latest mutual accountability framework, the 2020 Afghan partnership framework, which included commitments to democracy and full gender equality. If Afghanistan’s strategic importance to the United States decreases after U.S. troops are withdrawn, however, donor-imposed conditionality may become more credible. In fact, if the U.S. grows more willing to enforce them, the conditions tied to its reconstruction funding could become one of the primary means through which it exerts influence in the country. [my emphasis]
If you haven't read the latest report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, you probably shouldn't be writing anything about the situation there. A thorough, sober, and damning assessment of what went wrong. https://t.co/quskbNKMhY
— Stephen Walt (@stephenWalt) August 17, 2021
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