{"id":11165,"date":"2026-07-20T23:21:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/afghanistan-remains-americas-unhealed-wound-three-years-later\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T23:21:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:21:49","slug":"afghanistan-remains-americas-unhealed-wound-three-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/afghanistan-remains-americas-unhealed-wound-three-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan Remains America&#8217;s Unhealed Wound Three Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an analysis published by <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>, <strong>Ron MacCammon<\/strong> argues that Russian President <strong>Vladimir Putin<\/strong> is now collecting dividends that Washington&#8217;s retreat made possible. The formal military agreement, signed in May, follows Russia&#8217;s decision last July to remove the Taliban from its terrorist designation list and officially recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The arrangement reflects the transactional logic of powers hostile to the Western-led international order, according to MacCammon. Rather than deploying Russian troops into Afghanistan&#8217;s forbidding terrain as the Soviet Union once did at tremendous cost, Putin has opted for a diplomatic and technical approach that yields influence without the burden of occupation.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-11165 gallery-columns-2 gallery-size-medium'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP26189067782267-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP26189067782267-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP26189067782267-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP26189067782267.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11162'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: washingtonexaminer.com\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ramaswamy-lead-fades-concerns-1-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-11163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ramaswamy-lead-fades-concerns-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ramaswamy-lead-fades-concerns-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ramaswamy-lead-fades-concerns-1.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-11163'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: washingtonexaminer.com\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<h2>From Soviet Defeat to Russian Diplomacy<\/h2>\n<p>The Soviet Union suffered approximately 15,000 casualties during its decade-long Afghan campaign before withdrawing in February 1989. Former Soviet leader <strong>Mikhail Gorbachev<\/strong> famously described Afghanistan as <em>the bleeding wound<\/em>, a conflict that exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Soviet system. Putin has drawn entirely different conclusions from that historical experience.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of conscripts, Moscow has sent emissaries and technical advisors. Russian personnel are currently refurbishing Taliban helicopters and Soviet-era armored vehicles, while reports indicate that an elite Taliban force receives Russian intelligence support. The military cooperation agreement formalizes what had been developing informally since the collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government.<\/p>\n<h2>The Infrastructure of Failure<\/h2>\n<p>The fall of Kabul in August 2021 ended a two-decade American effort that consumed trillions of dollars and claimed 2,461 American lives. Despite eliminating <strong>Osama bin Laden<\/strong> and degrading al Qaeda&#8217;s operational capabilities, Washington never addressed the underlying political conditions that generate extremist threats in the region.<\/p>\n<p>MacCammon notes that twenty years of counterinsurgency operations, troop surges, and reconstruction spending failed to answer the fundamental question of what kind of state could maintain stability in Afghanistan without permanent American military presence. The Afghan army that the United States built evaporated within days, and the government fled as Taliban forces advanced.<\/p>\n<h2>Humanitarian Collapse by Design<\/h2>\n<p>The American withdrawal dismantled much of Afghanistan&#8217;s humanitarian infrastructure along with its military footprint. Facing domestic political pressure and institutional exhaustion, the United States and its European partners drastically reduced assistance to Afghan civil society organizations and aid programs.<\/p>\n<p>According to the U.N. Secretary-General&#8217;s May report to the Security Council, Afghanistan&#8217;s humanitarian response plan stands at merely 14% funded, with just $240 million secured of the $1.7 billion required. Eighty percent of humanitarian organizations operating in Afghanistan report being affected by funding cuts, while 35% have reduced or entirely closed their field operations.<\/p>\n<p>U.N. investigators documented the closure of 420 health facilities affecting 3 million people and 300 nutrition sites that had been serving nearly 90,000 malnourished children under age five. Organizations that survived the funding collapse then faced severe Taliban restrictions that forced additional suspensions of operations.<\/p>\n<h2>A Window That Closed<\/h2>\n<p>MacCammon describes his own experience attempting to establish an educational program for Afghan boys and girls after 2021, designed to address Taliban cultural concerns while preserving genuine educational opportunities. Tribal elders, provincial governors, and Education Ministry officials expressed interest in engagement, but the effort foundered due to lack of support from international organizations like UNICEF rather than Taliban opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Three years later, that window of opportunity has closed completely. Taliban officials who had been willing to engage lost influence as hardliners consolidated power throughout the regime. The Islamic Emirate has since prohibited girls&#8217; education beyond sixth grade for five consecutive years, barred Afghan women employed by the United Nations from U.N. premises, revoked media licenses, and arbitrarily arrested journalists.<\/p>\n<h2>Moscow&#8217;s Strategic Patience<\/h2>\n<p>While Western governments debated recognition and humanitarian strategy, Russia moved methodically to establish formal ties with the Taliban regime. The military cooperation agreement represents the culmination of patient Russian diplomacy that began immediately after Kabul&#8217;s fall, exploiting Western withdrawal and the humanitarian vacuum that followed.<\/p>\n<p>The arrangement provides Putin with influence in Central Asia and a lever against Western interests, all without the costs that destroyed the Soviet Union&#8217;s Afghan adventure. For the Taliban, Russian recognition and military support provide international legitimacy that remains elusive from Western capitals, along with practical assistance in maintaining the Soviet-era military equipment that still forms the backbone of their armed forces.<\/p>\n<p>Washington&#8217;s conclusion that the solution was simply to do less has enabled Moscow to do more, securing strategic advantage in a region that borders both China and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. The bleeding wound that helped bring down the Soviet empire has become, under different management, a source of Russian strategic gain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Washington Examiner<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia has signed its first military cooperation agreement with the Taliban since 2021, providing technical support and intelligence rather than troops as the Soviets once did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":11164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[238,9662,6158,214,4797,209,222],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-11165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-afghanistan","tag-american-withdrawal","tag-military-cooperation","tag-russia","tag-taliban","tag-united-states","tag-vladimir-putin","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11165"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=11165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}