ince mid-August, civilian protection advocates have watched in agony as the United States failed to meet the moment in Afghanistan, ignoring the precious lessons learned over 20 grinding years.
My career spans more than one and a half decades working with NGOs such as the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) and the Stimson Center to build governments’ and their security forces’ ability, will, and skill to protect civilians in conflict and crisis. I have conducted high-level advocacy with political leaders and policymakers and my staff has worked alongside NATO and U.S. security forces to protect civilians in Afghanistan since 2008. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, I volunteered with the Afghanistan Operations Center, which the Truman Center and Truman Project for National Security quickly stood up in the midst of the chaos. Over six weeks later, I’m still working to get two families back home to Texas. We will surely be dissecting our failures for the foreseeable future, but as I reflect on my own 15 years of advocacy, one issue seems all too clear: a heavily slanted focus on security forces and active combat allowed the State Department’s barely existent civilian protection capabilities to atrophy catastrophically.
To be sure, there were myriad problems with U.S. and NATO policies on Afghanistan, but progress was made. For example, ISAF developed an entire line of effort dedicated to civilian-military interaction and guidance on how the troops could better communicate and work with the Afghan population. ISAF Commanders were a primary advocacy target for my protection work because they were in close contact with civilians and in a powerful position to help or harm. They in turn trained their soldiers and their Afghan counterparts. Both U.S. and NATO security forces have publicly documented their learning in reports, crafted new doctrine, and produced ample practical guidance in the form of handbooks and tactical directives. But advocates in the protection space also knew that we needed high-level policies to ensure that there was political and diplomatic buy-in.
This came in 2016 at the Brussels Summit when the North Atlantic Council, the principal policy making body within NATO, adopted the Protection of Civilians Policy and committed resources to support its implementation. It was a broad policy that included protecting civilians from military operations but also protecting them from other actors, understanding the human environment, and facilitating access to basic needs. In the United States, there was less success. It was hard to get traction at the political level and so we settled for an Executive Order under President Obama that solely focused on the military.
While the US State department was supportive of these efforts, they steered clear of involving themselves. I remember several meetings at State in the early 2010s where we would approach the subject and would be told that these were Defense issues. This lack of engagement was, I suspect, motivated by a mixture of preference and pragmatism. State did not want to step into the messy discussion around civilian harm and Defense did not want more voices complicating the topic. This was a devastating mistake, and meant our focus was entirely on civilians in combat, and not the holistic protection of civilians across the war.
Protection is not just something the military does, and it does not end once the policies are set. Protection is active and it must be a central mission across the whole of government. It needs enduring political will, resources, and the ready apparatuses to mobilize in a crisis. From what I saw, the State Department was caught completely flat footed when Kabul fell.
Civil society organizations were quick to stand up volunteer groups and coordinated with State to fill in gaps and shore up capabilities. For example, to bridge some of the lack of capacity at State, volunteers created intake systems to gather and transmit data from U.S. citizens, green card holders, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and Afghans at risk to State. The Ops Team helped ensure that any charter planes that did make it into Kabul left at 100% capacity instead of half-full as they had in the early days.
The close relationships between these organizations and the networks with State, Defense, and the intelligence community saved lives. The link between civil society and government is vital, especially in times of crisis. As we work to build back the State department that the previous administration decimated, we must also strengthen these ties.
We need to get serious about implementing civilian protection capabilities across the whole of government and international institutions. While the crisis in Afghanistan may be closing, protection capacity in future conflict and crisis scenarios will play a key role in success or failure.
It is not enough for our military to have policy, guidance, and training on the protection of civilians—our State Department needs it too. In future engagements—whether in armed conflict or crisis response—the whole ‘team’ must understand and know how to protect civilians.
The US has a critical opportunity to lead, especially at NATO where progress toward civilian protection implementation is at a pivotal moment. I am thankful for the committed work of our military and State colleagues, and I mourn the 13 service members who lost their lives. I am so thankful for all the volunteers who answered the call and stood together across so many organizations to fill in where our government needed tools, capacity, knowledge, connections, and skills.
What I know for certain is that it did not have to be like this. Proper planning could have saved lives and prevented the current situation: U.S. citizens and those who stood beside our troops are still in danger.
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How We Failed To Protect Civilians in the Afghan Exit
Kabul, July 3, 2021. Photo by Farid Ershad via Unsplash.
November 9, 2021
Since mid-August, civilian protection advocates have watched in agony as the United States failed to meet the moment in Afghanistan, ignoring the precious lessons learned over 20 years, writes Marla Keenan of the Truman National Security Project.
S
ince mid-August, civilian protection advocates have watched in agony as the United States failed to meet the moment in Afghanistan, ignoring the precious lessons learned over 20 grinding years.
My career spans more than one and a half decades working with NGOs such as the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) and the Stimson Center to build governments’ and their security forces’ ability, will, and skill to protect civilians in conflict and crisis. I have conducted high-level advocacy with political leaders and policymakers and my staff has worked alongside NATO and U.S. security forces to protect civilians in Afghanistan since 2008. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, I volunteered with the Afghanistan Operations Center, which the Truman Center and Truman Project for National Security quickly stood up in the midst of the chaos. Over six weeks later, I’m still working to get two families back home to Texas. We will surely be dissecting our failures for the foreseeable future, but as I reflect on my own 15 years of advocacy, one issue seems all too clear: a heavily slanted focus on security forces and active combat allowed the State Department’s barely existent civilian protection capabilities to atrophy catastrophically.
To be sure, there were myriad problems with U.S. and NATO policies on Afghanistan, but progress was made. For example, ISAF developed an entire line of effort dedicated to civilian-military interaction and guidance on how the troops could better communicate and work with the Afghan population. ISAF Commanders were a primary advocacy target for my protection work because they were in close contact with civilians and in a powerful position to help or harm. They in turn trained their soldiers and their Afghan counterparts. Both U.S. and NATO security forces have publicly documented their learning in reports, crafted new doctrine, and produced ample practical guidance in the form of handbooks and tactical directives. But advocates in the protection space also knew that we needed high-level policies to ensure that there was political and diplomatic buy-in.
This came in 2016 at the Brussels Summit when the North Atlantic Council, the principal policy making body within NATO, adopted the Protection of Civilians Policy and committed resources to support its implementation. It was a broad policy that included protecting civilians from military operations but also protecting them from other actors, understanding the human environment, and facilitating access to basic needs. In the United States, there was less success. It was hard to get traction at the political level and so we settled for an Executive Order under President Obama that solely focused on the military.
While the US State department was supportive of these efforts, they steered clear of involving themselves. I remember several meetings at State in the early 2010s where we would approach the subject and would be told that these were Defense issues. This lack of engagement was, I suspect, motivated by a mixture of preference and pragmatism. State did not want to step into the messy discussion around civilian harm and Defense did not want more voices complicating the topic. This was a devastating mistake, and meant our focus was entirely on civilians in combat, and not the holistic protection of civilians across the war.
Protection is not just something the military does, and it does not end once the policies are set. Protection is active and it must be a central mission across the whole of government. It needs enduring political will, resources, and the ready apparatuses to mobilize in a crisis. From what I saw, the State Department was caught completely flat footed when Kabul fell.
Civil society organizations were quick to stand up volunteer groups and coordinated with State to fill in gaps and shore up capabilities. For example, to bridge some of the lack of capacity at State, volunteers created intake systems to gather and transmit data from U.S. citizens, green card holders, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and Afghans at risk to State. The Ops Team helped ensure that any charter planes that did make it into Kabul left at 100% capacity instead of half-full as they had in the early days.
The close relationships between these organizations and the networks with State, Defense, and the intelligence community saved lives. The link between civil society and government is vital, especially in times of crisis. As we work to build back the State department that the previous administration decimated, we must also strengthen these ties.
We need to get serious about implementing civilian protection capabilities across the whole of government and international institutions. While the crisis in Afghanistan may be closing, protection capacity in future conflict and crisis scenarios will play a key role in success or failure.
It is not enough for our military to have policy, guidance, and training on the protection of civilians—our State Department needs it too. In future engagements—whether in armed conflict or crisis response—the whole ‘team’ must understand and know how to protect civilians.
The US has a critical opportunity to lead, especially at NATO where progress toward civilian protection implementation is at a pivotal moment. I am thankful for the committed work of our military and State colleagues, and I mourn the 13 service members who lost their lives. I am so thankful for all the volunteers who answered the call and stood together across so many organizations to fill in where our government needed tools, capacity, knowledge, connections, and skills.
What I know for certain is that it did not have to be like this. Proper planning could have saved lives and prevented the current situation: U.S. citizens and those who stood beside our troops are still in danger.
