The Afghan “Fog of War”

Abstract

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 took the USA and NATO by surprise, as they are still under the euphoric effect of celebrating the fall of the Eastern European ideological walls and the collapse of the communist bloc. The immediate response of the military operations led to the neutralization of the Taliban forces or more precisely to their removed from political power and denial the influence of Al Qaeda. The purely military approach dominated the initial kinetic clashes and conquered the physical terrain but failed to dominate the society marked by perennial conflicts, widespread corruption, poverty and multiple ethnic and tribal fragmentations. The Afghan insurgency that formed seems to have managed to slow down and finally block the reconstruction and development effort made by the strong NATO-centred coalitions. The article examines the causes of the Afghan “fog of war” that led to this great failure and makes recommendations that must be taken into account in future military conflicts.