Afghanistan

The Defence Secretary has announced the deployment of additional military personnel to Afghanistan to support British nationals and Afghan staff leaving the country.

  • As Britain removes our troops from Afghanistan, we are continuing to provide the necessary support to facilitate the departure of British nationals and Afghan staff.
     
  • The Defence Secretary has announced the deployment of around 600 British personnel to Afghanistan as a pre-planned part of the drawdown process, who will work alongside a core team of British Embassy staff in Kabul to provide protection and support for British nationals and Afghan staff leaving the country. 
     
  • The UK has provided more than £100 million in support to Afghanistan this year and hope to continue working as part of the international coalition to support the country’s government through our diplomacy, development and counter terrorism work.
  • My personal view is that it was a mistake for the US government to withdraw at this time and in the way they did from Afghanistan, but for the UK to continue a military mission after the US withdrawal would have been a serious overstretch. We have to be realistic about how powerful a country we are.
  • Britain today is still one of the ten most powerful countries in the world on most  measures but we are no longer the superpower we were at the start of the 20th century. We are strong enough to take part in actions like the mission to Afghanistan over the past twenty years as part of an international coalition, but trying to militarily prop up the Afghan government on our own would have risked making matters worse.

Comments

Gary Bullivant said…
This is also a defeat for the international coalition and for NATO. US and UK are key players in both and will continue to go about their business but the IC won't survive and the second is going to have a deal of introspection to go through.
8:20 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Yes it is. I agree.

I hope people on both sides of the Atlantic recognise the need to learn lessons from this debacle. Judging by their public statements Ben Wallace understands this and President Biden does not.

There are also a lot of people - from former President Trump on the right to Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy on the left who were supporting the withdrawal from Afghanistan a month ago and are condemning it now.
2:13 pm
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