(My brief answer in Quora).
It reinforces the notion that a great deal of political decisions are made on utilitarian/self interest grounds thereby dispelling the naive notion that morality is the overriding deciding factor.
From a cynical perspective it runs roughshod over the simplicity that urges us to see political figures as ethical sources of leadership. They rarely and more often than not will disappoint.
(My answer in Quora).
She probably would have won but her premature death in a terrorist attack in 2007 put an end to that likelihood.
Having said that her legacy was rather mixed. Bhutto’s reforms in Pakistan were largely blocked by hardcore opposition. There were strong allegations of corruption in her government (her husband being one noteworthy offender) and she failed to limit the traditional power of the military.
She enjoyed reverence in the west for championing Women’s Rights but she struggled to make the necessary headway against the chronic corruption that has infected the country since its birth in 1947.
However Nobel Peace Prize standards are not very high and Bhutto had a mastery of the usual globalist bromides. Yasser Arafat won by feigning ‘niceness’. Barack Obama wooed the Oslo elite with the necessary platitudes (and not much else) so it is indeed conceivable that Bhutto had a lock on the award as well.
(My answer in Quora).
Feynman Diagrams are very useful visual tools (book keeping devices) that have application in understanding the understanding of particles and antiparticles against the critical back drop of time. They are largely employed in the area of Quantum Field Theory as they offer a mechanism of simplifying a complex system into one that is simpler and easier to understand.
Here is an example of a Feynman Diagram
Particles are shown moving forward in time. Antiparticles are indicated by a backward motion in time.(Source: Physics forum)
In this diagram an electron (e negative) interacts with a positron (e positive), The positron is an antiparticle of the electron so it is shown moving backwards. The two particles annihilate each other producing a photo. The photon is indicated by the -sine wave. This in turn becomes a muon-antimuon pair shown by the Greek letters mu negative and mu plus respectively. Again the antiparticle is shown moving backwards in time.
The interesting story about Feynman diagrams is that they were initially resisted by the physics community who preferred equations/graphs to represent the interactions. To his credit Richard Feynman sold the diagrams to the community where they initially known as Feynman-Dyson diagrams (after Freeman Dyson who made a significant contribution to perturbation theory).
Fun fact…Feynman was not the first person to use these diagrams . The accolade for that for goes to the Swiss Physicist Ernst Stueckelberg. Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann regularly referred to these diagrams as Stueckelberg diagrams in honour of their earlier development.
Key methodology followed when drawing a Feynman diagram
The diagrams can take on various complexities that can be analyzed using quantum probability calculations.
source: Research gate.
Below is an example showing how Feynman diagrams are applied in Quantum Field Theory.
Source: IB Physics - Particle Physics/
Further reading
Very effective.The Soviets provided the model for the weaponization of spy craft across a broad landscape that to this very day has been copied by the various enemies of the West.
Below is the picture of Klaus Fuchs, a theoretical physicist who was born in Germany but later on became a British citizen.
Klaus Fuchs source: pbr.org
His work on gaseous diffusion played a role in the Uranium enrichment necessary for the Manhattan Project. Fuchs worked under Hans Bethe (a Nobel Prize Winner in Physics - 1967) at Los Alamos and was a close friend of Richard Feynman. He was also a committed Communist/Stalinist who supplied valuable information to the Soviets that helped expedite their development of a Hydrogen bomb.
Fuchs was interrogated in 1949 and finally confessed in 1951 to having compromised both the American and British nuclear programs.. His confession helped to implicate Harry Gold who was the vital witness in the trial of two other master spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. For his efforts Fuchs would be granted sanctuary in East Germany where he died in 1988.
The Rosenbergs. They were executed for Espionage source: history.com
However Fuchs was far from the only pertinent fellow traveler to be effectively used by the Soviets. The Soviets had in fact developed a spy network targeting several Western countries whose origins go back to the 1920s. The networks were masterminded by the alphabet soup of spy agencies but in the Cold War era this largely fell under the jurisdiction of the NKVD, KGB and, GRU.
Key objectives usually involved the acquisition of scientific and weaponry technology however a considerable amount of effort was expended in obtaining intelligence regarding military tactics that would further Soviet aims in the Cold War proxy wars.
Soviet sleeper agents also targeted decision makers on the political front and it is now well established that there was a Soviet disinformation campaign to ferment culture and race wars in the United States in particular, as a way of undermining the entrenched infrastructure. All of this is encapsulated by the descriptor Active Measures which is still a feature of Russian intelligence today.
Here is an example of such a destabilizing technique as outlined in the Mitrokhin Archive and expanded on by the British historian Christopher Andrew.
Source: Goodreads
"The KGB ordered the use of explosives to exacerbate racial tensions in New York City. On July 25, 1971, the head of the KGB's FCD First (North American) Department, Anatoli Tikhonovich Kireyev, instructed the New York residency to proceed with the operation. The KGB was to plant a delayed-action explosive package in "the Negro section of New York.” Kireyev's preferred target was “one of the Negro colleges.” After the explosion the residency was ordered to make anonymous telephone calls to two or three black organizations, claiming that the explosion was the work of the Jewish Defense League.
These particular efforts were part of the notorious Operation Pandora.
How committed were the Soviets to long term subversion? A great deal according to the ex-KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov *.
“The main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion and the opinion of many defectors of my caliber only about 15 percent of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85 percent is a slow process, which we call either ideological subversion, or active measures, or psychological warfare.” https://www.nspirement.com/2021/07/14/former-kgb-agent-yuri-bezmenov.html (https://www.nspirement.com/2021/07/14/former-kgb-agent-yuri-bezmenov.html)
Source: BigThink
The Soviets also influenced the Peace Movement. The World Peace Council (WPC) was established as a vehicle by the Soviets to influence public opinion in the United States against nuclear weapons during a time when only the United States had them. The idea was to transform the narrative so that the populace would see the USSR as a peace loving nation at odds with a war mongering United States.
In this regard they were resolute and establishing well crafted spy networks that wove their way through the Western body politics. These included the Cambridge Five, the Silvermaster Spy Ring, the Golos Ring, the Petro group, the Ware group and arguably the most notorious of them all the Walker Ring, The latter was arguably the most damaging espionage ring from 1967 to 1985.
The Cambridge Five source: Vajiram & Ravi. The group comprised Donald Maclean (1913-83), Guy Burgess (1911-63), Harold ‘Kim’ Philby (1912-88), Anthony Blunt (1907-83) and John Cairncross (1913 – 1995).
Evidence supplied by Soviet defectors (such as the Mitrokin Archive) as well as spy taps and counter intelligence methods( eg. the Verona Project) have provided extensive information on how widespread these efforts were.
High ranking American officials such as Harry Dexter White (assistant secretary of the treasury and the second most influential official in the department) was shown to be a Soviet spy as was his underling Harold Glasser. So was the MI6 agent Kim Philip who was part of the Cambridge Five. For his service to Mother Russia Philby was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union and given the Order of Lenin.
There many more. Some worked as deep field plants in the State Department (David Salmon) and Army (William Weisbrand). Others plied their trade in the Sciences (Engelbert Broda and Alan Nunn May). The US Communist Party was dominated by pro-Soviet staffers who also held positions in journalism and Academia. Canadian MP, Fred Rose was a Soviet Spy as was US Democratic Party Congressman Samuel Dickstein.
Senator Joseph McCarthy did go too far with his so-called Anti-Communist ‘witch hunt’ but he was correct like Whittaker Chambers in expressing grave concerns regarding the extent of Soviet infiltration into American governmental institutions.
Senator Joseph McCarthy source: Britannica
The Kremlin would penetrate the CIA with Aldrich Ames and Edward Lee Howard and had an inside scoop into the NSA courtesy of David Sheldon Boone and Ronald Pelton.
Nor was the FBI immune thanks to Robert Hanssen and Earl Edwin Pitts. Even US embassy Marine Clayton J. Lonetree provided his services to the Soviets to become another tragic figure in a long line of useful idiots.
Countries like Canada and Australia were also not free from the prying paws of the Soviet bear. Igor Gouzenko operated a spy ring in Canada and Australia was infiltrated by the spy work carried out by Vladimir Petrov in the 1950s.
Spying, subversion was a serious business for the Soviets. Nothing was taboo and that included sexpionage. Targets trapped by the Soviets in this regard included the Indonesian President Suharto, the French Ambassador Maurice Dejean and British MP Anthony Courtney.
In 1987 the Washington Post wrote
"most westerners who have spent any length of time in Moscow have their favorite tale of an attempted seduction by a KGB swallow or raven."
The full scope of information that was compromised cannot be accurately quantified but it clearly helped the Soviets remain competitive in a time frame, when their own domestic system was rotting at the core.
The Russians very likely continue with this practice today. So do operatives working for China. Why wouldn’t they? It works.
Sources:
2. Espionage and the Manhattan Project, 1940-1945
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2VL0uhTH1s
4. Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press (Video 1984) - IMDb
(Asked on Quora. My Answer).
The initial Afghan attack on the 7th of October 2001, although largely carried out by the United States, occurred under the NATO framework. It was coordinated with the Northern Alliance.
After 911 Al Qaeda had to be punished as did the Taliban for its harboring of Osama Bin Laden and their refusal to hand him over to American authorities. The mission was largely successful within that original context.
The problem is that the operation changed from that of Jihadist elimination to nation building. This mission creep is what turned the Afghanistan mission into a gigantic money pit from an American perspective.
There was now a greater emphasis on winning the hearts and souls of the local population and troops were encouraged to avoid conflict as much as possible. The Taliban exploited this weakness resulting in more troops casualties.
Afghanistan is very much a patchwork country that is fragmented by tribal rivalries that underpin its cultural and geopolitical foundation. Corruption is endemic, religious zealotry runs strong and trust is not easily achieved. There is also a natural disdain of foreign influence as a consequence of a historic legacy of outside intervention.
Add to that the weakness of a pre-Industrialized economy that has a significant component that relies on the production of opium and the pitfalls complicating nation building are dramatically compounded.
Unlike post WWII West Germany or Japan the bulk of the population was still not exposed to post-Enlightenment thinking. Twenty years was far too short a time to change thought patterns that had taken centuries to develop elsewhere.
There is no quick App that will do this and without an even greater commitment by the US the inertia of the past was too great a summit to overcome.
While it is true as a consequence of a botched retreat (which is a topic in and of itself) that the Taliban now has the upper hand in the country, I disagree with the argument that the entire mission was for naught.
For one, millions of girls/women were given the opportunity to receive an education that would be denied to them, if those twenty years were filled with national Taliban domination. Medical platforms were improved and institutions modified. There are many gains that you cannot walk back that easy. The seeds of democracy were sown in the country as were the benefits of enlightenment thought. These are not easily reversible.
While 2001-2021 may be seen as a giant waste by those in the West to the Afghan people I suspect it had a trans-formative effect. How could it not? Don’t forget that a great deal of Afghanistan’s population was born post 2001.
The bigger question to ask is how soon will this impact be realized? The Taliban are inheriting a different country in 2021 than they did in 1996. They will have to adjust accordingly.
(My answer on Quora)
For the disaster as it stands right now it is Joe Biden. The mess occurred on his watch. He is the face of the United States. Admittingly there are complexities but in virtually every facet of the practical his administration handled this situation poorly. Biden needs to own it. His honeymoon is over.
The advance of the Taliban source: BBC
Having said that though there is plenty of additional blame to go around. Lets look at the legacy of the other Presidents with regard to Afghanistan.
Bill Clinton – Clinton reluctantly welcomed the Taliban into power in the 90s as he believed that they would bring about a necessary stability in the country following the turbulent times that had inflicted Afghanistan in the 15+ years prior. It was also under the Administration of Clinton that Al Qaeda grew into a potent force for Global Jihad.
George W. Bush – After 911 Bush was correct in going after the Taliban for their support and harboring of Al Qaeda terrorists including at one time Osama Bin Laden. He erred by transforming the original mission of ousting Al Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for their intransigence, into an era of nation building. The US was not equipped to do so. Oddly enough Bush campaigned in 2000 against nation building.
While the intent of many Americans to do ‘good’ in the aftermath of the Taliban barbarism is commendable, the reality is that this was a political minefield from the get go that was destined to sacrifice such admirable intent on an altar sustained by mixed loyalties and inept local leadership.
It didn’t help as well that the US lost primary focus in Afghanistan by turning their attention to a second front in Iraq. The Good War festered as a result.
Barack Obama - Seeking to rectify the situation US troop numbers increased in Afghanistan during the first of Obama’s terms going from a level of about 35K to 100K. A great deal of this surge was intended to train and bolster the Afghan forces preparing them for the eventuality of a US withdrawal in the future. By the end of Obama’s second term the number fell drastically to 8400. The intention was to drop the number further to 5500 but Taliban resistance was proving to be more resilient than expected. Obama had slowed down the march towards an intended withdrawal having seen the consequences of his rash actions elsewhere in Iraq with the subsequent growth of Daesh.
When he left office US forces had been in Afghanistan for fifteen years. Had the situation improved? Not really. The Taliban still enjoyed support in their strongholds and the popular wisdom was that without US backing the Afghan government would be hard pressed to prevent them from making gains. Afghanistan was becoming a money pit swallowing in excess of $100 billion US dollars per year. Was there an end in sight? It didn’t look like it. Obama’s focus anyway was on Syria and his Iranian Deal. He did start peace talks secretly with the Taliban. More was to follow.
Donald Trump – Trump made eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan a priority especially after ISIS had been rolled back in Iraq/Syria. The Doha Agreement reached in February 2020 with the Taliban was a step in the right direction but there should have been more direct involvement by the Afghan government at the time. This did occur later but the stress placed on the Afghan government to agree to prisoner swaps placed undue pressure on the Ghani Presidency. In addition a timetable of May 1st for full withdrawal was overly ambitious. The deal though was conditional on the Taliban meeting obligations. This was not to be.
Who else deserves blame?
Ashraf Ghani - He was President of Afghanistan from 2014 to 2021. Ghani could never shake the fact that he was too much of an academic and not enough of a pragmatist. The Taliban viewed him as a US pawn and he certainly reinforced that belief by the amount of time he spent lobbying American Congressmen on behalf of his Administration. Unlike his predecessor Hamad Karzai he lacked the street smarts necessary in dealing with the Taliban. His decision to vacate the Presidential Palace on August 15th is widely regard as an act of cowardice that helped expedite the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and further weaken the Afghan government leading to the inevitable. To many Ghani was seen as an illegitimate President considering the cloud that existed over his Presidential win against Abdullah Abdullah. This did not serve him well in his hour of need.
Ashraf Ghani source: NDTV
Hamid Karzai – Karzai is/was a wheeler dealer and that helped him to some extent in his relationship with the Taliban. However his Presidency of Afghanistan (2001-2014) was fraught with corruption. He regularly undermined NATO and the US and at times looked to be more of a problem than the solution. None of this helped during the perilous period of nation building. To his credit he has remained in Kabul after its fall. Who knows what his fate will be? I would not be surprised if the Taliban include him somewhere in their government to create the illusion that they have somehow moderated.
Hamid Karzai source: Brooking Institution
US Military and Afghan Military Leadership – The US forces did a stellar job in defeating the Taliban in 2001. They are not by definition a police force but the regular troops did well under these difficult circumstances following a change in the the initial mandate. However the same cannot be said for the high ranking military brass who had twenty years to train an Afghan fighting force and prepare the country for eventual US troop withdrawal. The Afghan forces were well supplied but at the end of the day appeared to lack the leadership to fight against the Taliban.
Why were some of the basic mistakes from Vietnam repeated? Why were the Afghan forces so inept? Even Joe Biden was shocked. How did the intelligence for both fail so badly when the 11th hour came? These are the big questions that need answers. With over 2448 dead US servicemen and women over the course of the campaign the Pentagon must deliver them.
So why is it ultimately Joe Biden’s fault?
As mentioned it is his grandiose SNAFU, as the disaster occurred on his watch. The buck stops somewhere and this falls under the responsibility of the holder of the Oval Office. Biden made several key mistakes that reflect negatively on his competency.
1. He withdrew air support at a critical time that was necessary to assist the Afghan forces in the face of the Taliban advance. Air support has always been part of US military dogma and it certainly framed the training that the Afghan forces had received. In the hour of greatest needed it was lacking.
2. The Biden Administration should have earlier on punished the Taliban for their flagrant aggression of agreements well prior to the due date for withdrawal. A Taliban upsurge against Afghani troops should never have been tolerated. A failure to do so further emboldened the Taliban.
3. A detailed contingency plan for the withdrawal of those Afghans who had assisted the US should have been made clear. This carried it with it a moral obligation. A great deal of the chaos that is currently unfolding could have been avoided.
Situations like this could have been mitigated for and avoided Source: Markets Insider
4. Biden showed poor leadership and a lack of understanding of his own intelligence reports. He greatly overestimated the Afghan Army and underestimated the Taliban drive. His comments in this regard dating back to July are both comical and tragic.
5. He clearly seemed out of touch with the reality of the situation, delayed communication until absolutely necessary and seemed to be issuing paper threats to the Taliban. His spokespeople, asking the Taliban to cooperate to avoid International repercussions should they act inappropriately, represents a disturbing pathos.
Since Biden has no means to enforce such action after withdrawal, it makes the US look weak. At times it looked as though he was literally begging the Taliban to let the US evacuate in peace. It is no wonder that the Chinese propaganda are having such a field day in depicting the US as an unreliable ally and a paper tiger.
Now Biden did use the excuse that Trump left him with the poisoned chalice of withdrawal that he had to solve, thus apparently absolving him of fault. His apologists have repeated this ad nauseum.
However this argument is beyond pathetic and ignores the lead up toward the withdrawal situation. For one he clearly owns points 1-5 above. In addition Biden has always been hawkish about leaving Afghanistan. Well before Trump in fact. He actually butted heads with Obama on this issue during his tenure as VP.
If Biden truly opposed the withdrawal he could have always cancelled the Agreement citing Taliban violations. There was a contingency built into the agreement to do just that and Biden could have acted. Besides which even if there wasn’t such a loophole Biden has had no problems reversing Trump era policy elsewhere. If he really wanted to he could have nixed Doha as well. He didn’t as he himself favored withdrawal. In fact he saw it a positive as the majority of Americans idea with the idea.
The decision to withdraw was the correct one. The manner in which it was carried out was was a tragedy of errors. It will take some time before American credibility is restored. Excuses for an awful carry through won’t suffice. This was incompetency at its finest made worse by the way he threw regular Afghan troops under the bus.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/11/05/how-afghanistan-went-unlisted-as-terrorist-sponsor/903bfb89-5877-4e48-87c6-4d76d906fbac/