The Afghan War Was Not the Longest War in American History

The anniversary of the takeover of Afghanistan by the Islamist Taliban, who had harbored Islamist terrorists when they had been in power before, including al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, is an opportune time to refute a widespread misleading statement about the Afghan War led by the United States and its allies to overthrow the Taliban. The War in Afghanistan was not “the longest war” in United States history, as the professional media, politicians and political commentators keep saying. Their reference to the Afghan war as such undoubtedly contributed to public opinion in favor of the premature withdrawal that allowed the Taliban militia that had harbored the al-Qaeda terrorist organization responsible for the deadliest terrorist attacks in history, the September 11 Attacks, to return to power. I had posted on this subject in my post, Afghanistan Is Not the Longest Ever U.S. War, in June of 2010: William Cinfici: Afghanistan Is Not the Longest Ever U.S. War, but even after 11 years, my point remains accurate that a false comparison is made. Longest Continuous Campaign: As a theater or battle within the War on Terrorism, perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to the Afghan War as the longest continuous campaign in American history, but it was not the longest major or even minor war, even if it were dated to have begun in 1996, with the first American missile strike on al-Qaeda. Comparison to Other Minor and Major Wars: The U.S. has not continuously been at war in Afghanistan since 2014, as there were only sporadic engagements since the U.S. ended its combat role, shifting to an advisory and support role while occasionally conducting drone strikes against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The war in Afghanistan had already become a minor war after the fall of the Taliban in 2002, but even counting the sporadic engagements and drone strikes as a war misleadingly counts the Afghan war longer than other wars. Other major American wars have become minor wars, such as the last two years each of the American Revolution until 1783 and the Vietnamese war after the U.S. withdrawal in 1973, but the common methods of counting of the length of such wars varies. A better example is the Liberation of Kuwait, as the Baathists of Iraq have continued to engage in combat against Americans since the 1991 ceasefire to the present. Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime had violated the ceasefire many times and then after his fall, Baathists and other Islamists inspired by their regime engaged in a guerilla campaign, working with other jihadists, including currently al-Qaeda in Iraq’s offshoot, the Islamic State. Thus, I have noted previously, the Liberation of Iraq was a second campaign of the Liberation of Kuwait, instead of two separate wars, interspersed with and succeeded by a minor war phase, although the second campaign was subsumed within the ongoing Global War on Terrorism. Other minor wars also involved sporadic engagements, sometimes frequently, over a longer period than the Afghan campaign, such as against Libya under dictator Muammar Qaddafi from 1981 to 2011, against the Syrian Assad regime from 1982 to 2017 and against Islamist Iran from the 1980s to 2020. Furthermore, what are commonly described as separate major or minor wars are often better understood as series of campaigns of wars, which were far longer than the Afghan campaign. For example, the U.S. has been engaged against Jihadists from the Eighteenth Century, from the Barbary Wars to the present. It was engaged in a series of major and minor wars against International Communists during the Cold War from 1946 to 1991. Even one of the individual campaigns of the Cold War, the Korean War, continued past the major war phase from 1950 to 1953, as there were a series of many clashes afterward until 1985. A Battle of the War on Terrorism: Moreover, Afghanistan, like Iraq and Syria have been, was a battle or campaign in the ongoing War on Terrorism, as Libya also had been several years after the fall of Qaddafi. Somalia is another example, where Americans have been in combat sporadically since 1993 and where there is a current advisory mission, as part of the campaign in the War on Terrorism against al-Qaeda’s largest affiliate. The War on Terrorism continues even in Afghanistan with the recent drone strike against the leader of al-Qaeda. Length of War Proved Perserverance, Not Problems: Regardless of how the Afghan War compares to other wars or series of wars, the length of the war did not represent a military failure or a failure to provide adequate support for the allied Afghan government, but a failure of the will to defeat the Taliban, instead of the strategy only of preventing their takeover, which was then abandoned with the Trump-Biden withdrawal, as I have posted. The length of the campaign had been a sign to both enemies and allies of American willingness to be patient, to endure and to be loyal to allies. Considering that Islamists have been engaged in warfare since the Seventh Century, twenty years was not a long time, especially considering the relatively small force and the few casualties. U.S. and allied forces have thus far successfully prevented Afghanistan from becoming such a safe haven for terrorists as to become again an international threat, but only continued vigilance will prevent it again.