In what could also be one of the devastating overseas coverage failures in fashionable U.S. historical past, President Joe Biden’s reckless 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan didn’t merely go away an influence vacuum, it handed America’s enemies one of many largest unauthorized arms transfers in historical past.
Right this moment, billions of {dollars} in U.S. weapons and tools are within the palms of terrorists, black market arms sellers, and hostile regimes.
In keeping with the Particular Inspector Common for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban earned over $3.4 billion in income final 12 months, partly by promoting seized U.S. weapons to world terror networks. Teams corresponding to al-Qaeda associates, ISIS-Ok, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and others are actively utilizing these weapons for assaults and coaching.
A current BBC investigation revealed that half 1,000,000 weapons captured by the Taliban at the moment are unaccounted for—both misplaced, offered, or smuggled out.
The Taliban initially seized round a million gadgets of U.S.-funded army {hardware}, together with M4 and M16 rifles, Humvees, MRAPs, and even Black Hawk helicopters.
Whereas a lot of the high-end tools stays non-operational as a result of lack of coaching and upkeep capability, 1000’s of automobiles and small arms have been deployed in fight or offered to the very best bidder.
The BBC confirmed that the Taliban admitted these weapons had been lacking throughout a closed-door UN assembly in Doha.
Regardless of Pentagon assurances that almost all tools was disabled, the Taliban continues to flaunt U.S. {hardware} in army parades, most notably in August 2024, once they celebrated three years in energy by showcasing captured gear at Bagram Airfield, as soon as the principle hub of U.S. and NATO operations.
Diplomats from China and Iran attended the parade, highlighting a brand new geopolitical actuality: the U.S. is gone, and adversaries are taking its place.
Taliban leaders now view these weapons not simply as instruments of conflict however as symbols of legitimacy and energy.
A black-market arms financial system has emerged, with native commanders utilizing WhatsApp to commerce U.S. gear, usually gifting weapons to consolidate management.
Even the United Nations famous that the Taliban allowed its regional commanders to maintain 20% of all seized American weapons—additional fueling fragmentation and underground trafficking.
President Trump, forward of his second inauguration, blasted the Biden administration for handing over “$85 billion in weapons” to the Taliban.
Whereas the precise worth is debated, even conservative estimates peg the deserted tools at $7 billion or extra, based on the Division of Protection.
Since resuming workplace, Trump has vowed to reclaim the gear, stating: “If we have to pay them, that’s effective—however we would like our army tools again.”
But the Taliban has refused, insisting the arms belong to the state. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid declared, “We seized these weapons from the earlier administration and can use them to defend the nation.”
In the meantime, China and Russia have cautiously moved to develop their presence in Afghanistan, looking for to take advantage of the vacuum left by the U.S. withdrawal. Each nations have reopened embassies in Kabul and hosted Taliban delegations.
In 2023, China turned the primary nation to simply accept credentials from a Taliban-appointed ambassador—an act of restricted diplomatic recognition.
Russia, too, has stored channels open however, like China, stopped in need of formally recognizing the Taliban because the official authorities.
Although usually described as desirous to faucet into Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion in untapped mineral reserves, together with lithium, copper, and uncommon earths, neither China nor Russia has signed any main extraction agreements.
At most, a handful of non-binding MOUs have been floated, however none have resulted in precise mining operations.
The explanations are clear: Afghanistan stays too unstable, too underdeveloped, and too unskilled to help large-scale industrial extraction.
The rugged terrain, lack of roads and energy infrastructure, and an entire absence of educated technical labor imply that any critical useful resource mission would require overseas corporations to construct every thing from scratch, at excessive value and excessive danger.
Even China, identified for braving hostile environments to safe strategic minerals, has held again. For each China and Russia, spiritual and cultural variations, together with the chance of jihadist spillover into their very own Muslim areas, have additional sophisticated relations.
Nonetheless, the Taliban continues to sign curiosity in aligning with anti-U.S. powers in hopes of securing legitimacy and funding.
Afghanistan could also be drifting into the orbit of America’s adversaries, however for now, it stays a pawn, not a accomplice, of their broader geopolitical technique.
To make issues worse, the U.S. oversight physique SIGAR will shut down in 2026, eliminating the final official line of accountability for U.S. tools and help within the area.
Former SIGAR head John Sopko has argued that retrieving the weapons is probably not financially possible, however the strategic value of leaving them in hostile palms is way extra harmful.
This isn’t only a coverage failure. It’s a long-term nationwide safety legal responsibility, one which continues to arm terrorists, embolden authoritarian states, and erode American affect throughout one of many world’s most unstable areas.
