The United States has deployed B-52 bombers and Spectre gunships to try to prop up the Afghan government.

 

File photo of a B-52 refueling. Business Insider/Government photo. 

The United States has deployed B-52 bombers, AC-130 Spectre gunships and Reaper drones to Afghanistan in an attempt to blunt the Taliban's offensive. Business Insider. The B-52's have been concentrating their strikes in Helmand province, around the cities of Kandahar, Herat and Lashkar Gah. The strikes are designed to blunt the Taliban's offensive, which has been extremely effective. The Taliban now controls half of Afghanistan's district centers and took their first Provincial Capital when they overran Zaranj this Friday. The strikes are also being used to relieve pressure on the Afghan air force, which has been hampered by a lack of supplies and maintenance due to the US withdrawal. They have also had several pilots killed recently. 

My Comment:

Seems like it is too little too late for these strikes. With the Taliban in control of half the country and the rest threatened at best, it seems like the time for this bombing campaign has already passed. Though all of the weapons deployed are extremely powerful, they alone are not enough to win a war. 

That's not to say that air power isn't important. These strikes could break the back of the Taliban during specific battles. Almost nobody can continue an attack through a massive B-52 strike or the sustained fire from an AC-130 gunship. 

But in the end the guys on the ground have to be the ones to win the battle. And I don't think that the Afghan military is capable of that anymore. Their special forces are the only ones that fight and they have been decimated by the recent fighting. All of their forces are exhausted and morale appears to be non-existent. Airpower might help the morale a little bit but in the end I doubt it will save the Afghan government.

Which makes me wonder what the point of deploying these planes is. They won't change the outcome of the war, it's lost now and will be unless we reverse course on troop deployment or the Taliban inexplicably descends into infighting. We are spending good money after bad here and won't be able to save the Afghan government. 

My guess is that Biden had to do something. The Afghan government was likely begging for any help they can get and the hawks at the Pentagon insisted on doing something. This bombing campaign was probably the only solution they could agree on. 

I still worry that Biden will reverse course and deploy troops to Afghanistan. So far he has resisted calls to do so but I trust Biden about as far as I can thrown him. He is far from a dove and thought I wouldn't really call him a war hawk, he is certainly more hawkish than President Trump was. Such a reversal would be hugely unpopular, even among Biden's base, but Biden doesn't seem to give one lick about popularity. He's a lame duck president who is probably going to cause his party to lose control of the House and Senate in 2022, so what does he have to lose?