The US Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has assessed the underlying factors behind the collapse of the former Afghan government and listed nine factors that led to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s take over.

SIGAR found the single most important factor in the former ANDSF’s collapse in August 2021 was the US decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan, which was based on the US-IEA agreement signed in February 2020 under the Trump administration.

According to SIGAR, the Afghan government was fundamentally unprepared to manage a fight against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) forces.

Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on U.S. military forces, these events destroyed Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) “morale” that eventually led to the fall.

SIGAR stated the reasons for the collapse of the republic government were as follows:

1st Factor: No country or agency had complete ownership of the ANDSF development mission, leading to an uncoordinated approach;

2nd Factor: The length of the U.S. commitment was disconnected from the reality of the time required to build an entire security sector;

3rd Factor: The U.S. created long-term dependencies that would require significant time to overcome, such as providing the ANDSF with advanced equipment they could not sustain and leaving them out of the equipping process;

4th Factor: The U.S. military, driven by political deadlines, struggled to balance winning battles with letting the ANDSF gain experience by fighting on their own;

5th Factor: The U.S. metrics created to measure the development of the ANDSF were unable to effectively measure ANDSF capabilities;

6th Factor: Afghan corruption harmed ANDSF capabilities and readiness;

7th Factor: The U.S. control of the battlespace and of key governance systems restricted Afghan ownership of important military and governance systems;

8th Factor: The U.S. and Afghan governments failed to develop a police force effective at providing justice and responsive to criminal activities that plagued the lives of Afghan citizens.