The head of the US government watchdog for the war in Afghanistan said Tuesday that while there are a number of things the US could learn from the nearly 20-year conflict in Afghanistan and apply to the war in Ukraine, he’s not optimistic that officials will actually do so.
“I’m not super optimistic that we are going to learn our lessons … learning lessons is not in our DNA in the United States, unfortunately,” John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, told reporters at a Defense Writers Group event on Tuesday.
Sopko spoke with reporters the day after a SIGAR report was published outlining why Afghan security forces collapsed as the Taliban swept through the country in 2021, after years of the US focusing on equipping and training them.
The report comes as lawmakers in Congress have made clear they plan to hold additional hearings and further investigate the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sopko emphasized on Tuesday that Ukraine and Afghanistan are totally different countries and cultures. He added, however, that there are multiple opportunities for the US to apply lessons learned from Afghanistan to the war in Ukraine as the US continues assisting the country’s stand against Russia.
One of those is to establish oversight early, which appears to already be happening. The Pentagon’s inspector general told lawmakers on Tuesday that the Defense Department inspector general has completed five Ukraine-related oversight projects since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, and some 20 more audits are either planned or currently ongoing.
Officials also need to learn how to coordinate the different countries and agencies operating in Ukraine more effectively than they did in Afghanistan, Sopko said, and ensure that they don’t have unrealistic timelines. Ultimately, he said officials need to really…
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