EU lessons from the evacuation of Kabul: Part 2 – Critical factors in the failure to prepare for evacuation

The EU has yet to engage in a comprehensive ex-post evaluation of the factors of failure ahead of and during the critical summer months in 2021. By failing to deal with the past, one also does not learn about the future.

Building on the preceding chapter’s analysis of the events leading up to and during the evacuation of Kabul, this paper identifies three main factors in the West’s Kabul fiasco: a collective failure of anticipation, NATO groupthink and dependence on the US, and the absence of European will and capabilities.

This is the second Paper of a three-part Report examining the evacuation of Kabul, and the combined failures of NATO and the EU, amid the war in Ukraine. The Report is structured in three parts:

1. A description of the central decision moments leading up to and during the evacuation from Afghanistan.
2. An assessment of the main factors contributing to failure in anticipation, planning and execution.
3. Recommendations regarding the EU’s crisis management architecture and capacity in the context of the implementation of the Strategic Compass.

Read the full paper here.