Leave them in no peace: America’s Afghan exit

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Among the stark economic effects of lockdowns was the boom in the attention economy. Given few options, the world flocked to entertainment media, from games to streaming services to, well, podcasts. But now that boom is turning to bust. And of the world's very best racehorses, 97% are all descended from a single horse. We look at the risks inherent in maintaining thoroughbreds that are thoroughly inbred. But first, Over the weekend, the last American troops departed from the Bagram army base, the nerve center of American operations in Afghanistan.

We're on track exactly as to where.

We expect it to be. It's the notional end of America's longest war, 20 years after an American invasion and an insurgency by Taliban militants that just never stopped. As America and allied NATO forces head for the exit, a resurgence Taliban continues to make gains, particularly across the country's north. As government forces fled. This weekend, videos emerged of Taliban soldiers standing over piles of captured weapons. A Taliban spokesperson told the BBC that all American troops must leave by America's September 11 deadline.

They agreed while we were negotiating the Doha agreement that they will withdraw all their forces.

It's chillingly reminiscent of another foreign power withdrawal, that of the Soviets in the late 1980s. The fear now, the increasing reality now is a return to widespread Taliban control with all that that entail, shadow governments enforcing Sharia law and scattered civilian militias battling to keep the peace.

The feeling in Kabul at the moment is really quite anxious. There's wave after wave of bad news coming from the districts.

Ben Farmer covers Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Economist and has been reporting in Kabul.

The Taliban have been advancing almost unchecked through large parts of the country, particularly through the north. It's really sparking a sense of deepening dread among ordinary Afghans.

And this as the last of the American troops are withdrawing. How is that withdrawal going?

The withdrawal is going very well. It's going very quickly. Joe Biden said that he wanted all troops to be out, barring a rump of soldiers who will guard the embassy. He wanted them all out by the anniversary of the September 11th attack. In fact, it seems to be going much quicker than that. Officials are saying that the great majority of troops have gone. The big milestone was that Bagram Air Base, which has been the main military hub for American forces for 20 years, was handed over to the Afghans with the handover of Bagram. That really means that there aren't any American troops outside the capital, Kabul.

What is left? What still needs to happen? When will America consider their withdrawal complete?

Well, there are still troops to fly home. There's still equipment, arms, ammunition, and so on. What can't be flown home. Much of it is being destroyed, so does fall into the wrong hands, and much of it is being given to the Afghans. We get the impression that there's still days, if not weeks of that process to go on. American generals and commanders have said that they can still give support, but the truth is that when the withdrawal is over, it becomes much more difficult.

And you say that the Taliban seems to be surging around. What is the security situation on the ground right now?

What we've seen in the last two months is we've seen a string of rural districts across the country fall. Afghan forces have surrendered largely. Often they've fallen without a lot of fighting, and they've been captured by the Taliban. We're talking large numbers, dozens if not scores of them, has really put pressure on the Afghan government and is starting to put pressure on cities. And this sort of spread, which appears unchecked by the Afghan forces in many places, is adding to a sense of panic, not just in Kabul, but I think it's also created a great feeling of alarm in Washington. People didn't think it would deteriorate this.

Quickly, but what does that look like on the ground? As the Taliban captures these districts, Are they setting up these shadow governments or just sort of planting a flag and sitting tight?

We don't know a lot about life afterwards. It's difficult to report from these places. But the Taliban have controlled small numbers of districts for years and years now, and they do try and set up shadow governments. They enforce their rules. They impose their restrictions on people. And I think this must be what's happening in the newly fallen districts as well.

And what effect is that degrading security situation having on the Afghan people themselves, what preparations are they making?

Well, in the districts that are falling, we're seeing a lot of displacement. People are leaving their homes. They either fear life under the Taliban or they fear that there will be counter offensives. Also, what we're seeing is a lot of people weighing up their options about whether they should stay in Afghanistan or whether they should perhaps try their luck somewhere else. And this is a country which has, in the past four decades, spawned huge numbers of refugees. Yesterday I was at the passport office and there have been thousands and thousands of people queuing up at the Passport Office in Kabul this week. They've been applying for new documents, renewing documents, making sure they have a valid passport in their hands. The options for people include going to some of the countries which have held large numbers of refugees in the past. So Pakistan is a popular choice, Iran is a popular choice.

And as for the people who are staying put, how are they responding to the security situation?

Some of them are arming. The government has asked communities to mobilise militia to stand alongside the Afghan forces. But this is fraught with problems in Afghanistan and brings back terrible memories of the 1990s. So while many Afghans do have arms or can quickly lay their hands on arms, these militia, or militia like them, were the bane of many people's lives in the 1990s. And there is a concern that while they may be effective in some areas of defending communities, that these militia could also become predatory, or they could turn on each other, or they could just be a next step in the sort of state unraveling. So it's a step that a lot of people are looking at with some.

Trepidation and with that potential for the state to unravel. I mean, how bad could things get and how fast before NATO allies or even America themselves might have to reconsider whether they need to have a presence there?

Intelligence assessments in Washington have really cut the odds on the survival of the Afghan government. There were reports that the current assessment is now suggesting that the Afghan government might last sort of 6 to 12 months. Previously, it was thought it would last longer, but the benchmark really, for how bad it could get in most people's minds is the 1990s, when there was civil war. It was not just two factions, there were lots of factions. It was a very difficult time. The specter of civil war has been raised by American generals. General Miller, who is the US commander here, he has said that that is feasible.

I wonder, though, how things might have been different. I mean, the, the American forces wanted to leave a stable situation behind, but all of the negotiations with, with the Taliban, with and without the Afghan government seemed to be going nowhere. I mean, how else might this have gone?

I think that negotiations really still are the key to this, although that, you're quite right that nothing is happening at the moment or they seem to be stalled. There is no military solution for either side. The government can't defeat the Taliban, America can't defeat the Taliban. It would appear also the Taliban probably cannot retake the entire country. I think probably what will happen, there be some kind of stalemate, very bloody, very difficult for the Afghan people. But at some stage, if there is to be a lasting solution, there must be some kind of negotiation. It just looks at the moment that that is a long way off.

Ben, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you.

For more analysis like this from our international network of correspondence, take out a subscription to the Economist. Get a great introductory deal@Equality.com IntelligenceOffer the link is in the show notes. Over the course of the pandemic, we've been doing a lot less of stuff like this. And a lot more of stuff like this.

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The continued return to normalcy in many countries is a sign things are looking up. But for the companies that have benefited from our stay at home lives, it's a moment of peril.

During lockdowns, media companies saw what they called an attention boom because everybody was stuck at home with nothing to do. And so they watched more video, heard more music, all the rest of it.

Tom Wainwright is the Economist's media editor.

Now, as people get the chance to go back outside again, those same companies are worrying about an attention recession.

And what was the nature of the boom? What was booming?

Everything was booming during lockdown. I mean, people didn't have very many options outside the home. And so inside they had time to kill. And so they were watching tv, they were watching streams, streaming services, they were listening to music, podcasts, audiobooks, they were gaming, you know, you name it, everything went up. It was a period of a year or so when audiences, for more or less every medium, really shot through the roof.

But which facets of entertainment boomed the most?

The thing that people spent the most extra time on was watching TV and video. But the thing that saw the biggest proportional jump was video gaming. People spent on average about an extra hour every week playing games. That was an increase of about a third on what they were playing before. That was a big, big jump. Other than that, we saw music went up a bit. But podcasts and audiobooks had a really big jump. And if you look at their share of total listening before the pandemic, podcasts and audiobooks were about a fifth of all listening. These days, they're about a quarter. So that seems to be a habit that is sticking for now.

And on the flip side of this equation, as the attention recession starts to bite, which sectors are losing?

I think one trend that we're seeing is that there's been a kind of speed up of the switch from old media to new media. So people are watching less cable TV now than they were, less broadcast tv and more streaming services in the same way. I mean, obviously it was a pretty awful year for the cinema because nearly all theaters were shut at one point. And I think that some of those habits of people watching streaming video now rather than going to the movies probably are sticking. Theaters are reopening now. But it seems that studios have learned that by putting their films online at the same time, they can tempt more people to sign up for their streaming services. And so that's one change that I think is likely to stick around.

And are there other examples where basically the industry is responding to these changing appetites or permanent changes in appetites?

I think in audio, we're seeing some interesting changes. There's a big emphasis that we're seeing now from streaming audio companies like Spotify and Amazon Music and Apple, big emphasis on podcasting. And I think that they've seen that. For one thing, it gives them a chance to differentiate themselves from their competitors, because music wise, they all have basically the same catalogue. But with podcasting, it gives them a chance to sign people up exclusively. You know, Spotify's got Joe Rogan. I think they've recently got a podcast called Call Her Daddy, which was very popular. And so they're really going for that. And it looks as though podcasts are going to be a much bigger part of their strategy than they were before. It's interesting to look at audiobooks as well, because Amazon, of course, has a big potential advantage there. They own Audible, which is a big audiobook outfit. And you can imagine that if they put that together with their podcasting and music service, they would have a pretty powerful audio product there that would be pretty different from anything that Spotify or Apple can offer.

So there's all this change going on in the world with the pandemic and in the media world, I mean, which are the habits that will stick that the industries really should chase?

Well, it's early days, but it looks as though gaming is one habit that is likely to stick. If you look at the number of downloads of gaming apps, for example, that shot up in the pandemic, but it's still very high. You know, with some other types of media we saw a big increase during the pandemic and it's since ebbed away. But with gaming, that seems to be a habit that people are really sticking with. And there's an interesting question here about what they will drop, if anything, if they do more gaming. And something that's really changed here, I think, is that people are accessing all these different kinds of media on the same device. You know, you get all of this stuff now on your phone or on your tablet, because in the past, of course, if you wanted to listen to music, you'd do that on your stereo. If you wanted to watch tv, you'd do that on the TV set. If you wanted to play video games, you'd do that on a console or a computer. Whereas now all of these different forms of media are delivered on the same device. And so you pick up your smartphone, open up the home screen, and whatever tempts you most that day is going to be how you spend your time. And so we see consumers now. Well, different types of media are competing with each other for consumers attention in a way that they didn't before. So what that means is that if one of these new habits becomes sticky, if people get really hooked on gaming, it means that it could well take attention away from one of the other things that they were previously doing on their phone, whether that's music or podcasts or video or email or something else.

Well, the one digital distraction you haven't mentioned yet is social media. How has that fared?

Well, that's a funny one because of course it's something that you can end up spending more time on if you've got time on your hands and you're not able to go out. But on the other hand, it is by its nature social. And so people might be more likely to post pictures and things the more they're going out and the more they're seeing people. And we've seen different reports here from different networks. So Facebook reported a big increase in engagement last year, and they said recently that as lockdowns were lifting, they were seeing a slight decline in engagement. Whereas Snapchat, which is a kind of similar but slightly different kind of platform, said just the opposite. They said recently that as lockdowns lifted in the States, they were seeing an increase in certain kinds of engagement which they put down to the fact that people now are going out more, so they've got more kind of social experiences to share. So I think it really depends a lot on the platform. And of course, the one platform that did especially badly during social distancing and is now having a particular boom is dating apps. Match Group, which is the company that owns various different apps, including Tinder, has said that signups this year are about 10% higher than they were before the pandemic. So people seem to be making up for lost time. And they've even predicted that this year we could be in for a summer of luck.

But of course, we should advise listeners that they should continue listening to quality podcasts wherever possible. Tom, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

There's nothing quite like putting on your best top hat and taking in a day of horse racing, or so I'm told myself. I've always been more of a dog racing man, don't get me wrong. They're beautiful animals and they seem to be in exquisite condition. But what's becoming increasingly clear is that in their bloodlines lies a darker truth.

Thoroughbreds are the aristocrats of the racing world. They're the very handsome, leggy, shiny things that you see when you go to the races.

Catherine Nixie writes about Britain for the Economist.

And they are becoming increasingly inbred, particularly so in Britain, which is interesting, because Britain is the birthplace of the thoroughbred racing horse.

And so why is it that the thoroughbreds are so inbred?

All thoroughbreds in the world are basically by definition, inbred. The definition of a thoroughbred is a horse that has been descended from one of three Arabian stallions that were brought to Britain in around 1700. And everyone was amazed by them. They were super fast and super sleek, and they instantly hebred them with lots of English mares. And that gave a breed that was so much better than all the other horses around that that became the desirable breed. And within a century, they decided that these were so much better than all other horses. They said that to be a thoroughbred horse, you have to have been bred from those three Arabian stallions.

But that was three horses 300 years ago. I mean, that's plenty of time to deepen the gene pool. Or is that not happening?

A paper has been published which looked at 10,000 thoroughbreds across the world. They found that 97% of these 10,000 horses were all descended from a single horse which had been born in 1961, a horse called Northern Dancer, which had gone on to be so successful that Everyone wanted him or his descendants. And so the early inbreeding has been compounded by later inbreeding. To look at this, I went to Newmarket in England, the home of horse racing, and for many people, the home of horse breeding. Full stop to the Newmarket breeding centre. You can think of it as a bit like a brothel for horses, but unlike a brothel, it is the men who are there all the time and the ladies who are brought to them.

And when you spoke to the breeders at the stud, were they concerned about inbreeding?

They're very much aware of this problem in the horsing world, and so they are all looking for what they call an outcross, which is where, a bit like the royal families of England and Europe used to do in the olden days, you're looking for some nice blood to bring in that will improve your line and slightly broaden your genetic diversity. Now, what's interesting is it's so far, they seem to have escaped. They have a few things. They have a condition called bleeding, which is where the horse's lungs start to bleed and they start to pour blood from their noses. But the worry is that something might start to appear. You might suddenly reach a tipping point where so many genetic mutations have been gathered that a problem appears and then it's almost too late to do anything about it.

Why is it, though, that the breeders are only now becoming aware of this problem?

Well, for a long time, it wasn't considered a problem at all. I mean, it was considered positively beneficial. When this all started out, people thought that Pura was considered much better. The thoroughbred begins, really, when they start having a stud book, which is where you record the dams and sires of every horse, the horsey mother and the horsey father. Francis Galton, who was one of the fathers of statistics, and much less gloriously, one of the fathers of eugenics, suggested that this would be a very good way for improving the human breed. He says it's unthinkable. How is it that we're recording the performance of horses and we're not doing this for humans?

And given the concerns over inbreeding that are clear now, do you think these practices are going to go away?

Horse breeders have been doing it this way for centuries. You make fantastic amounts of money from inbreeding your shiny, but perhaps inbred horse. When two horses have sex, they call it a cover. One of the horses at the National Stud, he's their best horse. He gets for a cover, £25,000. If you have the best horse, I mean, they don't give out the figures because it's all very closely guarded at the high end of the trade. But he is rumoured to get £600,000 for a single cover. And a horse can do several covers in a day. So by the end of the day, you've made a million pounds. I think, until something starts to go wrong, they are just going to keep breeding these very handsome, very shiny horses and going and having a lovely day at the races.

Catherine, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and we'll see you back here tomorrow, Sam.