For months, Pentagon officials have insisted on what they said was the numerical advantage held by the Afghan forces — supposedly with 300,000 men in the army and the police — over the Taliban, estimated to number some 70,000.
But those army numbers were greatly inflated, according to the Combating Terrorism Center at the prestigious US Military Academy at West Point, New York.
As of July 2020, by its own estimate, the 300,000 included only 185,000 army troops or special operations forces under Defense Ministry control, with police and other security personnel making up the rest.
And barely 60% of the Afghan army troops were trained fighters, the West Point analysts said.
Funny thing is that most of this could apply to the French army in 1940. What matters the number of guns if the spirit is not there?
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