Pretty simple question: how was the Taliban able to re-take Afghanistan? After over a decade of American military presence, how was the Taliban even able to survive? How/why did the people of Afghanistan not fight back / prevent the Taliban from taking over?
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>how was the Taliban able to re-take Afghanistan?
In terms of place and time: by first taking the rural areas, cutting the cities off from each other. After that, they advanced on city after city and finally seized Kabul.
>After over a decade of American military presence,
Although US and coalition forces were present for a long time, they were not very large compared to the enormous size and mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. Total coalitions forces reached a maximum of 130,000 troops in 2011 due to the Surge, but before 2009 and after 2014 total size did not exceed 50,000 troops. The Rand corporation think tank once posited that a succesful counterinsurgency campaign needed to have at least 20 security personnel (police and military) per 1,000 inhabitants. Regardless of whether that is actually true, the Afghan population doubled from roughly 20 million in 2001 to 40 million in 2021. That would have required a total force between 400,000 in the beginning and 800,000 in the end. In 2019 the total number of troops in the Afghan armed forces was estimated to be 180,000. But due to ghost soldiers, that number was unreliable.
>how was the Taliban even able to survive?
Because Pakistan formed a safe haven, even with the numerous drone attacks from above. And if you are the weaker force in terms of size and capability, you have to fight differently. In this case as an insurgency, grinding down the opposing forces.
>How/why did the people of Afghanistan not fight back / prevent the Taliban from taking over?
The Taliban promised not to kill any soldier who took his gun and simply went home. They also promised no retribution against any town elders if they switched sides. That makes fighting unattractive if you do not believe you will win. Still, many Afghans fought, especially the Afghan special forces. But there weren’t so many of those. In total around 70,000 Afghan soldiers died during the war.
Additionally, Americans had set up the Afghan national army in such a way that it heavily relied on air support and special forces. But when the Americans announced their withdrawal, all the contractors who were in charge of maintaining aircraft also pulled out. Which meant that it was suddenly way more difficult for Afghan forces to repair their aircraft and keep fighting.
On top of that, the quick extraction of Western forces gave an enormous blow to the morale of ordinary Afghan troops. And once the Taliban started seizing districts and cities with high speed, many felt it was useless to keep fighting, because it only meant ensuring their own deaths. Part of the negotiated withdrawal was also the release of many Taliban fighters held captive.
Finally, the Afghan government was not seen as the true representative of the nation, but as a group of corrupt people only in it for themselves. So many Afghans did not feel particularly loyal to it, certainly not to the death. Ethnic minorities and women had strong reasons to dislike the Taliban, but they could not keep them out either, altough they held out for a while in the Panjshir valley. Another major problem for the Afghan government was that it has always been a very poor country and therefore reliant on outside aid for food and economy. With the West pulling out, economic support was eventually also going to run out. That meant either a slow strangulation of Afghan cities by the Taliban or a quick surrender and hoping for the best.
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