What's going wrong in Afghanistan? - Deutsche Welle‎

In Mazar-i-Sharif, the German defense minister was self-critical. Mistakes have been made and the situation underestimated, she said. The question remains: Can the mistakes be repaired?
"We’re staying," announced Ursula von der Leyen during an inspection of German troops stationed in Camp Shaheen. The defense minister said that Afghanistan's partners had planned the "withdrawal of the international community from Afghanistan too quickly, too ambitiously."

This had also sent the "wrong signal" to the radical Islamic Taliban, she said, who saw the troop withdrawal as their chance to bring down the government. An admission of guilt from which first NATO and later the German government were able to draw the consequences: 12,000 foreign armed forces remain in the country, to train the Afghan army. The German armed forces increased the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan from 850 to 980.

The failure of Germany in the region, according to Conrad Schetter, was due to the absence of any strategy. "The German armed forces didn’t know until six or seven years ago in what sort of conflict it was operating. For many decision-makers in the military it was decisive to demonstrate loyalty to the alliance. They did not have a wide-ranging plan of what they wanted to achieve in Kunduz. "There was no European, not to mention German, Afghanistan policy.

Instead, the German armed forces operated within local power structures and cooperated with the local elite. Warlords acted as autonomous governors, police, or heads of intelligence – financed by German development funding. - Read More at DW
What's going wrong in Afghanistan? | Germany | DW.COM | 12.12.2015

Von der Leyen tells German soldiers in Afghanistan: ′We ...