Digital Dunkirk: What the Afghan Evacuation Should Teach Us about the Future of Volunteer Support to the US Military
Laura Keenan | 09.22.21
It was a former Afghan interpreter reaching out for help that pulled Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Torres to connect with other likeminded individuals to assist his former colleague out of Afghanistan in late August. My experience was similar to Torres’s, I found my way to a West Point alumni Signal chat group that was working to facilitate Afghan evacuations when I was trying feverishly to help a former colleague who was in Qatar receiving Afghan refugees in the absence of critical logistics. It was the human dynamic combined with a looming deadline that spurred action. Requests in online and messaging chats ranged from asking which gates were open at the Kabul airfield to requesting helo support. The speed and the collective, iterative knowledge were integral to the work of the virtual groups, especially when the catalysts were personal Afghan colleagues facing life-and-death consequences and needing help to evade and escape the Taliban.
The organic, voluntary, collaborative effort highlights an important lesson with implications well beyond Afghanistan. The Department of Defense can leverage similar enthusiasm, passion, and human capital by exploring the possibility of creating an auxiliary to help augment future missions.
The evacuation efforts in August—which have been dubbed a “digital Dunkirk,” a name inspired by the historic World War II effort in which civilian vessels assisted the Royal Navy in evacuating troops—allowed groups of individuals to influence operations in Afghanistan. In 2021, organizations such as the Pineapple Express, Team America, Allied Airlift 21, No One Left Behind, and other unnamed groups ignited around-the-clock grassroots efforts to expedite the safe passage of Afghan allies during the precarious week before the deadline to cease military operations in Afghanistan. Some of the organizations are official nonprofits, while others were just groups of passionate individuals. These groups were composed of a motley crew of national security professionals, military members, veterans, aid workers, business professionals, congressional staff, and others who felt emboldened to establish some order to the chaos. Not formally recognized by the Department of Defense until after the mission in Afghanistan ended, the groups were independent of the military. However, they worked in concert, albeit in the shadows, with the military and the interagency on the ground. They influenced operations from thousands of miles away, circumventing bureaucracy and accelerating communications. Several of the groups cite thousands of refugees’ safe passage to their credit. It is difficult to discern how much responsibility each group can claim because it was a collection of actions, but nonetheless their work created an unprecedented boost to the military efforts on the ground.
https://mwi.usma.edu/digital-dunkirk-what-the-afghan-evacuation-should-teach-us-about-the-future-of-volunteer-support-to-the-us-military/
