Understanding Where we are in Afghanistan

September 3, 2017

Comments

The following from Foreign Policy is worth a read: There Is No War in Afghanistan.

Ever since the Taliban government was toppled in late 2001, the heart of the strategic problem that has confronted the United States and its allies in Afghanistan has been the definition of victory: How does this end? We would all be better off if we first asked what “this” is. While Afghanistan is a war of sorts, it is not the sort of war in which there is likely to be a decisive moment of victory. Rather, Afghanistan is best described as an armed policing operation.

The whole piece is worth a read.

One response to “Understanding Where we are in Afghanistan”

michael reynolds

September 3, 2017 at 5:25 pm

Depressing, unsurprising, and with the ring of truth… until you get to the end, which seems to be a hope that the deeply corrupt Kabul government and the 11th century fanatics of the Taliban are going to have a kumbaya moment if we just keep kicking the can down the road year after year. I see no reason to think this is at all likely. Far more likely is that a few bad developments convince members of the Kabul government to start cashing out and moving to the homes they’ve cleverly bought in fashionable London neighborhoods, leading to a collapse in Kabul followed by a Taliban takeover.