This episode contemplates lessons learned from America’s twenty years of war in Afghanistan. To do so, we're joined by Dr. Carter Malkasian, author of The American War in Afghanistan: A History, and James Cunningham, a senior analyst with SIGAR—the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The discuss whether, in the year following the US withdrawal, the United States and its allies have sufficiently reflected on lessons learned from the war. They then describe various reasons why the intervention in Afghanistan failed, based on their extensive research and on-the-ground experience—to include multiple lessons from SIGAR reporting and Dr. Malkasian’s argument that the Taliban won because it fought for values close to what it means to be Afghan, including religion and resistance to occupation. Our guests conclude with policy implications we can draw from twenty years of strategy that ultimately resulted in failure.
Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa
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