March 23, 2019 Topic: Security Region: Middle East
A Retired Brigadier General's Lessons from the War in Afghanistan
America's top brass can no longer operate under the assumption that every problem is the responsibility of the U.S. military.
by Don Harvel
For the last several months, U.S. special representative Zalmay Khalilzad has been deeply involved in a negotiation with the Taliban—an effort that may or may not lead to a comprehensive political resolution of the seventeen-year-long Afghan conflict. For the sake of peace in Afghanistan, we should all hope that Khalilzad—a man of eminent experience who has worked on the Afghan portfolio for decades—can pull a rabbit out of his hat and close the book on this latest bloody chapter in Afghanistan’s history.
But while those of us on the outside wait to see whether peace negotiations with the Taliban produce a lasting and positive result, it’s important for America’s national-security insiders to look back at where we are; whether what we’ve done works; and what lessons we should extrapolate in order to avoid similar endless wars in the future.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/retired-brigadier-generals-lessons-war-afghanistan-48522
