Paper 1: For Want of a Nail

This paper is the first in a series that investigates a core set of assumptions that underpinned America’s twenty-year engagement in Afghanistan. This paper provides an overview of the assumptions that led to military intervention in Afghanistan, particularly the right and necessity to intervene militarily to overthrow the Taliban and support the Northern Alliance in 2001. This paper was prepared for the first Afghanistan Assumptions Workshop with our Expert Steering Committee on February 10, 2023.

Paper 2: Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory: Why the U.S. Got Stuck in Afghanistan (to be published soon)

This second paper examines the conflation of the Taliban government with Al-Qaeda by the Bush administration starting in 2001 and how that thinking affected the war’s aims. Additionally, this paper seeks to examine why the Taliban were excluded from the post-war government and how that decision came to be. This paper was prepared for the second Afghanistan Assumptions Workshop with our Expert Steering Committee on June 7, 2023.