About the Afghanistan Assumptions Project
The Afghanistan Assumptions Project (AAP) is a unique, independent, scholarly, and research-based project that explores the 20-year US engagement in Afghanistan. The basis of the examination is seven fundamental assumptions—political, military, economic, cultural, and diplomatic—that drove US policy. It looks beyond what the United States got wrong in Afghanistan to understand how it got it wrong. The project is engaging a broad range of perspectives, both through its steering committee of experts, knowledgeable in key diplomatic, political, and military aspects of the war, and by conducting individual interviews with policymakers, scholars, journalists, and civil and military leaders. This Center for Strategic Studies’ project will culminate in a series of white papers, journal publications, and a serialized set of articles for academic and policy communities, examining which lessons can be applied to future strategic decision making. In particular, the CSS team will investigate critical inflection points when policy shifted most dramatically, and address key assumptions made by US policymakers and foreign policy analysts