Among the unanswered—and perhaps unanswerable—questions regarding the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan is the extent to which the conflict contributed to the USSR’s dissolution less than three years after the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces. Proponents of the view that the war had precipitated the Soviet collapse included CIA analysts like Anthony Arnold, who argued…
Tag: Afghanistan
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable on Innes, Streets Without Joy
We must act against the criminal menace of terrorism with the full weight of the law, both domestic and international. We will act to indict, apprehend, and prosecute those who commit the kind of atrocities the world has witnessed in recent weeks. We can act together as free peoples who wish not to see our…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable on Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan & Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers
Just over 21 years ago, the United States invaded Afghanistan. Just over one year ago, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan. Understanding the two decades in between, which became by almost any measure America’s longest war, will continue to occupy and often bedevil scholars and policymakers for years to come. The two books under review…
Review Essay 57 on Warlord Survival: The Delusion of State Building in Afghanistan
There is a persistent paradox in the literature (and policy-related discourse) on warlordism that spills over into the larger scholarship on political violence and state formation: while some observers regard warlords as insurmountable spoilers, too strong and sinister to be tamed, others characterize them as paper tigers that could be easily dismissed with the right…
Roundtable 12-3 on Planning to Fail: The US Wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan
The study of bureaucracy as an influence in the formulation and conduct of foreign and defense policy has receded in popularity since its heyday during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the limits of bureaucratic processes, the influence of the decorum generated by organizational culture or even the constraints created by the overall structure of government…
Article Review 96 on “Why U.S. Efforts to Promote the Rule of Law in Afghanistan Failed”
For all their differences, Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama have taken remarkably similar approaches to Afghanistan. Both entered office, conducted reviews of the domestically unpopular American-led war, and ultimately decided to increase the U.S. troop numbers there while continuing to support shaky, often corrupt, Afghan government partners.
Roundtable 8-9 on Armed State Building: Confronting State Failure
In this important study, which should be of interest to both scholars and policymakers, Paul Miller examines the practice of armed state building by both the United States and the United Nations. While acknowledging that there are some characteristics of armed state building by liberal powers that are similar to the theory and practice of…
Roundtable 7-20 on Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency
In 2015 the United States faces a number of opportunities to intervene with military force in countries of secondary or even less strategic importance to U.S. policy makers. President Barack Obama’s completion of the withdrawal of American ground combat troops from Iraq, and plans to draw down U.S. troops from Afghanistan, have not reduced…
Forum 9 on “What Have We Learned? Lessons from Afghanistan & Iraq.”
After thirteen years of war, the loss of many thousand of lives, and the expenditure of trillions of dollars, what has the United States learned? The answer depends on not only who is asking but when. The story of the Iraq war would have different endings, and morals, if told in 2003, 2006, 2011, or…
Roundtable 7-16 on Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse
Understanding the nature of insurgencies has long been an important objective for political scientists, historians, and policymakers. In Networks of Rebellion, Paul Staniland argues that scholars have paid insufficient attention to the different organizational structures of insurgent groups. In his view, understanding organizational structure is crucial because “states and their foes spend far more time…