Trial & Error: The Strategic Failures of America’s War in Afghanistan

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll lays out a compelling case for the long-term costs of America's war in Afghanistan. What does the United States have to show for its 17-year long occupation lasting through three presidential administrations? Coll draws on material from his most recent work, Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to portray in vivid detail key factors that have rendered futile America's search for effective policies to bring the conflict to a close.



The lecture was sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies & Civilizations and The American Institute of Afghanistan Studies.



November 7, 2018

[randyb]

Incredulous. We took all of the lessons learned in Vietnam and turned around and made the same mistakes again in Afghanistan. And that was AFTER watching the Soviets fail miserably in Afghanistan. At least the Soviets were intelligent enough to get out after 9 years. We stayed for 20 and we're suppose to be the smart country. After the Soviets got burned and humiliated in Afghanistan, I have no doubt that Putin and the Russians consider it salve on their wound, and appreciate that America has demonstrated to the world that we aren't capable of holding the country either. That smug look you always see on Putin's face? That's what two trillion dollars worth of salve looks like.

[felawes]

Corruption and the US failure to appreciate its extent and management is central to the catastrophic failure of American policy, money, military, and hopes.

[felawes]

Furthermore Steve Coll views the World through telephoto and not wide angle eyes.

[amanpasha]

Americans scholars ignore facts when it suits their interests/narratives. Coll has done the same. For instance, Pakistan became disinterested in the so called war on terror that the U.S. was waging in Afghanistan because the U.S. was tacitly/passively allowing India to develop assets in Afghanistan to destabilize the western regions of Pakistan. Americans also ignore the fact that corruption in Afghanistan played a major role in the reemergence of Afghan Taliban.
Another fact is that the Afghan War is is a decentralized war, which means the commanders on ground decide when to fight and how to fight. It does not matter whether the leadership is in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran.
How Afghan Taliban fund their efforts against the U.S.? From the the war economy the U.S. has created.

Steve Coll should be more objective and less bias.

[amanpasha]

Steve Coll has been proven wrong on so many accounts.

[morningmotivation]

USA not remain as super power ...USA lost everywhere