Summary

The war in Afghanistan has cost over $2 trillion, and killed over 2,400 US soldiers and 38,000 Afghan civilians. Now 18 years on, it has failed to achieve its goal of creating a stable and democratic country that’s free from the influence of radical Islam, evident in Afghanistan’s dysfunctional politics, slow-burn civil war, and the recent rise of Islamic State. Quite the contrary, it has helped to destroy the aura of invincibility that characterized the United States’ ‘unipolar moment,’ and underscored the fallacy of nation-building as a foreign policy concept.

Will 2020 be the year the war finally comes to an end?