Analysis: How Afghan war showed limits of US military power

[superadmin]

Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, a seemingly tidy success against a government that had given refuge to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Twenty years later, the United States is withdrawing — visions of victory long vanished and an ascendant Taliban arguably within reach of restoring their rule.

Afghanistan proved to be a lesson in the limits of America’s military power.

It demonstrated the seeming paradox that it is possible to win the battles and still lose the war. Or at least that a technologically superior force can kill more efficiently than its enemy yet fail to achieve a final result resembling victory.

It showed that in the 21st century, it takes more than a conquering army, even one as well armed as America’s, to convert the overthrow of a government, even one as tenuous as the Taliban’s, into a lasting success. It showed that it takes, at a minimum, an understanding of local politics, history and culture that the Americans were slow to acquire.


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