Next week marks the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s first nationally televised address to the American people on the war in Afghanistan — a war as bloody as it has ever been since fighting against the Taliban began nearly 17 years ago. Twelve months removed from the unveiling of Trump’s South Asia strategy, which essentially boiled down to pounding the Taliban from the air until they sued for peace, the plan has had very little to show for it. Indeed, if an August 17 report from NBC News is accurate, Trump is evoking more frustration by the week due to the lack of progress.
The war in Afghanistan has gone on for so long that those who were born the year Sept. 11 happened will be eligible to enlist. Outside of those who have family and friends serving in this “graveyard of empires,” it barely registers in the collective American psyche. Yet it may be this lack of public attention that is keeping the U.S. on the hamster-wheel of a failed strategy. It seems like whatever the U.S. does, Afghanistan is a one-step-forward, four-steps-back situation.
