The United States Keeps Doing What It Can’t

In his latest piece for Foreign Policy, CIC senior fellow James Traub discusses the failures of the US in Afghanistan.

“The lesson of Afghanistan is thus not that the United States is uniquely maladroit, much less malevolent. Rather, it is that the United States keeps insisting that it must do that which it cannot do. Because Americans say that they must do it, they persuade themselves that they can do it, whether it is rolling back communism in Southeast Asia or conquering sectarian hatred in Iraq or installing good government in Afghanistan.”

Read the full column at Foreign Policy here.

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