Losing Afghanistan

When Taliban forces took control of Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul on 15th August 2021 it marked the end of an adventure that had begun nearly twenty years earlier with the US-led invasion. The fall of Afghanistan triggered a seismic shock in the West where US president Joe Biden announced an end to America's intervention in conflicts overseas. In Afghanistan itself it produced terror for the future for those who had worked with and grown up under the coalition-supported administration. Why was Afghanistan lost? Can it be regained? What does this moment in history mean? Who is to blame? What happens next? Losing Afghanistan features fifteen critical essays by analysts, politicians, soldiers, commentators and practitioners that explain what happened in Afghanistan and why, and what the future holds both for its people and for the future of liberal intervention.