Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Middle East Dossier
Episode: [Book Launch] How to Lose a War: The Story of America’s Intervention in Afghanistan
Description: The US’s failed intervention in Afghanistan
The question of what caused America’s Afghanistan debacle or, in other words, where the US, backed by NATO and non-NATO allies, went wrong, has been widely debated from varying perspectives. However, there has not been an insightful and coherent expose of what led the US to move from its initial ‘light footprint’ approach to a ‘heavy footprint’ one, which trapped the US in the complex task of state-building in a country that traditionally lacked the necessary foundations for statehood. The move marked a turning point in entangling the US in a long an...