Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan

The first rule of warfare is to know one's enemy. The second is to know thyself. More than fifteen years and three quarters of a trillion dollars after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, it's clear that the United States followed neither rule well.



America's goals in Afghanistan were lofty to begin with: dismantle al Qaeda, remove the Taliban from power, remake the country into a democracy. But not only did the mission come completely unmoored from reality, the United States wasted billions o...