A Long View of Afghanistan’s Wars

One of the most troubling things about the national conversation about Afghanistan is that it tends to focus almost solely on the decade since the 2001 American-led invasion. Perhaps this is understandable, since the Afghan conflict marks the longest stretch of time that the United States has actively been at war. And as always, the latest crisis­, any of them, dominates attention: the growing threat posed by Afghan forces who kill their NATO colleagues, the unwillingness of Pakistan to stop sheltering militants who carry out attacks in Kabul, the plague of official corruption that undermines Western trust and the Afghan public’s support.(...)