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14 December 2020

There Is Only One Way Out of Afghanistan

By Barnett R. Rubin

For more than a decade, every debate about U.S. policy in Afghanistan has focused narrowly on the number of troops to send or withdraw. U.S. policymakers freely admit there can be no military solution to Afghanistan’s problems. Yet they continue to debate the same false choice between disengagement and troop commitment for counterterrorism. 

The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden has a chance to move beyond this blinkered approach. U.S. interests in Afghanistan extend beyond counterterrorism. China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia—four nuclear powers, Asia’s two mega-economies, and a wily U.S. adversary—all have a stake in Afghanistan’s future. How the United States deals with these countries in the context of the Afghan peace process has profound implications for its relations with each of them and for its standing in Asia.

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