The Post-9/11 United States’ Shift Strategy in Afghanistan: An Explanation in the Perspective of Offensive -Defensive Realism and Offshore Strategy

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush attacked Afghanistan in the name of War on Terror. He intended not only to topple the Taliban government but also to extend diplomatic, economic and military support to anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Offensive realism was the driving force behind the US strategy to achieve its objectives in its war against terror in Afghanistan. But strategic guerilla war by the Taliban fighters and rise of China especially after 2008 have made it very difficult for the US defense policymakers to continue the offensive approach in Afghanistan. Thus, the US strategy of relentless security competition and power struggle, as imagined by the offensive realism, is finally unsuccessful and unconvincing after prolonged Afghan war. As a result, the US had to change its strategy in Afghanistan based on defensive realism and offshore balance and decided to tackle it with the war-cum-peace strategies from defensive realists’ perspective.