Our Knowledge of the Taliban as Guide for US Policy

Many explanations have been offered for why after two decades of insurgency the US military mission in Afghanistan failed. Some of our judgments about what went wrong can be useful in helping us shape future US policy toward a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Even more valuable, we have the benefit of several years of observing the Taliban exercising the responsibilities of governing to guide us in engaging the regime and furthering our security and strategic objectives with Afghanistan and its region. This article identifies seven broad conclusions about the Taliban that should be instructive: Among these are the Taliban’s resistance to transactional diplomacy, that any changes in Taliban policy are likely to come from pressures within rather than from outside, that the regime has nevertheless greater exposure to the outside world, and that the Taliban believe that regional and international players are unlikely to push for regime change. The article argues a course correction that breaks new ground in US-Afghan relations by shaking off much of the established thinking about engaging the Taliban. It prescribes a reset of the US diplomatic approach to the Kabul regime involving a normalization of relations with the Taliban as necessary to realize American purposes.