
Contents
Conclusion to Part IV
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Published:October 2021
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Bargaining asymmetries undermined the prospects for reconciliation in Afghanistan. President Obama’s decision on December 1, 2009, to announce both a surge of forces and a timeline for withdrawal limited American leverage. The Taliban aimed to gain concessions that improved its legitimacy while coaxing the United States to complete its withdrawal, but the insurgents were not interested in negotiating an end to the conflict at that time. As the drawdown continued, American bargaining power declined further. By March 2012, the Taliban postponed talks with the United States. The persistent and increasingly specific withdrawal announcements likely doomed any hopes of a peace process before the withdrawal of American troops. The Pentagon continued to receive a level of White House scrutiny about military operations that diplomats never underwent regarding reconciliation, regional diplomacy, and the 2014 elections. The number of meetings about those matters were comparatively few and far between.1Close
Bureaucratic frictions, lack of vision, poor coordination, inadequate strategic empathy, and sloppy execution damaged reconciliation. The lack of agreed conceptual frameworks for war termination inhibited clear communication and consensus-building within the US government, making the status quo harder to change.2Close The five strategic lines of effort became unprioritized silos. Individual actions in one, like the abortive opening of the Taliban political office, created setbacks in others. In the end, reconciliation further poisoned the relationship with Karzai, undermined American credibility in Afghanistan and the region, and heightened political uncertainty and instability as Afghanistan approached the 2014 elections and the end of the international combat mission. None of these problems were inevitable, nor were they easily preventable.
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