Krishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic: Peace Through Bombings: The U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan
The goal of negotiating with the Taliban is at odds with President Trump’s statements.
Pummeling someone into reconciliation might seem like a curious strategy. But that’s what the Trump administration is proposing to do to the Taliban as it seeks to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan.
“We will do everything we can to support the ANDSF fight against the Taliban in order to drive them to the negotiating table,” Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of defense, said Tuesday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referring to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. “Fundamentally, our goal is to convince the Taliban’s senior leadership that its goals are better pursued through political negotiation rather than violence.” Put another way, as Brigadier General Lance Bunch, who heads the the air campaign in Afghanistan, did in an interview with Defense One: “This is all part of our overarching strategy to continue to put pressure on the Taliban until they realize they’ve basically got a binary choice: They can negotiate and reconcile, or live in irrelevance and die. We’ll continue to go until the Taliban reconcile.”
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