Stephen Walt asks us to imagine what we would do about Afghanistan if we were not already there. We'd see a government that was corrupt and had little support from its people, an insurgency gaining strength, a weak economy, etc.; basically the same situation that exists today minus our troops. Given such a situation, "would you be in favor of sending 100,000 or so American soldiers to fight and die there?" This situation is very much like that in a number of places - Sudan, Somalia, Yemen. But do we have 100,000 troops there?
Walt concludes by quoting Robert Kaplan, who, despite being in favor of staying the course, writes "history suggests that over time we can more easily preserve our standing in the world by using naval and airpower from a distance when intervening abroad. Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others."
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