Afghanistan and American Foreign Policy: What Does the Future Hold?

By some counts, the United States government has attempted to overthrow over fifty regimes since 1949. But the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan—marking the end of the longest war in American history, as well as the US military’s failure to keep the Taliban from regaining power—raises a number of questions about American foreign policy and “R2P” (our responsibility to protect people around the world against domestic threats to their human rights). Can military intervention on foreign soil be justified on humanitarian grounds? Does R2P alone explain the interventionist bent of American foreign policy? And does defeat in Afghanistan signal an accelerating decline in American power? Join PPE-affiliated graduate student Joseph Porter and political scientist Ben Mabry to explore these and other questions.

Participants in this PPE salon will be asked to read two articles, linked below, and submit at least one discussion question each ahead of time.

Please use the form below to request space.