First, America has not been attacked out of Afghanistan since 9/11. This is a simple but very important fact that we should never take for granted. Indeed, while violence has continued to plague the broader Middle East, and also hit Europe hard in a wave of attacks inspired or conducted by ISIS from 2015 until 2017 or so, the United States has largely been spared from major extremist attacks on its own soil.
About 100 Americans have died here at home from jihadi violence since 9/11. If you had told American officials or strategists on Sept. 12, 2001 that we would manage to limit casualties on the homeland to such a level for two decades, they would have been thrilled to take that outcome. It is a result, to be sure, of excellent work by homeland security and intelligence officials.
But the U.S. military operations abroad, including in and around Afghanistan, had much to do with it.
As one of us recently wrote with coauthor Hal Brands, that outcome was achieved largely because we managed to destroy al-Qaida (and ISIS) leadership, keep much of the organization on the run to avoid the same fate as top leaders, and deny extremist groups sanctuary from which they could recruit, organize, plan, raise money and otherwise prepare future attacks.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member