These Pashtun elders, veterans of the Soviet invasion and the civil war, were in a familiar bind. Taliban to their south, Americans to their north. Taliban conscripting their sons to plant IEDs; Americans demanding to know who planted them. My platoon and I were there for a summer, but the villagers would live with their decisions. One elder conveyed their wariness in an often-used expression: “You have the watches, but they have the time.” The Taliban could not outfight Americans, but it could outlast us, because we had no political endgame.

Counterinsurgencies are a political initiative with a military component. They require the regime in power to counter the insurgents with better governance. The Western-backed government in Kabul offered corruption and incompetence instead.

In situation room after situation room, the U.S. national security establishment made decisions based on sunk cost bias, not clear-eyed assessments of the national interest. For nearly two decades, the refrain was “more time, more troops, more treasure.” But they always knew better. The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction was blunt: “The American people have constantly been lied to” about Afghanistan.