US Afghanistan War Review: Washington Reassesses Two Decades of Engagement

ISLAMABAD: A delegation of the U.S. Afghanistan War Commission, led by its Co-Chairs Ms. Shamila N. Chaudhary and Dr. Colin F. Jackson, called on Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, NI (M), HJ, Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces (COAS & CDF), at General Headquarters (GHQ), Rawalpindi.

The delegation is undertaking a review of the United States’ 20-year engagement in Afghanistan. Discussions covered matters of mutual interest including Pakistan’s support, the regional security environment and developments in Afghanistan, with focus on perspectives relevant to the Commission’s work.

The COAS & CDF shared Pakistan’s perspective on the security dynamics that shaped the conflict and highlighted the challenges faced by Pakistan during the prolonged conflict in Afghanistan. He underscored the importance of incorporating the regional perspective and Pakistan’s experience in assessing the strategic, diplomatic and operational dimensions of the conflict.

The delegation acknowledged Pakistan’s longstanding role and sacrifices during the conflict in Afghanistan and appreciated its continued contribution to regional peace and stability.

The U.S. review of its 20-year engagement in Afghanistan comes amid a continuing debate in Washington over why America’s longest war failed to produce a durable political and security order despite two decades of military operations, diplomacy and reconstruction. The bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission, established by Congress in 2021, has been tasked with examining the strategic, diplomatic and operational decisions made between June 2001 and August 2021. Its mandate covers military operations, intelligence, counterterrorism, reconstruction, development assistance and political diplomacy.

A central issue in the Washington debate is the apparent gap between U.S. objectives, the means employed to achieve them and the eventual outcome. The Commission’s 2025 interim report identified the collapse of the Afghan Republic as raising fundamental questions about whether the United States had pursued an achievable strategy, whether Afghan institutions had become excessively dependent on foreign support, and whether Washington had adequately aligned its counterterrorism objectives with its much broader state-building ambitions. The report notes that vulnerabilities in the Afghan political and security order had been recognized before the 2021 collapse, even though its speed surprised many policymakers.

Another strand of the debate concerns the lessons of the withdrawal itself versus the decisions that preceded it. The Commission has stressed that the chaotic August 2021 evacuation cannot be assessed in isolation because it was shaped by policies and decisions accumulated over two decades. Its review therefore extends across four presidential administrations and seeks to examine how strategic objectives changed, how intelligence and military assessments influenced policy, and how diplomatic and reconstruction efforts affected the conflict. The Commission has already conducted hundreds of interviews and examined thousands of government records.

For Pakistan, the review is significant because Washington’s assessment increasingly requires examination of the regional dimension of the Afghan war, including the role of neighbouring states, cross-border militancy, Pakistan’s cooperation and the consequences of U.S. decisions for regional security. The Commission’s mandate has now been extended by one year, with its final report due in August 2027, giving it additional time to integrate government records and interviews before drawing its conclusions. Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s account of its security challenges, sacrifices and experience of the conflict is directly relevant to the broader American effort to understand why two decades of U.S. engagement produced the outcome witnessed in 2021.