Introduction
On September 11th, 2001 (9/11), also believed to be one of the deadliest days in history for the United States of America, an attack happened on American soil in which caused the injury and death of thousands of American civilians. Later on, the attack was then led back to a transnational extremist Salafist militant organization known as Al-Qaeda who operate as a network of Islamic extremists and Salafist jihadists which were based in Afghanistan with its leader Usama Bin Laden. After a few days, George W. Bush came out and gave a speech. Due to this horrific event, George W. Bush declared a Global War on Terror with Afghanistan being its main focus in which he indicated a list of demands to the terrorist groups. As they refused to collaborate and none of the demands were met, within a month, the United States’ Bush Administration led intervention in Afghanistan by sending in US troops with the help of Afghan militants along with the main objective of preventing terrorist attacks and bringing peace and liberty in the country through the aim of promoting democracy. Over the years it has been debated on whether the United States Global War on Terror has been a failure or has succeeded focusing on the case study on the US-led intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. This case study period is chosen because there was a sudden fundamental shift in the international order in which was the initial declaration and launch of the US “War On Terror” wherein the U.S-led intervention foreign policies and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 in order to destroy the Taliban and stop the sudden rise in terrorism. After the use of military strategy, the loss of US troops, and spending trillions of US dollars over the years in the war, two decades later, the United States is still believed to be at war in Afghanistan and having another major war in Iraq. In contribution to this debate, although there is success in some capacities, and the current negotiations going on between the Trump Administration and the Taliban, the result of this study posits that the United States led intervention in Afghanistan is said to be unsuccessful.
Thus, this dissertation
aims to discover the extent to which the US Intervention in Afghanistan has
been successful or been a failure. This dissertation
is divided into six parts; Firstly, the Literature review will provide a depth
understanding of the knowledge of different scholars and academics on the
debate of the success or failure of the WOT in Afghanistan. Secondly, the
methodology section in order to engage with the set-out ideas and arguments the
dissertation collected data from secondary sources such as peer reviewed
literature and also a qualitative method of research was implemented in order
to find the result and reach a conclusion. Thirdly, the theoretical framework draws
on the IR theory of Realism. Realism
theory states that interests drive states such as United State of America to
maximize power for self-preservation. Furthermore, the Realism theory argued
on the rationale behind the that United State of America intervention in
Afghanistan. In summary, the adoption
of Realism theory in this study helps in understanding the success or failure
of the United State of America intervention in Afghanistan . The main body of this dissertation will
firstly start by establishing facts and background information about the War on
Terror (WOT), Background on the causes and
declaration of the War on Terror (9/11 attacks) in which will further talk
about the goals and objective of the WOT and afterwards how the US-Led
Invasion into Afghanistan in late 2001 which will also cover the progress of
their main goals. Lastly, a conclusion will be drawn by signifying that despite
the evidence that shows a level or extent of success, the US-led intervention
in Afghanistan has not been successful because, the United States had focused
more on eliminating terrorist and their networks instead on focusing on conquering Jihadi ideology
which instigates these perversity attacks around the world.
From the introduction,
the following research questions emerged;
i.
Why has the United States of America intervened in
Afghanistan?
ii.
Has there been success or failure to the United States
of America Intervention in Afghanistan?
iii.
Has the United States of America intervention in Afghanistan
motivated by personal interest?
The above research
questions are important because they help to unravel why United States of
America intervene in Afghanistan and most significantly evaluates the success
or failure of their intervention. In
addition, examines if the intervention of the United States of America was
motivated by personal interests such as political, economical and so on.
LITERATURE REVIEW, METHODOLOGY AND THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
I.
Literature Review
The review of
literature entails a comprehensive analysis of
previous works such as books, journals,
articles and papers from authors, writers and researchers related and relevant to the current study. The main
objective of literature review is to enumerate, elucidate, summarize,
objectively assess and simplify this previous research. Consequently, this section will help
develop the knowledge of the research topic by making the use of journal
articles that share common grounds with the US-led intervention in Afghanistan.
Furthermore, this section will, therefore, present different points of views of
scholars and academics and also highlighting the gaps in the literature for its
level of success.
Goepner
(2016) posits that Afghanistan has been known for its internal conflict and the
external interventions by nations like Russia, Britain, the United States of
America among others. However, Goepner claimed that these external
interventions have little or no success as the conflict has continued to
exacerbate. Therefore, he suggested that “The United States of America will
have to adopt a more effective and proactive measure that would yield the
desired result” (Goepner, 2016, p.8). Thrall & Goepner
(2017) averred that the War on Terror has been a failure owing to
the interests of parties involved and the insincerity of the United States of
America in the war against terrorism. The authors buttressed further
that the United States of America military intervention had produced a strategy
that is both counterproductive and ineffective as the war against terrorism has
been lopsided. In 1978, the attempt at
centralisation during the soviet backed regimes helped spark the mujahideen
resistance in which caused the civil war. In 2001, the upheaval and radical
devolution of the military, the political and economic authority have only made
the situation worse (Thrall & Goepner, 2017). Popescu
(2009) on the other hand maintains that the United States of America
Interventions in Afghanistan has had significant
success against Al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups which has reduced the
incessant attacks on the United States of America soil and innocent citizens.
However, Goepner (2016) contended that the United States intervention strategic
performance in the long war has been uneven over the past years and have been
unable to address the problem. He further explained that this lack of success
was caused by the failure to ground decision owing to classical strategic
thought which is set of ideas by the American civilian leaders and their
military counterparts. He also stated that the incapability to integrate the
principle of strategic theory into its plan may be a source of its failure.
This piece offers broad and defined proposals on ways the US and Its allies can
go about a different strategy.
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