Starcast Join the waitlist
The Realignment

The Realignment

568 | Jon Lee Anderson: Was Afghanistan the Graveyard of America's Empire?

Aug 19, 2025 · 1h 1m

Coming soon to iPhone. Already have it? “Listen in Starcast” takes you straight there.

On this episode

About this episode

Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker Staff Writer and author of To Lose a War: The Fall and the Rise of the Taliban, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Jon discuss the legacy of America's 20-year war in Afghanistan, how policymakers and the military struggle to define "victory" during wartime, why post-WWII conflicts and the end of the norm of "total war" has made it harder to "win," and why, despite achieving the goal of ending the country's status as a safe haven for terror, eliminating Osama bin Laden, and initially removing the Taliban from power, the U.S. still lost the war.