Ought Implies Can

Afghanistan is impossible to govern from Kabul — even for Afghans

Image obtained by Defense One shows hundreds of Afghans inside US military cargo plane C-17 Globemaster III, flown from Afghanistan to Qatar on 15 August 2021, following the fall of the capital Kabul to the Taliban (Photograph: Courtesy Of Defense One/Reuters/ Guardian)

For countless generations, we have been told that military leaders from Alexander the Great to the British and Soviet Empires, and now the Americans, have all tasted defeat in Afghanistan — the graveyard of empires. Imposing central rule on Afghanistan, however, has been impossible even for Afghans.