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

Listen to this episode from The Realignment on Spotify. REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/PURCHASE BOOKS AT OUR BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignmentEmail Us: [email protected] 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.