Narratives and War: Explaining the Length and End of U.S. Military Operations in Afghanistan

Abstract

Why did the U.S. war in Afghanistan last so long, and why did it end? In contrast to conventional arguments about partisanship, geopolitics, and elite pressures, a new theory of war duration suggests that strategic narratives best answer these questions. The severity and frequency of attacks by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State across most of the 2000s and 2010s generated and sustained a robust collective narrative across the United States focused on combatting terrorism abroad. Audience costs of inaction generated by this narrative pushed President Barack Obama (2009) and President Donald Trump (2017) to not only sustain but increase troops in Afghanistan, against their better judgement. Strategic narratives also explain the end to the war. The defeat of the ISIS caliphate and a significant reduction in the number of attacks on liberal democratic states in the late 2010s caused the severity and frequency of traumatic events to fall below the threshold necessary to sustain a robust anti-terrorism narrative. As the narrative weakened, advocates for war in Afghanistan lost political salience, while those pressing retrenchment gained leverage over policy. Audience costs for inaction declined and President Joe Biden ended the war (2021). As President Biden seeks to rebalance U.S. commitments for an era of new strategic challenges, an active offshore counterterrorism program will be necessary to maintain this balance.