Cunningham: Why Afghanistan Matters for United States

Editor Note: James B. Cunningham is a senior fellow and the Khalilzad Chair at the Atlantic Council. Ryan C. Crocker is dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Both served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. The views expressed are their own.

We arrived in Kabul in the summer of 2011 to assume the leadership of the American Embassy. The U.S. military surge had been completed and was beginning to reverse from its peak of some 100,000 troops. The U.S. civilian surge had peaked, with more than 1,200 American diplomats, civil servants and contractors throughout the country, working under difficult and dangerous conditions, to help the Afghan people rebuild their country. - Read More

Cunningham: Why Afghanistan Matters for United States - Atlantic Council