ASSESSMENTS
What Lies Beneath the Enduring Stalemate in Afghanistan
Jun 27, 2018 | 08:00 GMT
![An Afghan soldier on patrol in southern Afghanistan, Dec. 11, 2014.](https://worldview.stratfor.com/sites/default/files/styles/2x1_full/public/display-afghanistan-stalemate-gettyimages-460883064.jpg?itok=Rh52_zpJ)
An Afghan soldier on patrol in southern Afghanistan, Dec. 11, 2014. The military stalemate in Afghanistan endures almost 17 years after the United States invasion in October 2001.
(ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)
Highlights
- The stalemate in Afghanistan endures, with the Afghan government continuing to control the country's urban areas while the Taliban command large areas of the countryside.
- Foreign support, the Afghan government's failures and the Taliban's deep ties within Afghanistan's rural social fabric are central to the persistence of the Afghan insurgency.
- Negotiations are the only real alternative toward ending the conflict in the short term, but myriad obstacles stand in the way.
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