25 Years On: US Afghanistan Invasion Assessed as Strategic Failure

A retrospective analysis by FDD's Long War Journal evaluates the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan as a failure, arguing that the collapse of Operation Enduring Freedom enabled the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the rise of the Islamic State. The piece highlights cascading counterterrorism failures that persist today. This is an analytical retrospective, not a new development, but it frames ongoing threat assessments.