The American war in Afghanistan is the longest war in American history, yet there has seemed to be no clear argument for continuing the war for almost two decades. Unilateral withdrawals in counterinsurgency wars are not uncommon, especially if the other party involved is viewed as nondemocratic. This qualitative case study has investigated the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan and was guided by the key concepts of national interest, balance of power and security from realism, and the concepts of democratic peace theory, interdependence and international institutions from liberalism. This essay argues that it was mainly due to the decrease of the American national interest of Afghanistan as the attention turned towards the changing power structure in Asia as well as coping with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic domestically. This study has provided an overview of the withdrawal reasons for the United States, whilst showing that there is yet much to inquire on the subject.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-109553 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Pihl, Hillevi |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för statsvetenskap (ST) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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