Dr. Thomas Lynch, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense University and a retired army officer with extensive experience in Afghanistan, joined Mike and Marshall to discuss the chaotic American withdrawal from that country and the swift return of the Taliban. What went wrong in American thinking? Dr. Lynch sees a set of multilayered mistakes made over the course of many years.
About Counterbalance:
Counterbalance is a foreign policy podcast that embodies 91’s tradition of challenging conventional wisdom. The Trump era attacked the elite consensus regarding several key issues, including the rise of China, American policy toward the Middle East, and the compartmentalization of domestic and foreign policy. Many observers in the media and in establishment foreign policy circles are presenting the advent of a Biden presidency as a total repudiation of President Trump’s policies and a return to “normalcy.” But, regardless of how one feels about the Trump era or any of his specific policies, there is no turning back the clock. The elite foreign policy consensus will never be the same. Counterbalance will reckon with what’s next.