Q What was the West’s biggest failure in Afghanistan? Rory Stewart [a British diplomat argues] 'the West always lacked the knowledge, power, or legitimacy to fundamentally transform Afghanistan.'”

Q 2. "Afghanistan's central problem [is] Afghanistan itself… If you define the modern nation-state as the laying down of permanent borders, and the attempt to establish an extensive state bureaucracy and to invest that bureaucracy with novel forms of authority and control."3. "Stanley McChrystal, former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, says the U.S. and its NATO allies are only “a little better than” halfway to achieving their military goals, partly due to a “frighteningly simplistic” understanding of the country. “We didn’t know enough, and we still don’t know enough…Most of us — me included — had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years.”