The US focused on fighting a war it had already won at the expense of building a resilient Afghan state – a goal which should have been the primary objective of a sustained multilateral peace operation since October 2001. For all its victories and martial prowess, the US military was playing the wrong game all along. The US failed in Afghanistan because:

• unilateral interventions rarely foster peace and stability,
•  it fought an endless war against the group (the post-9/11 Taliban) rather than bringing the individuals responsible for the attacks as well as crimes against the Afghan people over the previous five years to justice,
•  the state-building effort made the same old mistake of focusing on guns and soldiers instead of effective governance and assured revenue collection,
•  the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces were designed terribly and most of its poorly paid troops were of no military value,
• and it failed to see the bigger picture when it came to the need for regional cooperation to secure borders and starve the Taliban of revenue.

The lessons that could have been taken from previous and contemporary multilateral operations and applied to Afghanistan after 2001 should be incorporated into a genuinely multilateral initiative encompassing the wider region. The goal of that initiative must be to empower the diverse population of Afghanistan to build a state that reflects their values and traditions and can provide peace, security, the rule of law, and at least basic services its citizens.

Only such a collaborative effort can succeed, and although the realities of fostering consensus in the region are daunting, ongoing conflict and stability in Afghanistan is to the detriment of all its neighbours and indeed, the rest of the world. The will to attempt such an endeavour appears unlikely to emerge until another major atrocity or attack is carried out from Afghan soil. Until such a tragedy occurs, the lessons that were missed in Afghanistan should be applied to other states recovering from conflict. When it does, the world must work together.