The Lawfare Podcast: The Collapse of the Afghan Security Forces

Jen Patja, Bryce Klehm, Jonathan Schroden

Monday, May 23, 2022, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known by its initials as SIGAR, released an interim report last week on the reasons for the collapse of the Afghan army. To break down the report’s findings, Bryce Klehm spoke with Dr. Jonathan Schroden, the research program director at the Center for Naval Analysis. Dr. Schroden is a longtime analyst of the Afghan military and has deployed or traveled to Afghanistan 13 times since 2003. He is quoted and cited several times in the latest report. They spoke about a range of topics covered in the report, including the U.S.’s efforts to build an Afghan army, the Afghan government's decisions that contributed to the collapse and the Taliban's highly effective military campaign.

Jen Patja

Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.

Bryce Klehm

@BryceKlehm

Bryce Klehm is a first year law student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a former associate editor at Lawfare.

Jonathan Schroden

@jjschroden

Jonathan Schroden directs the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia. His work at CNA has focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency activities across much of the Middle East and South Asia, including numerous deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. The views expressed here are his and do not necessarily represent those of CNA, the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense.