The Lawfare Podcast: Jonathan Schroden on the State of the Afghanistan Withdrawal

Jen Patja, Scott R. Anderson, Jonathan Schroden
Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

The United States is just over a month out from completing its full military withdrawal from Afghanistan, but as U.S. troops have moved on, the situation on the ground has only gotten more challenging, with the Taliban claiming control of a growing portion of the country. In recent days, the United States even reentered the arena with airstrikes on the Taliban intended to reinforce U.S. support for Afghan security forces and dissuade a major Taliban offensive on Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city. Whether this will be enough to stave off a broader Afghan civil war, however, remains to be seen.


To get a better sense of the state of things, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Dr. Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the nonprofit research and analysis organization, CNA. They discussed how the withdrawal has gone so far, the impact it is having on the ground and what it all means for the future of Afghanistan.



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.
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
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.

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