State Department Releases After Action Review on Afghanistan

On June 30, the State Department released its After Action Review on Afghanistan. The review—which was delivered at the request of Secretary of State Antony Blinken—is intended to study the department’s actions related to the United States’s 20-year military mission in Afghanistan, including the U.S. military’s withdrawal from the country in August 2021.

The review also offers recommendations for how the department can “be better prepared for future situations that involve complex crises in unstable operating environments with the possibility of a large-scale invasion.” More specifically, the recommendations in the review “identify the need to plan better for worst-case scenarios, to rebuild and strengthen the [d]epartment’s core crisis management capabilities, and to ensure that senior officials hear the broadest range of views including those that challenge operating assumptions or question the wisdom of key policy decisions.”

You can read the review here or below: