Reflecting on the ‘farcical retreat from Afghanistan’ back in August 2021, Henrik Larsen discusses the need for a reckoning within US foreign policy and that of its NATO Allies. To focus on the other challenges to transatlantic security with a sense of integrity, these states must come to grips with their failed regime change agenda over the past 20 years. Afghanistan was the first of their interventions in the Greater Middle East since 2001, alongside Iraq, Libya, and Syria, that obscured the pursuit of realistic objectives and prioritised (liberal) ideals that proved to be detached from the local realities. In the wake of NATO’s new Strategic Concept for 2030 and beyond, this Strategic Update seeks to analyse the options for policy in the Middle East going forward.
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Regime Change No More: Coming to Terms with the Greater Middle East
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This was published on Monday 21 February 2022.
About the Author
Henrik Larsen PhD, is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. He is grateful to Niklas Masuhr, Mae Chokr, Lisa Watanabe, and one anonymous person for comments. He is an associate of ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ IDEAS.