As our nation's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has dominated headlines, AEI's scholars have made important contributions to the national conversation.

Danielle Pletka argues in The Wall Street Journal that although many things went wrong in Afghanistan over the past two decades, our forces ensured that the country was not ruled by extremists. She predicts that for our own safety, "we will inevitably find ourselves back in Afghanistan, never realizing that once we won, we chose to lose."

Paul Wolfowitz insists that we must not ignore the plight of the many Afghans who helped our mission and recommends that our intelligence services establish an "underground railroad" to help others seeking freedom escape the Taliban.

In The Atlantic, Kori Schake frames the collapse of the Afghan military in the context of previous efforts by American soldiers to train foreign counterparts. She explains that given the difficulty of these efforts, "We ought perhaps to marvel that such programs ever succeed, not that they mostly fail."

Marc Thiessen argues in his Washington Post column that while President Joe Biden has blamed the Afghan army and President Donald Trump for the need to withdraw, it is Biden himself who "handed Afghanistan over to the United States' enemies."

Meanwhile, Dalibor Rohac contends that Europe's reaction to America's withdrawal demonstrates "that things unravel quickly when America renounces its leadership role." (Emphasis added.)

Finally, Hal Brands reflects on how the United States can recover from this "tragic fiasco," suggesting that a national resurgence on the world stage may take "a concerted effort to revive American power" by in part renewing faith in America's virtues.