Talking with the Taliban: Afghanistan Post-Withdrawal
Virtual Briefing Series
Wednesday, August 14th, 2024 | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET
August 30th will mark the 3-year anniversary of the final day of the controversial US withdrawal from Afghanistan, an event that marked the end of a nearly twenty-year conflict. The rapid collapse of the Afghan government in the absence of American support and the resulting takeover by the Taliban led to a massive humanitarian crisis and called into question the utility of decades of American occupation. The collapse led to a surge in refugees, a rollback of women’s rights, and a strengthened position for Islamic extremist groups. The region remains unstable, and many American concerns, whether security, economic, or humanitarian in nature, remain in flux. Can the United States negotiate with a group it has viewed as an illegitimate terrorist organization to accomplish these priorities? In what ways can this be most effective? Does engagement with the Taliban set an unwanted precedent for other non-state groups vying for international recognition?
Join us for a conversation on Wednesday, August 14 from 12-1pm ET with Carter Malkasian, Chair of the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, and Masuda Sultan, an Afghan American women’s rights activist and the CEO of Symbio Investment to hear about these questions and more.
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SPEAKERS:
Dr. Cater Malkasian
Carter Malkasian is a historian and the chair of the defense analysis department at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a former adviser to American military commanders in Afghanistan.
Malkasian earned a doctorate in military history from the University of Oxford, where he studied under Robert O’Neill. After completing his studies, he became a teacher at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He then worked at the Center for Naval Analyses before spending time in Iraq conducting research in 2004 and 2006. In 2007, he worked with a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kunar Province in Afghanistan. He returned to Afghanistan in 2009 and spent two years in Garmsir District in Helmand Province as a State Department representative to the district. In Garsmir, he was known for his ability to speak Pashto and his rejection of typical personal security precautions. From May 2013 to August 2014, he worked as a political adviser to General Joseph Dunford, the commander of the U. S. forces in Afghanistan.
In 2013, Malkasian published War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier. The book is modeled on Jeffrey Race’s 1972 work War Comes to Long An, an analysis of the Vietnam War. The book is a history of conflict in Garmsir District from 1979 to 2012.
Masuda Sultan
Masuda Sultan is CEO of Symbio Investment. Ms. Sultan has worked on Afghan issues since 2001 as a women’s rights activist, as an entrepreneur by bringing US and other foreign investment into the country, as well as an advisor to the Afghan Government on donor assistance. Ms. Sultan is a co-founder of the All in Peace movement to end America’s longest war.
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