Introduction
On September 11th, 2001 (9/11), also believed to be one of the deadliest days in history for the United States of America, an attack happened on American soil in which caused the injury and death of thousands of American civilians. Later on, the attack was then led back to a transnational extremist Salafist militant organization known as Al-Qaeda who operate as a network of Islamic extremists and Salafist jihadists which were based in Afghanistan with its leader Usama Bin Laden. After a few days, George W. Bush came out and gave a speech. Due to this horrific event, George W. Bush declared a Global War on Terror with Afghanistan being its main focus in which he indicated a list of demands to the terrorist groups. As they refused to collaborate and none of the demands were met, within a month, the United States’ Bush Administration led intervention in Afghanistan by sending in US troops with the help of Afghan militants along with the main objective of preventing terrorist attacks and bringing peace and liberty in the country through the aim of promoting democracy. Over the years it has been debated on whether the United States Global War on Terror has been a failure or has succeeded focusing on the case study on the US-led intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. This case study period is chosen because there was a sudden fundamental shift in the international order in which was the initial declaration and launch of the US “War On Terror” wherein the U.S-led intervention foreign policies and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 in order to destroy the Taliban and stop the sudden rise in terrorism. After the use of military strategy, the loss of US troops, and spending trillions of US dollars over the years in the war, two decades later, the United States is still believed to be at war in Afghanistan and having another major war in Iraq. In contribution to this debate, although there is success in some capacities, and the current negotiations going on between the Trump Administration and the Taliban, the result of this study posits that the United States led intervention in Afghanistan is said to be unsuccessful.
Thus, this dissertation aims to discover the extent to which the US Intervention in Afghanistan has been successful or been a failure. This dissertation is divided into six parts; Firstly, the Literature review will provide a depth understanding of the knowledge of different scholars and academics on the debate of the success or failure of the WOT in Afghanistan. Secondly, the methodology section in order to engage with the set-out ideas and arguments the dissertation collected data from secondary sources such as peer reviewed literature and also a qualitative method of research was implemented in order to find the result and reach a conclusion. Thirdly, the theoretical framework draws on the IR theory of Realism. Realism theory states that interests drive states such as United State of America to maximize power for self-preservation. Furthermore, the Realism theory argued on the rationale behind the that United State of America intervention in Afghanistan. In summary, the adoption of Realism theory in this study helps in understanding the success or failure of the United State of America intervention in Afghanistan . The main body of this dissertation will firstly start by establishing facts and background information about the War on Terror (WOT), Background on the causes and declaration of the War on Terror (9/11 attacks) in which will further talk about the goals and objective of the WOT and afterwards how the US-Led Invasion into Afghanistan in late 2001 which will also cover the progress of their main goals. Lastly, a conclusion will be drawn by signifying that despite the evidence that shows a level or extent of success, the US-led intervention in Afghanistan has not been successful because, the United States had focused more on eliminating terrorist and their networks instead on focusing on conquering Jihadi ideologywhich instigates these perversity attacks around the world.
