Leiden University Student Repository

Phillips, Jasmine (2022)

Not Quite War, Not Quite Peace: US Withdrawal Strategy in the 21st Century

Bachelor thesis | Security Studies (BSc)

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was one that was marked by chaos and violence. There have been numerous inquisitions as to what wrong, from those within all sectors of the US government from State Department, Depart of Defense, to Congress. The findings of these organizations often result in playing the blame game, passing the fault on for the failed withdrawal onto a separate sector. This thesis examines why the withdrawal failed from a strategic standpoint rather than from an infrastructural outlook. The research highlights key aspect of the US withdrawal strategies employed in Iraq and Afghanistan to discover what factors differed between the two. This thesis recommends that the US reform it’s withdrawal strategy by finding solutions to combatting decreasing resilience of US presence caused by decreasing US capabilities during withdrawals.

Afghanistan

Iraq

withdrawal

retrenchment

strategy

United States

Author

Phillips, Jasmine

Faculty

Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

Supervisors

Shiraz, Z.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en