April 16, 2009 11:10AM # Mueller on Afghanistan By [Benjamin H. Friedman](https://www.cato.org/people/benjamin-friedman) --- SHARE [John Mueller](http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/), who has been helping out with Cato’s counterterrorism [project](https://www.cato.org/events/counterterrorism/index.html), has a [short essay](http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64932/john-mueller/how-dangerous-are-the-taliban) in *Foreign Affairs* questioning the [premise](https://www.cato.org/2009/03/27/trying-harder-in-afghanistan/) behind continuing the war in Afghanistan. That is: Al Qaeda would gain haven in Afghanistan absent a U.S. ground presence and use it to attack us here. Mueller says that the Taliban would not be dumb enough to again offer aid and comfort to the wackos whose attacks brought the U.S. intervention that swept them from power before. I think this overstates the extent to which our enemy in Afghanistan is a singular entity with one way of thinking about its interests, rather than an amalgam of militias that view the utility of cooperation with foreign jihadists in varying ways. But the general point is mostly right. Advances in UAV technology alone make a replay of the 1990’s impossible. Mueller’s argument is badly needed in official places like *Foreign Affair*s where the “failed states are always terrorist havens” thesis is gospel. One can usefully export it to Somalia. The al-Shabab group’s [loose ties to Al Qaeda ](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/10/AR2009041003734.html)are [producing](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123976236664319677.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) [calls](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/13/AR2009041301851.html) for U.S. intervention, despite the lack of evidence that international terrorists are using Somalia as a training ground or could. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Afghanistan](https://www.cato.org/afghanistan) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).