Policy Forum 

# Should the United States Withdraw from Afghanistan? 

##### Watch the Event 

Download:

[ 

Video 

](https://fastly-unsigned-us-east-1-prod.brightcovecdn.com/media/v1/pmp4/static/clear/6039378657001/d5a4e02d-bcb3-4aef-93ac-fbdc37eed089/c42da258-c440-4609-8dd9-e4aadcd56a20/main.mp4) 

[ 

Video 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2009/cpf-09-14-09.mp4) 

[ 

Audio 

](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2009/cpfa-09-14-09.mp3) 

Join the conversation on X using [\#CatoEvents](https://x.com/hashtag/CatoEvents). Follow [@CatoInstitute](https://x.com/catoinstitute) on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time 

September 14, 2009 12 - 2 PM EDT 

Location 

Auditorium/Wintergarden 

Share This Event 

##### Featuring 

Featuring **Malou Innocent**, Foreign Policy Analyst, Cato Institute, and co-author of *Escaping the ‘Graveyard of Empires’: A Strategy to Exit Afghanistan*; **Celeste Ward**, Senior Defense Analyst, RAND Corp.; **Patrick M. Cronin**, Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University; **Robert Naiman**, National Coordinator, Just Foreign Policy; and **Ted Galen Carpenter**, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute, and co-author of *Escaping the ‘Graveyard of Empires’: A Strategy to Exit Afghanistan*. Moderated by **Christopher Preble**, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute. 

Nearly eight years after the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan struggles under the most brutal circumstances: corrupt and ineffective state institutions; thousands of miles of unguarded borders; pervasive illiteracy and poverty; and a dysfunctional international alliance attempting to provide security for the country. Can “nation-building” in the midst of a bloody insurgency succeed in such an environment? What constitutes “success,” and what price should we be willing to pay for it? Does the United States have a compelling strategic rationale for remaining in Afghanistan? Please join us for a lively discussion.

[![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/).