What Have
We Won in
Afghanistan?
SHAH MARAI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES
BY JOSHUA HERSH | ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN METZ
N LATE 2008, ANDREW WILDER set out on a hunt for answers in
Afghanistan. For years, Wilder, a former development worker who had
recently settled into a post at Tufts University, had watched with dismay as billions of American assistance dollars poured into programs
in Afghanistan designed to help win “hearts and minds,” and bring
stability to the troubled nation. New highways stretched hundreds of
miles across the country, gleaming hospitals and schools sprang up in
remote villages and just about everyone seemed to have a cell phone.
The “hearts and minds” strategy, known as counterinsurgency, or
COIN, called for a delicate balance of military pressures and civil incentives: military action against the enemy, combined with generous
programs designed to win over the gratitude and trust of the people. If
U.S. forces could free volatile regions from the Taliban’s grasp, policy-