This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, June 18th, 2018. I'm Kila Brown.

The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan is approaching 17 years in length as the Taliban now

controls or influences massive amounts of territory. In a forthcoming paper

War State Trauma State, Cato Institute Visiting Scholar Eric Gopner examines how decades of war-induced trauma that occurred

before the arrival of the U.S. may have doomed the scope of U.S. efforts from the start.

This is the first of a two-part discussion.

When you arrived in Afghanistan, what did you feel that your mission was?

When my team and I arrived in Afghanistan, our mission was to legitimize the Afghan government at the

provincial and district levels, which would be similar to U.S. state and U.S. counties.

And so in our efforts to legitimize that government,

it was three parts.

One, get them into contact with their constituents, the villagers. two, to increase the capability, the capacity of the government,

and then three, to try and instill some accountability in what was about the most corrupt government in the international system at the time.

And why were constituents and leaders in the government not sitting down and having tea.

Deep irony that it takes the American to bring the two Afghan groups together.

As best as we could tell, it was in neither of those groups' interests to be together.

And if it's okay, I'll share a quick vignette of one of the Shuras, which is a local Afghan

meeting that they historically have held and we participated in quite a bit and I'll share a story from one of those.

We go out to a village, we bring the government and we bring the government's medical teams.

So provide some basic medical services and it's an opportunity for the senior government

officials to talk to the village elders.

When we arrive, we hop off the Chinooks and the Afghan governor goes to talk to the key village

...