IT WAS an admission of a kind that Donald Trump rarely makes. In a televised address to the nation on August 21st, America’s president admitted that he had changed his mind about the war in Afghanistan. He said his instinct, after 16 years of not winning, had been to pull out. But after a thorough policy review, he had decided to keep going.
That review, undertaken by the defence secretary, James Mattis, and the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, was completed by June. But Mr Trump, resistant to its conclusions and egged on by Steve Bannon, a critic of military intervention abroad who was then his chief political strategist, tried hard to find an alternative.
One scheme, promoted by Mr Bannon and devised by Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a controversial security firm, involved replacing American troops with mercenaries. But on August 18th Mr Trump finally acquiesced to the plan set out...Continue reading
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