U.S-AFGHAN RELATIONS BETWEEN 2014-2019

Abstract

The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan has turned into America’s longest war and has also prolonged Afghanistan’s decades of war. The U.S. downgraded its involvement in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, although a reduced American military presence there is set to continue until at least the end of 2016. This thesis sketches out the primary characteristics of the relationship to show how the two countries’ relationship developed when the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) signed in 2014. The U.S. forces' mission under the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) is to "enhance the ability of Afghanistan to deter internal and external threats against its sovereignty". That includes "advising, training, equipping and sustaining" Afghanistan's National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), which are those under the ministries of defense and the interior, and "as appropriate," those of the National Security Directorate, which is a special counterterrorism office. The vital U.S. interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from serving as a safe haven for terrorists to launch attacks against the U.S. homeland, U.S. interests, or U.S. allies. The United States, Russia, China, and Qatar are currently engaged in an international partnership, trying to boost the ongoing Intra-Afghan Peace Talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government after eighteen years of war and bloodshed in Afghanistan. The Intra-Afghan Peace Talks are a series of international negotiations aiming for the consolidation of peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government