Afghanistan shows the U.S. needs a doctrine not just for fighting wars, but also leaving them

But recognizing these mistakes won’t necessarily keep a future administration from making them again. Christopher Kolenda, a retired Army colonel and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told lawmakers that future administrations should begin to plan now specifically for how to exit an Afghanistan-like conflict.

The United States, he said, should develop a doctrine for ending a war.

“The military doesn't have one. The State Department doesn't have one. State Department's got no expert body of knowledge on how to conduct wartime negotiations in which the United States is the active participant and it has not worked out well every single time,” Kolenda said. “So that expert body of knowledge is not difficult to create and something that you know could be done fairly rapidly.”

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