Reading National Security Strategies shows that US involvement in Afghanistan has simply been a staging post for larger ideological conflicts

For almost 35 years, US presidential administrations have set out their foreign policy and national security approaches in National Security Strategy reports. James D. Boys looks at what these reports can tell us about the US approach to Afghanistan since the 1980s. He finds that focus on Afghanistan has come and gone, showing how US involvement there has always been in the context of wider conflicts such as the Cold War and the War on Terror.