On Thursday, March 6, at 12:00 PM, Barnett Rubin will present, “Masterly Inactivity? The U.S. as Offshore Unbalancer in Central Asia.” This lecture will explore the United States’ approach to Afghanistan, highlighting how its failure to recognize its own role in the conflict led to an ineffective resolution. Rubin will discuss how the U.S. violated fundamental strategic principles, referencing the aphorism from his book Blood on the Doorstep: The Politics of Preventing Deadly Conflict and Sun Tzu’s maxim, “Know the enemy, know yourself,” in its handling of the situation.
Barnett R. Rubin is a Distinguished Fellow with the China Program at the Stimson Center and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. He served as Senior Fellow and Director of the Afghanistan Regional Program at NYU from 2000 to 2020. Rubin was also a senior adviser to the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009 to 2013, and to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan in 2001. He has extensive experience in policy development and conflict prevention, having served as Director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations from 1994 to 2000.