The Curse of the Patriarchy

How the U.S. tried and failed to recreate Afghanistan in its own image.

U.S. Army Sgt. Joshua Smith, 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, talks to group of Afghan children during a combined patrol clearing operation in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, April 28, 2012. (The U.S. Army)

Imagine, if you will, an unethical social and psychological experiment.

Picture a mountainous nation ravaged by war in the previous centuries, besieged by various interlopers and invaders from antiquity well into the modern age. A brutal totalitarian regime has kept the country trapped in a medieval serfdom and squalor…