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kabul but spent time across the country with our special operations forces involved in activities from the north to the south and east and west of afghanistan. host: during that time, what did you learn about as far as potential threats that afghanistan could prove and relate that to what you are seeing now concerning afghan operations now? guest: there was a period of time over the decade after 9/11 where there were threats emanating from afghanistan and pakistan soil to the u.s. homeland. there was a plot thwarted based out of denver and new york city. he conducted training on the afghanistan-pakistan border in the plot was to conduct three separate suicide bombings in new york city subways and the fbi arrested him in 2009. there were other plots that were

foiled, 2010 by the times square bomber. also trained along the afghanistan-pakistan border. there were a number of these plots and attacks that came close to ring successful in the u.s. -- two being successful -- to being successful in the u.s. we had gotten to a point where there really weren't many threats emanating from afghanistan or pakistan. as we have heard recently, the taliban has appointed its minister of interior. he is the taliban's closest senior official to al qaeda. there are a number of un security council reports that have him at his briefing and meeting with senior al qaeda leaders, including the al qaeda leader.

the challenge with the taliban governing afghanistan, individuals like that in cabinet positions, and afghanistan may start to deteriorate and become a terrorist sanctuary again. that is the concern. host: in the wall street journal -- with the announcement of the cabinet, the u.s. catastrophic policy has gone from bad to worse. guest: the challenge is at the very least, as problematic as the government was that fell earlier this summer, it was still an ally. security operatives did work with the u.s. as the taliban advanced on kabul, they released thousands of prisoners, including al qaeda islamic state terrorists and the

situation is -- we have an enemy on the ground that is running the government in afghanistan and the u.s. has no more bases in afghanistan or the region. it has no friends or allies to partner with to conduct counterterrorism operations and it has almost no intelligence infrastructure. all of these developments, the u.s. military and intelligence communities -- host: we have heard the president say, touting the u.s. counterterrorism efforts. what do you think of that as an approach? what are the limitations? guest: one of the upsides is it requires very little ground

presence for u.s. military forces. when you look at all of the cases that i am aware of or i am directly involved in, u.s. counterterrorism, including operations in libya, syria, somalia, iraq, the u.s. had a base either in that country or right next door or it could fly an aircraft. the u.s. had an ally on the ground and the u.s. intelligence infrastructure had none of that. the challenge is u.s. officials have to be very honest right now that we have none of the requirements for over the horizon in afghanistan. no allies, no base, no intelligence infrastructure. there needs to be a bit more frankness about the hurdles we will have to overcome.

. host: ask our guests -- democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. absent those things we don't have in afghanistan, what would make -- what should the administration focus on? how do drones fit into this? guest: drones to play an important component. a drone that has the capability to conduct -- the challenge is that the

closest u.s.-based is qatar. it is a 14 hour flight that goes over pakistan territory. that gives it very little ability to loiter over afghan territory and that loitering collects intelligence. it can take high definition camera photography and real-time video of images on the ground. the problem with such a long flight time, there is almost no time really to loiter over afghan territory. that is the challenge without a base. the u.s. needs to find a partner to work with on the ground. there are some opposition groups in afghanistan, including one led by the famous afghan resistance leader. the u.s. has to increase

negotiations in central asia. the u.s. has to rebuild the intelligence architecture in afghanistan. host: we are in a situation where the u.s. government has to coordinate efforts with the taliban in afghanistan at the same time the government expresses caution. what does it mean for policy decisions? guest: it is going to be really difficult. there are some aspects the u.s. will need to coordinate with the taliban and that includes getting u.s. citizens or other westerners out of afghanistan. it may also include getting individuals that served as translators for the u.s. military or worked with u.s. diplomats or with u.s. intelligence officials or development agencies. at the same time, there will be limits to the cooperation. the acting minister of the interior is a u.s. designated terrorist. he was designated under the

obama administration when joe biden was the vice president of the u.s. that is going to make it really tough to share sensitive information when the minister of interior thinks something along -- when the minister of interior is a u.s. designated terrorist. host: seth jones is our guest from the center for strategic and international studies. our first call comes from karen in texas, republican line. caller: i thought we were talking about the voting restrictions. host: that was the previous segment. what are we talking about now? host: let's go to rick. caller: how many years did yourself or the government understand that there really was not us central -- not essential

afghan government capable of uniting the country cooks -- uniting the country? i am very disappointed that the news media, the military government and the government, if everybody knew there was not essential afghan authority capable of uniting the nation that we spent all the time and money and all of the soldiers wounded and stuff if everyone knew it was going to fail. host: that was rick. guest: that is a very, very good point. most knowledgeable individuals in the u.s. with even limited

background of afghanistan knew right off the bat that the central government had never had control over the territory that sits on afghanistan. at the same time, we have had periods from 1929 to the late 1970's where afghanistan had a central government and some rough relationships with actors in rural parts of the country. i had family members who traveled to afghanistan during the time period. there have been some rough equanimity between the central government and rural afghans. that kind of a power-sharing arrangement would have been much

better than trying to establish a strong western-style central government. i think it was a fallacy to think that sending large numbers of american forces would ever solve the problem. you are never going to win this from the outside. afghans would have to fight for their country. this is the same problem the taliban is going to have. it will be very hard for the taliban government to control the territory because there is so much bottom-a power in the country -- bottom-up power under the country. the same challenges will be present with the taliban government the just announces cabinet this week. host: independent line, john. caller: my question is, don't you think it was time to pull

out because we have been over there along period of time? guest: i think that is a question that is at the center of the u.s. policy in afghanistan. there are certainly different people that have different views on this. my own, which i published a big piece on this year ago, argues that the u.s. could get down to a position where it has a small number of military forces and some aircraft, for example, that could conduct intelligence and strike if necessary, some bases and that would be enough to prevent the overthrow of the afghan government and a takeover by the extremist taliban. those numbers would be notably smaller than what the u.s. deployed.

talking about maybe a thousand forces, not really involved in combat but could get involved in extremist situations. the amount of money that was going to cost was very little. the sacrifice -- zero u.s. soldiers had been killed for 18 months before the u.s. marines, the sailor, and one army soldier were killed recently. you could have gotten to a situation where it was a very small u.s. presence that was limited in its cost to the u.s. population. that is what the military suggested -- recommended to the president. host: there was an interview with the bbc with senator lindsey graham. is there a scenario in your mind

? guest: i think the direction the taliban is going with senior leadership to have direct and long-standing relations with al qaeda and with the islamic state and continues to operate in the country means at the very least, the u.s., like it does in somalia or libya or iraq, is going to have to conduct at least some limited operations with some or very few boots on the ground. it is worth noting that the u.s. has pulled all of its forces out of afghanistan but it still has them in iraq, somalia, syria. afghanistan is ironically one of the few places where the u.s. does not have a presence. host: talk about those country surrounding afghanistan. what are they watching for?

guest: i think there are some countries that are very happy to see u.s. forces go. we have seen some of the most robust embassies, the chinese and the russians, they have been involved in negotiations with the taliban. pakistan intelligence chief was just in kabul. pakistan has an ally in kabul it did not previously have with the afghan government. they were generally both allies of the indians. pakistan, russia, china, even around to some degree now has somebody it can work with in kabul. they are providing some assistance to the taliban government and they are happy to see the u.s. depart. host: from woodbridge illinois, republican line. caller: the reason i'm calling,

as you know, we cannot get the truth from the media. they are constantly lying to us. i want to change the conversation. would you be honest with the american people right now, if you could grade the intelligence services, what grade would you give them? guest: thank you. i will focus on the afghan context. i would say the intelligence services of the u.s. were quite accurate. i would give them a relatively high grade. they had been assessing over the course of 2021 the u.s.

withdrawal, full withdrawal from afghanistan, would likely trigger a collapse of morale and other factors in afghan national security forces and could trigger a collapse of the government. by the spring of 2021, some of those assessments were down to weeks or a month after u.s. withdrawal. they were very close to what ended up occurring. there is never any complete clarity when you are trying to project what is going to happen, but there was significant information available, senior intelligence officials, that the situation we get very -- i would grade them pretty high. host: this is seth jones. mr. jones, from a security standpoint, reflect on the 20 year anniversary of 9/11.

guest: i think we are in much better position today than we were in 9/11 in 2021, at least for a couple of reasons. intelligence sharing is better. we have a national counterterrorism center that includes the cia, the fbi, and other u.s. intelligence agencies. there has been a much greater focus on combating the ideology. the private sector, companies like facebook and twitter, have done a pretty good job, even google has done a good job of getting off the platform. some of the hard-core ideology, particularly ones pushing for the targeting of americans and other types of westerners.

i think we have come a long way. you have to be patient over the long run that it is not just when we want to into this thing, we cannot just declare an end to these wars. sadly, some of these terrorists get a vote. as we have seen in afghanistan, it is not over. they have an opportunity now to reemerge. we have some domestic terrorism challenges in the u.s. we are in a better position in many ways, but we need some strategic patients from the government and the american population. host: baltimore, maryland, independent line. caller: initially, your guest mentioned the difficulty of drone based strikes or surveillance. would he comment on the

feasibility of having aircraft carriers stationed in the sea? thank you. guest: that is a good question. there are options to put drones that could conduct intelligence or strike operations. in maritime platforms. the arabian sea or the indian ocean. the challenge would still be the same. it is a pretty far trip to fly from any of the maritime locations over pakistan territory. if you are going up in northern afghanistan, that is a long flight time. still in the order of 12 to 14 hours round-trip. even the option of stationing on merit timing -- maritime naval

platforming, it is a long time to get there. limited time to loiter over afghan territory. it helps a little bit but not a lot. the bigger solution, if afghanistan comes a problem, is to find basing in the country with a partner on the ground, anti-taliban partner, or in one of the countries that borders afghanistan. host: with nato survey role? -- serve a role? guest: nato countries cannot base these kinds of aircraft. host: robbie, democrats line, minnesota. caller: where does he think -- where does where does -- where

does our president think he is going to get all of the trillions of dollars back? he is not my president. caller: good morning. looking at the way this withdrawal was done by this administration, it seems to me that the worst-case possible withdrawal procedures were drawn up and they followed them. it does not make any sense. if that was known, why did we make any effort -- didn't we make any effort to destroy the equipment or bring it back? now afghanistan is a cosco of arms and weapons and people from

all over the world will buy our stuff and use it against us. guest: it is a very good question. the u.s. did destroy some equipment. the afghan air force flew some of the u.s. provided aircraft into central asia. the u.s. destroyed a range of sensitive intelligence papers. they were burned at the u.s. embassy. the u.s. did bring out some very sensitive intelligence, some weapons. not everything. there were weapons, ammunition that was left. the speed of the collapse of the afghan government -- the u.s. military planning for the withdrawal itself i think was done reasonably well.

with a big caveat that the withdrawal of american citizens from afghanistan or afghans that had worked with the u.s., that was clearly not done well. there were a number of senior u.s. government officials who either did not believe, didn't see, and they thought they had more time. maybe a year or so more than they ended up having. you are right that there are now a lot of weapons and equipment in the hands of the taliban and other militant groups and that will be a problem. host: we have seen an untold amount of money being put into afghanistan by the u.s. guest: the challenge right now is whether the u.s. will or

should provide money to afghanistan. with individuals like the interior -- minister of interior , does really make sense for the u.s. to provide significant monetary assistance to a government with those kinds of individuals in it? does it make sense for the u.s. to provide or support imf? probably not. there will be opportunities to aid afghan refugees. in support nongovernmental organizations operating, but there are countries that will try to fill the vacuum if the u.s. does not and we need to be upfront about it. the chinese, russians, probably the iranians, and certainly pakistan will definitely provide

assistance to the taliban government. the chinese have already said that the belton road initiative runs directly through afghanistan so they will provide some infrastructure support. there are governments that are competitors of the u.s. that will fill that. host: bob is next for maryland, democrats line. caller: i would like to thank you for c-span and thank our guest for talking today. i remember an article in the 2001 july/august issue of atlantic magazine and i remember -- the gist of the article is as long as the u.s. is relying on "spies" in places like afghanistan and pakistan to get their information, we are not

going to have the types of intel you would need to prevent a terrorist attack. if we do not have people who are willing to deal with lumps of diarrhea to get the real scoop, we are basing it on whatever our man in havana heard. all of these americans who are stuck in kabul, how clueless were they? they were in green zone, all the millions of dollars that went into afghanistan, it created a big money sink. guest: thank you for your comments. on the intelligence, the u.s. and its allies do have several

types of intelligence that they have typically used to collect in countries like afghanistan. they have signal intelligence, monitoring cell phones or internet or general smartphone usage. they have human intelligence, which collects information from individuals and they have generally been vetted. there are other kinds of intelligence, including geospatial or satellite imagery, intelligence that may come from the broader digital platforms like social media. the u.s. has typically collected and analyzed lots of different types. the challenge in afghanistan, frankly, is that some of these sources, particularly the human side as well as a chunk of the signal side, the u.s. has lost

the ability to collect because it has pulled so much infrastructure out and because some of these individuals the u.s. has worked with have either been killed or had to flee -- or had to flee. on the americans in kabul, you bring up a pretty good point. even at 2021, the situation already looked like it was deteriorating. if i were there, i would have gotten out. not all afghans -- americans were willing to do that. the few i spoke with were afghan americans who had just gone back for a wedding or to see family. they had gotten caught in bad timing. in general, the signals were there. host: we have been talking a lot about threats to the united

states from outside the u.s. what are your thoughts on domestic terrorism? guest: if you look at the numbers, the most significant threat from terrorism to the u.s. is coming from domestic terrorist. that could change with the collapse of the afghan government and the taliban that is directly associated with al qaeda and islamic state insurgents. as of 2021, we still see a lot of active plotting and some attacks from a range of different types of local networks, white supremacist, antigovernment militias, anarchists, and others in the u.s.. the numbers of attacks have gone up.

in 2020, there were more domestic terrorist attacks plots than in any previous year we have collected data that went back into the early 1990's. the upside is that not a large number of americans are being killed because of domestic terrorism compared to the numbers we saw in 2001, over 3000 americans killed. fewer numbers but a lot of it -- but a lot of plots and attacks. host: are the relevant agencies attuned to this as far as been able to counteract that? guest: there is awareness from the fbi, from a number of state and local law enforcement agencies. i spoke with senior officials in the new york police department and they are well aware of the domestic terrorism threats. part of the challenge is these local extremists are generally

not members of groups. in terms of conducting attacks, they generally do it on their own. you're looking for a needle in a haystack because they are lone extremists. it does make it difficult for organizations like the nypd and the joint terrorism task forces that the fbi runs across the u.s. to identify single individuals. host: the events of january 6, how do you see it now? what are the questions we should be asking? guest: part of the questions we have to ask ourselves is how are we doing in dealing with radicalization and he radicalization? a range of social have been reasonable about taking down contact -- content from islamic state, al qaeda extremists.

but how are we doing in dealing with local communities and domestic extremists? there were a number of programs during the bush administration, the obama administration, and even the trump administration that dealt with federal and state funding that dealt with individual extremists that were supporting islamic state or groups like al qaeda, and trying to help with the radicalization. we do not have a lot of programs like that in our community dealing with violent white supremacist or violent antigovernment militias. what programs, what kind of steps do we need to take on online platforms to minimize the threat from these kinds of

individuals? host: let's hear from chris in illinois. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. since you are the strategic guy, i have a question related to that, which is, what kind of strategies can you talk about that we have that lean more toward the diplomatic side as opposed to the military intervention side? if you look at a place like vietnam, where we were and now we are doing a similar strategy but it is not a military strategy, what do you think the prospects are for something like that in afghanistan? what is available?

guest: thank you for bringing up this issue, diplomatic activity. it is really important, and i think -- on the diplomatic side, the u.s. was engaged under the obama and trump administration of efforts to establish a peace settlement with the taliban in afghanistan. there were some mistakes along the line, but there was a peace process the u.s. walked away from. there may be opportunities moving forward. i think the taliban government will have challenges. i think the u.s. needs to continue to push some kind of diplomatic solution. i do not think the taliban in the near term would be willing to do that because they just achieved a military victory. i think your point is very relevant to a number of other

areas where we see terrorism concerns. yemen, somalia, libya. there need to be active political diplomatic negotiations to enter those wars. -- end those wars. there are currently some active peace negotiations going on. the u.s. needs to ramp up its focus, resources to help end those wars. that is one solution or partial solution to getting out of this constant use of military force to get a government that is relatively effective in stabilizing the country. host: let's hear from cornelia in idaho, republican line. caller: good morning. i have so many points to make. i probably will not have time to

make them. don't you think that our overall philosophy as a nation where we go to war has taken a turn for the drastic downturn since world war ii? have we won a war since world war ii? look at korea. look at vietnam. look at what happened in libya. our diplomats killed in libya because we were trying to be nice to the terrorists. we have not won a clear-cut victory in afghanistan because we let those people go back to pakistan. why didn't we stop them at the border? win the war decisively. it is allowing this creeping violence continue. look at the women and children

in afghanistan that we are abandoning. we have not won a clear-cut war and we need to rethink our role in the world. host: thank you. guest: two quick comments. i would say the u.s. has definitely won a number of wars or conflicts it has been involved in but it has done it in ways that is supporting governments. take a look over the past 15 years at u.s. efforts to combat extremists in colombia and the philippines. the u.s. was successful working with the colombian government and with the filipino government. those wars are not entirely ended. there was a peace process still

continuing. it was a very successful effort. it was a huge u.s. diplomatic effort. same thing with the philippines. i think you are right in highlighting that the u.s., at the very least, does not always have a lot of patience to continue to operate in some of these countries. what the u.s. needs to understand is that a range of these extremists, they think in terms of generations. how long is this going to take to make america safer? at the end of the day, the u.s. has been pretty successful in conducting counterterrorism since 9/11.

how many americans have been killed from directed attacks from overseas from countries like afghanistan? very, very few. the u.s. has been quite successful. the u.s. has stopped a range of different plots. the u.s. successfully stopped because of good intelligence and good law enforcement. i think there has been a lot of success protecting the american population in the homeland and u.s. embassies overseas from terrorist attacks. host: where does cybersecurity fall into that level of concern? guest: the terrorist organizations don't have a pretty sophisticated offensive

cyber capabilities. where we do see threats are from state-based actors -- china, people's liberation army, russians, iran. those are the primary threats. host: this is brian in san diego. go ahead quickly, we are running short on time. caller: i think the number one -- the former president weaponized covid. we have 600,000 people dead. the insurrection was a dry run and it is going to happen again. what is the population going to do? guest: the statements he made --

host: the statements he made about the justice department. guest: there were helpful steps taken by the department of justice and local law enforcement to track down and prosecute those individuals involved in the events like the january 6 attack at the capitol. there have been some successful efforts by the department of justice and the fbi to fort -- thwarts plots. that kind of focus has to continue because you are right, those kinds of attacks and plots in the u.s. are not likely to go away. host: california, short on time. go ahead. caller: tell me about the economics of afghanistan. under normal circumstances, are they able to generate enough food to feed the people?

do they make things for experts? -- exports? is it just destined to be dependent on external charity to survive? guest: afghanistan does have some limits. it is landlocked, it is a very poor country, and it does have fruits, vegetables, wheat that it can export. afghanistan has a huge mineral reserve -- copper, gems that can be extracted from the soil. the problem it's hard to do those extractions when the country is suffering from -- is suffering from war. it's express -- it's expensive

to move those on major roadways of the country is sitting on a huge area of natural resources. the one country that has physically recognize this and owns i think the largest copper mine is neighboring china. host: this may be a hard question to ask but because of our efforts in the last 20 years, what do you think the afghan people think about the united states and how that might change under taliban rule? guest: it's hard to generalize about the afghan people. like in any country, they are different. some of the rural populations are much more conservative. the taliban has a support base and it has fans in rural areas that want to see women in burqas and don't want to see women work. afghanistan and urban areas has become much more westernized.

women work in the challenge we will see in afghanistan moving forward is the taliban is now running a very different country than what existed in the 1990's. there are more progressive afghans who if they don't like what they see art going to try to resist and they maybe killed so we may see a pretty serious humanitarian catastrophe or they may try to flee internally or as refugees into other areas of the world. many of them will have to see where the taliban government goes. host: one or two more questions -- sabrina in new york, go ahead. caller: i just want to ask, going to the security, you said about how the national security is ok but what about the vegas shooting? the insurrection was totally disgusting.

i feel like there were so many outlets online like reddit and twitter that were helping the q people get together and nothing was really prevented from january 6. >> we are leaving this to go live and hear from former house intelligence committee chair pete hoekstra. rep. hoekstra: the things that we do and what we stand for make us unique. people need to understand that it does not say that america is perfect, but it doesn't say that what we stand for is threatening to other parts of the world. it is because what we do is good. what have we done? you think back. we did the patriot act. weid