There is general agreement among many observers that the Taliban attempted to engage the United States between 2002 and 2005; U.S. officials, however, did not seriously consider talking to the Taliban or initiate Washington’s outreach efforts in earnest until 2010. The U.S. troop surge was well underway and could have provided an important bargaining chip in negotiations, but the surge also reflected years of America’s fighting and sacrifice in Afghanistan. By 2010, interests and suspicions were deeply entrenched on both sides. There were no substantive negotiations. Instead, for years after 2010, a cycle of preconditions and talks about talks wore on. The available evidence suggests there was no effort to link U.S. policy in Afghanistan—the troop surge, for instance, or the drawdown that followed—to any viable process or framework for peace talks.

Why did it take the better part of a decade of war to think about diplomatic engagement? Why did it take another decade to conclude a three-page agreement with the Taliban? Wars cannot be limited in scope and duration—they cannot end—without diplomacy. The commitment to dialogue, dealmaking and compromise is a necessary component of the use of force. Benjamin Franklin’s dictum, that a bad peace beats a good war, recognized that even a peace based on a three-page agreement is when the hard work of development and engagement and changing minds can truly begin.

Speaking with our enemies is hard. And yet the greatest risk to diplomats is not the enemy, but the perpetual fear their own country will condemn them—or worse—for seeking something less than total victory somewhere other than the field of battle. What is achievable is not always just; what is workable is not always reasonable; but we are always just one more offensive away from ideal conditions.

Thousands of lives and trillions of dollars later, the American people deserve to understand why it was so much easier to prolong a fruitless war than to seek a functional peace. Of all the questions the AWC could attempt to answer, this is the most profound. Understanding how and why and when to start or control or stop a fight is the most essential function of statecraft. The Afghanistan War Commission offers America a chance, unique for our generation, to ask whether the U.S. government could have done a better job in Afghanistan and could do a better job in the future of navigating the perils of the very dangerous world we now face. We owe it to ourselves and future generations alike to get this right.

Andrew Baker has over a decade of experience in the public sector and holds a DPhil in International Relations from Oxford University.

The views expressed herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government.