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The two-decade effort by the United States and its NATO allies to build a modern liberal state in Afghanistan envisioned electoral democracy replacing village councils and other forms of customary authority. But citizens still rely on these community-based bodies to resolve disputes, provide small-scale public goods and services, and broker relations with local government. Customary institutions may also provide protection against predatory government officials. Although the international community has largely overlooked customary authority, US and NATO military forces eventually recognized their importance. Throughout history, Afghan rulers have regarded customary authorities as threats to their power, and they have been largely excluded from ongoing peace talks among the United States, the Afghan government, and the Taliban.

Hopes for national unity and stability in Afghanistan were dashed in 2015 as the government lost control of significant territory to insurgents. Kunduz City fell briefly to the Taliban, the first major city to fall to them since 2001. The ANSF experienced heavy casualties, at a time when nearly one-fifth of the country's districts were either controlled or heavily contested by the Taliban.

By all accounts, the post-2001 state-building effort in Afghanistan failed to deliver on its promise. Rather than blame politicians, insurgency, or obdurate customary authority, this article suggests the constitutional principles upon which the state was constructed ultimately undermined the state itself. In an attempt to address the enormous human suffering in Afghanistan, the 2004 Constitution proclaimed a vast array of positive rights to be implemented by an extremely centralized state apparatus. Yet this vision, in which individuals should look to the state as a source of individual and community well-being, is dramatically out of step with a reality in which individuals neither trusts the centralized state, nor relies on it for many public goods. For many Afghans, the notion of well-being is tied to independence from the state. An alternative state-building vision, one that appreciates a constitutional order stressing negative rights and recognizes the virtues of self-governance, would have resonated much more deeply with a society that has been served by chronically weak governments. This article uses evidence from an original nationally-representative survey and field interviews to illustrate the disjuncture between a self-governing society in which individuals strive for limited government and a state-building 'antidote' that offers up a very different medicine. The essay concludes by explaining why a more limited and politically bounded state-building approach, especially in rural areas, may be an important alternative to promote citizen well-being.

Labeled the Year of "Transition," 2014 was a watershed in modern Afghan history. It marked the first peaceful transition of power in more than a century, when Hamid Karzai handed over authority to Ashraf Ghani on September 29. The transition was not seamless, and the country teetered on the brink of a coup following the June presidential runoff.

Political scientists and the international development community have strong formal and informal norms that create barriers to engaging with the U.S. military. Nowhere are these tensions greater felt than in the actual battlefield. With the evolution of contemporary counterinsurgency strategy, the military has reached out to both social scientists and the development community. Instead of closing doors to the military, all parties would be better served if they opened their doors to dialogue. Most importantly, engaging the military constructively will actually help save civilian lives, rather than endanger them.