As the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan reaches the two-decade mark this year, NATO officials have made clear that they have bigger fish to fry. In the alliance’s new Strategy 2030 report, Afghanistan is mentioned just six times. Yet as NATO positions itself for the next decade, the alliance has been transformed by its experience in Afghanistan and the lessons it learned there. Why We Wrote This The war in Afghanistan appears to be drawing to a close. What has NATO, which has been involved from the very beginning of operations there, learned from its experiences? The cooperation of the 50-plus nations involved was a growth experience for the alliance, says Ian Lesser, executive director of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. The bloc “learned a lot ... in terms of habits of cooperation and interoperability that were tested everyday.” Member forces also made use of some high-tech systems that many nations wouldn’t have been exposed to in peacetime.