Why Afghanistan complicates the phrase war of choice

How was Afghanistan a war of choice?

It was not wholly optional because it answered an existing al-Qaeda threat, although governments still chose how to respond and whether to deploy ground forces.

Afghanistan is not treated as a freely chosen war because the intervention responded to al-Qaeda and an existing security crisis. Governments could have chosen bombing without a ground deployment, although bombing alone is judged insufficient to deal with the organization. The distinction separates choosing a method from choosing whether the underlying problem exists. It also reinforces the wider argument that force planning cannot assume states control when crises arrive.