A child waits with her family to board a C-17 Globemaster lll, Aug. 22, 2021, at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, after being evacuated from Afghanistan. U.S. AIR FORCE / AIRMAN 1ST CLASS KYLIE BARROW
Just 20 years after its own regime collapsed, a reinvigorated Taliban defeated a U.S.-trained and supported Army and police force that once numbered over 330,000 personnel. With $88 billion in U.S. security assistance, the Afghan army and police led the fight for seven hard years and lost 66,000 uniformed personnel, considerably more than the United States lost in Vietnam. In the end, however, Afghan security forces and the Kabul government collapsed under significant Taliban pressure and perceived U.S. abandonment. What went wrong in Afghanistan? “Plenty” is the short answer, but it took 20 years of mistakes—two decades of mistakes—Afghan and coalition—to create the defeat and debacle that played out in Kabul in the past few weeks.
