The US Withdrawal from Afghanistan (2021)

The Doha Agreement

The path to withdrawal began under President Trump. In February 2020, the US signed an agreement with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar — without the Afghan government at the table. The deal committed the US to withdrawing all forces by May 2021 in exchange for Taliban guarantees not to harbor terrorist groups and to enter negotiations with the Afghan government.

The Doha Agreement was controversial from the start. Critics noted that it required nothing from the Taliban beyond vague counterterrorism assurances and a promise to negotiate with Kabul — but did not require a ceasefire or any Taliban concessions on governance, women's rights, or power-sharing. The Afghan government, excluded from the talks, viewed the deal as a betrayal. US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad argued the agreement was the best achievable outcome after nearly two decades of stalemate.

The practical effect was immediate. Once the Taliban knew the US was leaving, they had every incentive to wait rather than negotiate seriously with the Afghan government. Taliban fighters continued attacking Afghan forces while largely avoiding American troops — a distinction that technically complied with the agreement. Meanwhile, the morale of the Afghan military and government began to crumble. If their most powerful ally was leaving, why fight?

The Collapse

President Biden, who inherited the Doha Agreement, extended the withdrawal deadline to August 31, 2021, but committed to completing it. US intelligence assessments reportedly estimated that the Afghan government could survive for six months to two years after the withdrawal. The actual timeline was eleven days.

The Taliban's advance accelerated through the summer of 2021. Provincial capitals began falling in rapid succession. The pattern was strikingly consistent: Afghan forces, demoralized and often unpaid, negotiated surrenders rather than fight. Local commanders cut deals with the Taliban. Supply lines collapsed. By mid-August, the Taliban controlled most of the country without significant combat.

On August 15, 2021, President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan as Taliban forces entered Kabul. The government that the US had spent twenty years and hundreds of billions of dollars building evaporated in hours. The speed of the collapse stunned even the Taliban, who had not expected to take Kabul so quickly.

The fall of Kabul triggered a desperate evacuation. Thousands of Afghans flooded Hamid Karzai International Airport, clinging to departing aircraft. Heartbreaking images of people falling from planes became the defining visual of the withdrawal. On August 26, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 13 US service members and approximately 170 Afghan civilians at the airport's Abbey Gate — the deadliest day for American forces in Afghanistan since 2011.

What the Withdrawal Means

The chaotic withdrawal dominated headlines, but the deeper questions concern what twenty years of American presence achieved — and failed to achieve.

What was accomplished: For two decades, no major terrorist attack was launched from Afghan soil against the US homeland. Millions of Afghan girls attended school for the first time. An urban middle class emerged in Kabul and other cities. Life expectancy increased. These were real gains.

What was lost: The Taliban's return reversed many of these advances virtually overnight. Girls were banned from secondary school and university. Women were excluded from public life. The Afghan economy collapsed as international aid — which had constituted roughly 75% of government spending — dried up. A humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions unfolded.

The strategic debate: Defenders of the withdrawal, including Biden, argued that staying indefinitely served no achievable purpose and that the US could not want democratic governance for Afghans more than their own leaders did. Critics argued that a small residual force could have prevented the Taliban's return at relatively low cost — the US had not suffered a combat fatality in Afghanistan for over a year before the withdrawal. Others pointed out that the entire intervention had been built on flawed premises and that no amount of additional time would have changed the outcome.

The withdrawal's most consequential effect may have been on American credibility. Allies questioned whether US security commitments could be trusted. Adversaries drew their own conclusions. Russia's invasion of Ukraine six months later prompted debate about whether Afghanistan had signaled American retreat from global leadership.