Following the withdrawal of US military forces in Afghanistan, the Taliban seized control of the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday night, also ensuring economic implications in neighbouring regional powers. The Trump administration had signed a peace deal with the Taliban last year that required all US troops to be out of Afghanistan by May to which Job Biden acted to withdraw all US troops by August 31. Successive administrations had spent billions of dollars training the Afghan security forces and proving world-class military equipment, believing that the 300,000 men of the Afghan national Defense and Security Forces had enough resources to prevent a takeover of the country.
Biden’s principal justification for the Afghan withdrawal was strategic, in addressing more relevant threats which Biden identified as ‘the strategic competition with China’ and was confident that ‘“The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,”. However, with Taliban insurgents capturing more than 2/3 of Afghanistan’s territory in a lightning offensive , Biden’s credibility has been placed under the spotlight with the power of the US on the decline. The collapse of the Afghan armed forces reflects widespread public disillusionment with President Ashraf Ghani’s government, chronic corruption and mismanagement within the armed forces that has resulted in the establishment of a new political force in Afghanistan, shaping a new geopolitical landscape in Asia.
US President Joe Biden has approved the deployment of 6000 extra troops, to shore up the evacuation mission in the besieged city of Kabul. Whilst Biden may receive praise for ending the country’s involvement in the two decade long war, the brutal humiliation at the hands of the Taliban may leave a stain on his political record.
