The war in Afghanistan started shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001. There are now troops serving who were born before that fateful day. Since President Barack Obama's election in 2008, there has been persistent chatter about the need to end the war even if the fragile gains made would quickly perish with U.S. troops leaving the country.

President Donald Trump spoke often of ending the war but never actually pulled the trigger. Now, President Joe Biden has put a firm deadline of August 31 on the end of the U.S. military's mission in Afghanistan and stated that "We did not go to Afghanistan to nation build." This follows his earlier announcement in April, where Biden made his intentions clear to end operations in Afghanistan.

There are concerns that the country would revert to its previous status of being ruled by the Taliban, and Afghans who worked with the U.S. military or U.S. government would be particularly vulnerable to attacks. Biden addressed this concern by saying that the leaders of the country had to come together to plot a path forward.

However, his major focus was on the endless occupation and the sacrifices of U.S. service members. So far, about 3,000 U.S. services members have been removed from the country. Biden stated that he believes that the Afghanistan military would be able to protect the country from the Taliban. Already, there have been reports of the Taliban taking over discarded U.S. military equipment and taking control of small towns. Additionally, the removal of U.S. troops weakens the negotiating stance of the Afghanistan government.

Biden's decision is a departure from President Obama who elected to "surge" troops in Afghanistan with more than 100,000 troops passing through the country in 2012. It did have success in pushing back the Taliban, yet it was unsuccessful in meaningfully changing the political calculus of the country as the Taliban was content to wait out the U.S.

Of course, the original U.S. mission to Afghanistan began in late 2001 as Osama bin Laden was operating Al Qaeda from the country, and the Taliban was unwilling to hand him over. Of course, the Afghanistan mission ended with a failure to recover bin Laden and became overshadowed by the War in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. It's noteworthy that many empires such as the USSR and Genghis Khan's descendants were unable to secure victory in Afghanistan and came at a serious cost to its resources.