President Trump Pushes to Bring Troops Back From Afghanistan

This week, Donald Trump called for bringing back American troops from Afghanistan. According to military experts, this could put Joe Biden in “a strategic corner” as a president to be.

An authority at the Army War College, Larry Goodson, stated that right now reducing the troops’ size in Afghanistan would be a mistake and considering the recent “spate of bombings and assassinations” in Kabul, looks peculiar.

Goodson also added that if the soldiers’ drawdown results in greater instability, “you’re then faced with the Biden administration having to immediately countermand all of that and send forces back to reoccupy positions” and return to the Afghan organizations they had been backing up. 

At a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Chris Miller announced that by January 15th, the US was reducing the amount of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500. 

After Chris Miller’s statement, security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters that Donald Trump kept his promise “to put a stop to America’s endless wars,” while Miller responded the decision was made following their strategic plans and did not “equate to a change in policy” for Trump administration.

Nonetheless, according to research program director at CNA Jonathan Schroden, “it does kind of look a lot like what he advocated for back then.” 

Schroden also added the drawdown announcement “in some ways” undercuts the position of the Afghan government which is now negotiating with the Taliban in Qatar, while the US officials “have been signaling for months that they don’t feel that the Taliban have been meeting their obligations.” 

Meanwhile, the announcement confirmed speculation that personnel changes at the Pentagon were a precursor to long-planned force reductions just ahead of the end of Donald Trump’s administration.