{"id":41040,"date":"2021-04-15T00:11:59","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T00:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/04\/15\/bidens-gamble-will-pulling-troops-out-of-afghanistan-revive-extremist-threat\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T07:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:08:13","slug":"bidens-gamble-will-pulling-troops-out-of-afghanistan-revive-extremist-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2021\/04\/15\/bidens-gamble-will-pulling-troops-out-of-afghanistan-revive-extremist-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s gamble: Will pulling troops out of Afghanistan revive extremist threat?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BRUSSELS \u2014 At its start, America\u2019s war in Afghanistan was about retribution for 9\/11. Then it was about shoring up a weak government and its weak army so that Osama bin Laden\u2019s al-Qaida could never again threaten the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it\u2019s about over. With bin Laden long since dead and the United States not suffering another major attack, President Joe Biden is promising to end America\u2019s longest war<\/a> and move on to what he believes are bigger, more consequential challenges posed by a resurgent Russia and a rising China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, by withdrawing the remaining few thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks, Biden is taking a calculated risk that extremists in Afghanistan can be countered by U.S. and partner forces<\/a> elsewhere in the region \u2014 and that he won\u2019t become the president who underestimated the resilience and reach of extremists who still aim to attack the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CIA Director William Burns told Congress on Wednesday the U.S. unavoidably will lose some intelligence leverage against the extremist threat, although he suggested the losses would be manageable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe U.S. government\u2019s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That\u2019s simply a fact,\u201d Burns said. \u201cIt is also a fact, however, that after withdrawal, whenever that time comes, the CIA and all of our partners in the U.S. government will retain a suite of capabilities, some of it remaining in place, some of them that we will generate, that can help us to anticipate and contest any rebuilding effort.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were 2,500 to 3,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan <\/a>when Biden took office, the smallest number since early in the war. The number peaked at 100,000 during President Barack Obama\u2019s first term. As U.S. war casualties have declined, so has the American public\u2019s attention. The war was barely mentioned during last year\u2019s presidential contest, and pulling the plug may prove politically popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet worries remain. Stephen Biddle, a Columbia University professor who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, says it\u2019s possible al-Qaida could reestablish its base structure in Afghanistan once the Americans and their coalition partners leave. The Taliban in Afghanistan pledged in a February 2020 agreement with the Trump administration that they would not allow al-Qaida or other extremist groups to use Afghan territory to threaten the United States. But that deal may be imperiled by Biden\u2019s decision not to complete the withdrawal of forces by May 1, as the Trump administration had promised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bigger peril, Biddle said in an email exchange, is that the withdrawal could lead to the collapse of Afghan security forces and multi-sided civil warfare involving Taliban factions and others \u201cin a more-lethal version of the civil war of the 1990s.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis would be a humanitarian disaster for Afghans \u2014 far worse than today\u2019s insurgency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More broadly, the absence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan could lead to further instability in a region with two rival nuclear powers \u2014 Pakistan and India, which have insurgencies of their own to contend with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is already a dangerous part of the world; making it worse by allowing the collapse of the Afghan government is the biggest risk here,\u201d Biddle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a previously pivotal moment in the war, Obama took a similar view. When he announced a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in December 2009, he argued against trying to contain extremist threats in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region only with what the U.S. military calls \u201cover-the-horizon\u201d forces \u2014 troops and aircraft positioned beyond Afghan borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo abandon this area now \u2014 and to rely only on efforts against al-Qaida from a distance \u2014 would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al-Qaida and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t