Losing Afghanistan: The Fall of Kabul and the End of Western Intervention

When Taliban forces took Kabul on 15 August 2021, it marked the end of the Western intervention that had begun nearly twenty years earlier with the US-led invasion. The fall of Afghanistan triggered a seismic shock in the West, where US President Joe Biden announced an end to America’s involvement in conflicts overseas.

In Afghanistan itself it produced terror for the future for those who had worked with and grown up under the coalition-supported administration. Now, with the country spiral...