2020–2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

Battle context

The U.S.–Taliban agreement signed in Doha in February 2020 set the terms for ending the longest major American war. Under the deal, NATO committed to withdrawing all forces by a specified deadline in exchange for Taliban counter-terrorism commitments. A direct consequence of the agreement was a sharp reduction in U.S. air strikes against the Taliban, a shift that materially degraded the Afghan National Security Forces' capacity to contest the Taliban insurgency. The withdrawal, completed on 30 August 2021, formally closed the 2001–2021 U.S. war in Afghanistan after cumulative NATO casualties of over two thousand. The Doha framework effectively transferred the burden of territorial defense entirely to Afghan government forces at the moment their most significant source of air support was curtailed.