US President Joe Biden announces troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by August 31, ending the longest war in U.S. history. The Allies are also trying to withdraw before then.

Everyone speculates on tons of reasons for this withdrawal. However, from the perspective of the United States, the cold economic reasons are more convincing. The war has cost a cumulative $2.3 trillion and still increasing, according to Brown University; nearly 2,500 U.S. soldiers have been killed, and other Allied troops have lost even more. The war has killed nearly 250,000 people. As government borrowing continues to climb, spending on the war in Afghanistan has accounted for 10 percent of the U.S. federal public debt, according to the Congress Budget Office. Counting the war costs in Iraq and Syria would be more than $5 trillion, not including the trillions in future interest payments and veterans' health care costs.

Twenty years on, civil war continues in a land that has crippled imperial armies since the days of Alexander the Great. Trump's deal with the Taliban last year narrowed the options, but the chaos ahead of Biden’s responsibility. Future leaders may thank him for his decision to withdraw. But he may still regret it later, as he considers politics and the display of American power more than economic gains and losses.