Following 13 years of combat and thousands of casualties for the U.S. military, the war in Afghanistan, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, is finally drawing to a close.

The 13-year war in Afghanistan formally came to an end on Dec. 28, 2014 with an intimate ceremony held in the Afghanistan capital city of Kabul. But according to Time magazine, approximately 10,800 American military personnel remain in Afghanistan at the turn of the new year.

By the end of this year, about half of those personnel are expected to remain while a complete drawdown of American troops is expected to occur by the end of 2016, Bill Smullen, director of national security studies at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said. Smullen said he believes there will be no effect by the official drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan.

“(The Afghanistan war) has been America’s longest war. It deserves to be over,” Smullen said. “The American people are exhausted of war. It’s time to bring the troops home, as many have been deployed multiple times.”

The U.K. and the U.S. intervened in Afghanistan in 2001 to stop the Taliban from protecting Al-Qaida and to bring an end to the use of Afghanistan as a base of operations by Al-Qaida.

Afghanistan leaders are realizing they cannot handle the drawdown of the U.S. military, Smullen said. The right thing to do is to help strengthen the Afghan military while decreasing the amount of U.S. military personnel, he said.

Isaac Kfir, a visiting assistant professor of international affairs and law, said neither the U.S. nor international troops can afford to be in Afghanistan. Overall, the U.S. presence has not improved the situation, but there is still help that the U.S. needs to give to Afghanistan, Kfir said.

“Number one: control criminal networks operating in Afghanistan,” Kfir said. “Number two: deal with taxes, which is extremely hard to collect from the people. Number three: deal with the potential mineral wealth in Afghanistan that the Chinese have started to explore.”

According to a report by the United Nations, 2014 was the deadliest year in Afghanistan with 3,188 civilian deaths and 6,429 injured by the Taliban. This year is expected to top that number, also according to the UN.

Miriam Elman, an associate professor of political science at SU, said that a flexible drawdown is best so that if circumstances change, an increase of U.S. military personnel is possible.

“We don’t want a wholesale collapse where the Taliban is setting up shop, like it did in Iraq when we left,” Elman said. “The Afghans could win or lose their country, but a positive thing is that we most likely won’t see a wholesale collapse of their government.”

Elman said she believes that a few positive things that have come in the recent years of the war include the Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement signed between NATO and Afghanistan and the new government centered on a power-sharing agreement where both candidates campaigned for a government with no corruption.

The war in Afghanistan should not be a forgotten war and Afghanistan should be a U.S. foreign policy priority, Elman said.

“Afghanistan is going to be a developing country for decades. It will continue to be a security interest and should not be a place we forget about,” said Elman.

If in the position to make the decision, Smullen said he would have ended combat missions in Afghanistan sooner due to the U.S. social and economic problems that have occurred “with all that we have done.”

“The Afghanistan military has been comfortable with us doing the heavy work. I would have handed responsibilities over sooner,” Smullen said. “Why? As long as we’re doing the work for them, they won’t do it themselves.”

Published on January 13, 2015 at 1:36 am

Contact Katelyn: kmfaubel@syr.edu