Since the time media outlets declared Joe Biden the winner of the US presidential election on November 7, 2020, helping him become the next commander in chief of the US armed forces, Pentagon officials

The Pentagon has issued serious warnings to President-elect Biden about the possibility of the Taliban overwhelming the Afghan army if the US withdraws its troops.

After Biden took office, top officials at the US Department of Defense began a lobbying campaign to maintain a small counterterrorism force in Afghanistan for a few more years.

They told the President that under Trump, the Taliban have grown stronger than at any time in the past two decades.

US President Joe Biden at the White House on August 18.

Immediately after General Lloyd Austin was sworn in as US Secretary of Defense on January 22, he and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley recommended that Biden retain 3,000-4,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, almost immediately.

On February 3, a committee appointed by the US Congress under the leadership of Joseph Dunford, former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly recommended that Biden cancel the troop withdrawal deadline on May 1.

According to the committee, the US should only withdraw troops when security conditions have improved.

However, after many years as vice chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden seems to have become extremely skeptical of America’s other national reconstruction efforts.

The White House boss once told his national security team, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, that he believes no matter what the US does, Afghanistan will almost certainly fall into a war.

By March, Pentagon officials said they realized that persuading Biden was going nowhere.

Later that month, Austin and Milley made a final attempt by predicting disastrous results for the Afghan army as the Taliban advanced.

However, the US President is determined not to change his point of view.

On the morning of April 6, Biden told Austin and Milley that he wanted all US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan before 9/11.

Most recently at the end of June, US intelligence agencies predicted that even if the Taliban continued to advance, it would be at least a year and a half before Kabul would be threatened, as Afghan military forces took advantage.

The withdrawal of US troops took place quite quickly.

Twice the Taliban entered the Afghan capital

Twice the Taliban entered the Afghan capital.

Critics say Biden underestimated the importance of the US military presence, even with a modest number of troops, and that the way the withdrawal plan was carried out made matters worse.

According to David Petraeus, former commander of international forces in Afghanistan, Biden’s team `did not realize the risks that arose` when quickly withdrawing intelligence forces, reconnaissance aircraft and thousands of contractors, who

Biden administration officials have countered that the Afghan military has reduced the size of the Taliban force from about 300,000 to 75,000.

Feeling abandoned by the US and lacking direction, the Afghan army quickly disintegrated, creating conditions for the Taliban to continuously gain control of key cities and enter Kabul on August 15.

On August 14, when the last major city in northern Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Biden accelerated the deployment of 1,000 additional soldiers to assist in evacuating American citizens, and issued a long statement saying that

`I inherited from my predecessor an agreement that gave the Taliban its strongest military position since 2001, setting a May 1 withdrawal deadline for US troops,` the statement said.

Biden said after taking office he could choose to abide by the agreement or `increase the presence, sending more American troops to fight again in another country’s internal conflict.`

`I am the fourth president to direct the US military presence in Afghanistan. There have been two Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents. I will not turn this war over to a fifth person,` Biden declared.