On Aug. 15, 2026, the Taliban celebrated the fifth anniversary of its return to power with official ceremonies and events outside the former US Embassy. Five years earlier, Taliban fighters had entered Kabul as Afghanistan’s Western-backed government collapsed. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, while American diplomats destroyed sensitive documents and evacuated the US Embassy.
Since then, the Taliban has further curtailed human rights, particularly those of women; deepened its ties with Russia, which has granted its government formal recognition; and begun eyeing potential cooperation with the US. Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told The New York Times that the United States could reopen its embassy and invest in Afghanistan’s mineral resources, dams and roads. He called for “relations based on mutual respect and a new chapter of positive engagement.”
How the war came full circle
The Taliban first emerged during the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal and Afghanistan’s civil war. It captured Kabul in 1996 and imposed an extreme interpretation of Islamic law, excluding women from education and most employment while providing sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Taliban rejected US demands to surrender bin Laden. American and allied forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and rapidly removed the Taliban government.
What followed was a 20-year attempt to build a new Afghan state.
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan held elections, adopted a constitution and created political and social space that had not existed under the Taliban, allowing millions of girls to enter school and women to join public life, universities, media and the workforce.
Despite progress, the system was also deeply corrupt, excessively centralized and dependent on foreign money, military support and technical expertise.
Washington empowered abusive warlords, tolerated corruption and tried to construct national institutions according to external models that often had little legitimacy outside Kabul. Afghan security forces existed in impressive numbers on paper but depended heavily on US aircraft, intelligence, maintenance contractors and logistics – failings documented in the US government’s review of 20 years of reconstruction.
The Taliban, meanwhile, never disappeared. It reorganized, maintained sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan and gradually rebuilt its insurgency. By the time Washington decided to leave, the Afghan republic was less a self-sustaining state than a structure held together by American financing, airpower and the assumption that the United States would not abruptly abandon it.
Trump made the withdrawal deal
Following years of debate over the effectiveness of the US operation in Afghanistan, Donald Trump’s administration signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban on Feb. 29, 2020, bypassing the Afghan government, which the Taliban refused to recognize as legitimate.
Under the agreement, the United States committed to withdrawing all American and allied troops by May 1, 2021. Washington also agreed to facilitate the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners, some of whom subsequently returned to the battlefield.
In exchange, the Taliban promised to prevent al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups from using Afghanistan to threaten the United States and to begin negotiations with other Afghan political forces. The agreement did not establish a permanent ceasefire. Nor did it require the Taliban to reach a political settlement with the Afghan government before US troops departed. Trump reduced the American presence from roughly 13,000 troops when the agreement was signed to approximately 2,500 by the time he left office. This signaled to Afghan soldiers, officials and local power brokers that the United States had negotiated directly with their enemy and was leaving whether or not a viable peace settlement existed.
A subsequent US government investigation found that the decision to remove American forces and contractors was the single most important factor behind the Afghan security forces’ collapse.
Biden chose the exit – and botched the ending
Although Biden inherited a poorly designed deal, he could have attempted to renegotiate it or retain a limited military presence. He chose not to do so. The decision to withdraw had considerable public support: The war had lasted two decades, cost the United States an estimated $2.3 trillion and failed to produce a self-sustaining Afghan state.
In April 2021, Biden announced that all remaining American troops would leave by Sept. 11. The deadline was later moved up to Aug. 31, and the execution proved disastrous.
American officials underestimated how quickly the Afghan government and military would collapse. Visa processing and evacuation preparations for Afghans who had worked with Western forces began far too late. Bagram Air Base was closed before the emergency evacuation, leaving the operation dependent on Kabul’s civilian airport.
On July 8, Biden said a Taliban takeover was not inevitable and insisted there would be “no circumstance” resembling an evacuation from the roof of the US Embassy – a reference to the infamous 1975 helicopter evacuation from the US Embassy in Saigon at the close of the Vietnam War.
Kabul fell 38 days after Biden’s statement.
The evacuation itself ultimately removed more than 123,000 people – an extraordinary logistical achievement by the soldiers, diplomats and officials working under catastrophic conditions. But the conditions should never have become so catastrophic.
On Aug. 26, an ISIS-K suicide bomber attacked Abbey Gate at Kabul airport, killing 13 US service members and approximately 160 Afghan civilians. Three days later, the US military launched a drone strike against what it believed was another terrorist target.
The strike instead killed ten civilians, including seven children.
A State Department after-action review later found that the Trump and Biden administrations had both failed to give sufficient senior-level consideration to worst-case scenarios and how quickly they could unfold.
Did Kabul help lead to Kyiv?
The images from Afghanistan were watched far beyond Washington and Kabul, particularly in Moscow. Russia had already massed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine and in occupied Crimea in spring 2021. In May, even as that buildup alarmed Europe, Biden waived sanctions on the company behind Nord Stream 2.
On Aug. 19, 2021 – four days after the Taliban entered Kabul – then-Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev used the collapse to question America’s commitment to Ukraine. Patrushev asked whether Afghanistan’s status as a major non-NATO US ally had saved its government. “A similar situation awaits supporters of the American choice in Ukraine,” he said. Just over six months later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
Some Western politicians have argued that the Afghanistan withdrawal helped convince Vladimir Putin that the United States was weak, distracted and unlikely to respond decisively.
In March 2022, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the withdrawal the precipitating event that emboldened Putin. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has similarly argued that the West’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan contributed to the Kremlin’s decision to attack Ukraine. Other analysts, however, have argued that the Afghanistan withdrawal had little or nothing to do with Putin’s decision.
5 Years of Taliban Rule
The Taliban claims that it has brought peace, reduced corruption and restored order.
Large-scale fighting has indeed diminished, and many Afghans report that roads and cities are safer than during the war. Yet those security gains have come at the cost of a systematic erosion of freedom, particularly the rights of women and girls.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are formally prohibited from attending secondary school and women are barred from universities. Five years after the takeover, an estimated 2.4 million Afghan girls are excluded from secondary education.
New UN Women research found that almost half of Afghan women leave their homes only once or twice a month. Only 7% are employed, compared with 84% of men, while 70% report poor mental health.
In 2026, 21.9 million people are projected to require humanitarian assistance. Aid cuts, drought, earthquakes and the mass return of Afghans expelled from Iran and Pakistan have intensified the crisis. Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, head of the regime’s Supreme Court, are also subject to International Criminal Court arrest warrants over the persecution of women and girls.
The regime’s counterterrorism promises are equally questionable.
In July 2022, the United States killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in central Kabul. His presence there prompted then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to accuse the Taliban of “grossly” violating the Doha Agreement.
Russia moves in
Despite maintaining an extremist system of rule, the Taliban has gradually escaped its diplomatic isolation.
Russia has gone further than any other country. Moscow spent years developing contacts with Taliban representatives and kept its embassy in Kabul open after the Western withdrawal.
In April 2025, Russia removed the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist organizations. Three months later, it became the first – and so far only – country to formally recognize the Taliban government. The relationship has since expanded beyond diplomatic symbolism.
Since 2022, Afghanistan has imported Russian gas, oil and wheat, while Moscow has viewed the country as a potential transit hub and the Taliban as a possible partner against ISIS-K.
In May 2026, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu announced that Moscow was developing a “full-fledged partnership” with the Taliban.
Later that month, Shoigu and Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob signed a military-technical cooperation agreement. Its full contents have not been released. xxx
Other countries have stopped short of recognition but are moving in the same direction. China, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Pakistan have accredited ambassadors in Kabul. India has restored its embassy in Kabul, while European governments are holding talks with Taliban representatives, particularly over migration and deportations.
Now the Taliban Wants Washington Back
The Taliban’s latest appeal to the United States is carefully calibrated to Trump’s second administration, whose foreign policy has repeatedly prioritized transactional deals over human-rights conditions.
Afghanistan possesses extensive but largely undeveloped reserves of copper, lithium, iron ore and rare-earth minerals. Muttaqi suggested that American companies could invest in those resources while Washington could “reopen its embassy, maintain a diplomatic presence and invest.”
The Taliban has ruled out the return of American troops and rejected Trump’s demands for renewed US access to Bagram Air Base and the return of American military equipment left in Afghanistan. Washington has also rejected normalization for now, accusing the Taliban of failing to fulfill its counterterrorism commitments and allowing militant organizations to operate from Afghan territory.
American and Taliban officials have negotiated over detainees, counterterrorism and humanitarian issues. A US delegation visited Kabul in September 2025, when Taliban officials claimed that the sides had reached an understanding on a possible prisoner exchange.
Some former American diplomats now argue that a presence in Kabul could give Washington greater intelligence access, open commercial opportunities and prevent Afghanistan from being surrendered entirely to Russia and China.
Afghanistan and the wider Middle East
The Taliban’s growing confidence also comes as the situation in the wider Middle East remains dangerously unresolved.
The Iran War has damaged the country and killed senior figures, but it has not toppled Tehran’s clerical regime. Meanwhile, the original objectives of the US-Israeli campaign have become increasingly difficult to define. A 60-day deadline for a broader peace agreement has expired without a final settlement, while the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed.
Afghanistan is not a direct participant in the conflict, and the Taliban’s Sunni fundamentalism differs sharply from Iran’s Shiite theocracy. Yet the survival of the Taliban government carries ideological significance far beyond Afghanistan. It demonstrates that an isolated religious regime can withstand sanctions and diplomatic condemnation, strengthen relations with Russia and China, and eventually persuade Western governments to consider re-engagement – all without substantially moderating its rule.
Kabul still lacks broad international recognition, has its own security confrontation with Pakistan and remains distrusted in Washington. Nevertheless, its working relations with Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, the Gulf states and, increasingly, the United States give it diplomatic channels that could conceivably be used by parties seeking a more durable regional settlement.
Whether anyone ever chooses to use those channels remains to be seen.