Joe Biden
By early July 2021, most of the American troops in Afghanistan were leaving or had left. On August 15, during an offensive by the Taliban, the Afghan government collapsed. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to help the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He has been criticized for the way he handled the withdrawal. He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves", since the "Afghan military collapsed [against the Taliban], sometimes without trying to fight".