What happens if the Taliban wins in Afghanistan?

““Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan inevitable?”

That’s the question a reporter put to President Joe Biden this week at a press conference on the US’s drawdown in Afghanistan.

“No, it is not,” Biden said, noting that Afghan government troops greatly outnumber the Taliban and are “as well-equipped as any army in the world.”

That may be true, but numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. The Taliban has rapidly expanded its territorial control over the last week and is closing in on the capital, Kabul. On Monday, more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers reportedly fled into neighboring Tajikistan to escape a Taliban advance. A US intelligence assessment has said the Afghan government could fall in six months once US and other international troops leave.

It makes it hard to see a Taliban takeover as anything other than extremely likely”