Trump announced in a radio interview last week, the plan would bring the level of U.S. forces down to 8,600 troops, which would would be mostly focused on the counterterrorism mission dubbed “Freedom’s Sentinel.”
That’s roughly the number of U.S. forces President Barack Obama left in Afghanistan after unilaterally declaring an end to combat operations in 2014. But Obama attempted to end the war without the benefit of a peace agreement with the Taliban, which then began to make a comeback.
In August 2017, Trump reluctantly agreed to send more troops to back up the struggling Afghan forces, along with authorizing offensive airstrikes against the Taliban.
Earlier: Robert Spencer: Lindsey Graham Is Wrong: It’s Long Past Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.