Biden Over-Sells ‘Over-the-Horizon’ Counter-Terrorism

President Biden claims the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan in a CIA drone strike on July 31 validates his complete withdrawal of the remaining U.S. forces from that country last year. The president says we can rely instead on “over-the-horizon” counter-terrorism strikes. Probably not. Set aside for the moment the debacle the haphazard retreat ignited, necessitating the incomplete rescue of more than 100,000 Afghans, many of whom had aided U.S. forces. Discount, too, tens of billions of dollars worth of American military gear left for Afghanistan’s returning Taliban Islamist rulers and other bad actors. Do so even if Russia, China, Iran and North Korea did not. Consider instead what “over-the-horizon” counter-terrorism requires on the ground. In July 2009, this writer participated as a civilian in the U.S. Army War College’s strategic implementation seminar. This was a three-day session that helped cap a two-year master’s degree in strategic implementation for several hundred regular Army Reserve and National Guard officers, mostly majors and lieutenant colonels. Primarily remote-learning, the program included two weeks of on-campus study each summer at the Carlisle, Pa. barracks. Large lectures were leavened with break-out discussions, each with 15–20 officers and four or five civilians. One day the presiding colonel asked our group, “How many troops does the United States need in Afghanistan?” At the time, American forces in Afghanistan t …