Building Afghanistan’s national security forces was one of the most ambitious and expensive aspects of two decades of US-led war. It resulted in failure. The United States spent billions of dollars training and equipping police, soldiers and special forces. Despite years of warnings from US and Afghan officials, successive US administrations pledged that the Afghan military was capable of defending the country. President Biden said the Afghan military was “as well-equipped as any army in the world” just a month before its collapse. 214