I have a few relatives, they get deployed to Afghanistan 2 out of 3 years. I remember them telling me that we will always have a presence there. They told me that there would be highly trained Special Forces but most of the Regular Army Units will be pulled out and that would be a good plan for the future. They said the US was building roads & infrastructure to control the larger towns & cities for the long haul; so the Taliban can never dominate again. Might be part of the price we have pay to prevent another 911. I just wonder where will the money to fund everything comes from?
Bush lied. He said he would not engage in nation building. I count two. Democrats like Bush and LBJ love never ending wars.
The dollars involved aren't huge. We're spending about $80b on Afghanistan sustaining close to 65K troops there, combined with aid packages. Taking it down to 8K troops, combined with Afghan aid, might take it down to $20b a year. Which is a rounding error (0.1%) as a % of national output. Obamacare alone will probably cost $300b a year due to the massive Medicaid expansion and the subsidies for low income households. Our problem with military spending has always been related to concurrent increases in welfare state spending. The Europeans have avoided this problem because by slashing defense to the bone. But even they are running out of defense budget to cut.