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[Absolutely no doubt the Taliban will take over as soon as we leave, just as the N. Vietnamese took over in ‘Nam.

Do I care? Not one bit.]

That would depend on whether we continued financial assistance. North Vietnam continued getting large amounts of weaponry and munitions from the Soviets even as we completely cut off the South - loans that it continued paying for decades. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1195414.stm So the South’s defeat was a foregone conclusion, absent another deep-pocketed sponsor - it literally ran out of gas.

Pakistan is the Taliban’s chief foreign sponsor. Unless we match Pakistan’s aid to the Taliban, which may amount to as much as $1b a year, a good chunk of which comes from us paying transit fees (aka protection money) to Pakistan to get supplies through to landlocked Afghanistan, the Afghan government will fall.

For 3 years after Soviet troops withdrew, Najibullah’s regime remained standing. Then the Soviets cut off his financial aid. 3 months after the cessation of Soviet money, estimated at $3b a year, his regime fell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Najibullah#After_the_Soviets I expect a few billion dollars a year could keep the Afghan government alive against the Taliban. The question is whether there’s any appetite in Congress to appropriate that money once GI’s are out of harm’s way. I think there won’t be until the next big 9/11-style terror attack mounted by terrorists under the Taliban’s protection.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-v-micallef/how-the-taliban-gets-its_b_8551536.html
[Two other major sources of Taliban funding are Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) and, ironically, indirectly, the United States itself. Pakistan has supplied the Taliban with a broad range of arms, supplies, and financial help. In addition, the ISI has also assisted the Taliban’s smuggling operations, indirectly adding to their financing.

A significant portion of the Taliban’s Pakistani financing in turn came, ironically, from American sources. Pakistan has been a major recipient of US military and financial aid over the course of the past 15 years. Direct US military and economic assistance to Pakistan has amounted to over 20 billion dollars since 2001. Moreover, a significant amount of additional US aid to Pakistan was channeled through third party contractors. Pakistan was also reimbursed by ISAF for various services that it provided to American and coalition troops.]