Over the past five years, the Pentagon had reduced the American presence to under 10,000 troops. The presence was a deterrent and led to few American casualties. Indeed, over that period, far fewer Americans have died in Afghanistan than residents of Baltimore have died in automobile accidents. Past efforts to nation-building were an expensive and misguided mistake, but not the American military presence which had evolved into a mission set not dissimilar from what the Pentagon maintains in Korea.
