The last few days in Afghanistan have been chaotic as the Taliban retake control of the country.

The debacle can be traced to a number of assumptions that guided the execution of the U.S. withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.

How could those assumptions have proved so wrong, so quickly?

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• An Afghan military that did not believe in itself and a U.S. effort that President Biden, and most Americans, no longer believed in brought an ignoble end to the United States’ longest war.
• A takeover of the whole of Afghanistan was all but absolute as the government collapsed and the U.S. rushed through a frenzied evacuation.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.