Dr. Jonathan Schroden

The answer depends on what you consider “withdrawal” of all the troops. Currently, the US has somewhere around 5000 troops in #Afghanistan & @NATO has about as many (& possibly slightly more). They are located on a small number (10 or so?) of bases across the country. 2/n

Those forces are supported by another 10-15k (maybe more?) contractors. If all Trump wanted was to get the uniformed personnel out, it’d likely be possible to do that in 2-3 weeks (a C-17 can carry ~200 people), so 10k troops = 50 C-17 sorties. 3/n

Contractors would demand to go at same time (if not b4) troops & other USG agencies would also draw down their personnel. Most of those people would go out via commercial flights from KAIA, which would surely turn the airport into chaos. Nonetheless, could be done in weeks. 4/n

But what about the *STUFF*? That’s where it gets hard. #DOD has helos, heavy trucks, sensitive gear, bombs, weapons, etc., that it would want back. Highly unlikely the WH could get away w/an order to just abandon it all (Congress would surely balk, much less DOD). 5/n

Even a highly triaged approach (eg focus on helos, lethal gear, sensitive equip) would still likely take weeks to pack up. Some of this would need to be flown out, which competes for cargo plane sorties with personnel retrograde. But much could go out by truck and/or rail. 6/n