Airlift operations are increasing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, with about 20 C-17s flying out per day in what U.S. military leaders say is likely to be the country’s second-largest non-combatant evacuation operation in its history. “Right now, our mission is to secure that airfield, defend that airfield, and evacuate all those who have been faithful to us,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley said during an Aug. 18 briefing. As of early Aug. 18, 18 C-17s and one C-130 had arrived at Hamid Karzai International Airport with another 700 troops, bringing the total number of American forces there to 4,500. As of the same time, 18 C-17s also had departed with about 2,000 people, including about 325 American citizens, as well as Afghans and NATO personnel. Over the ensuing 24 hours, the Pentagon expected that number to stay consistent. The Defense Department still thinks it can fly out about 5,000 people per day, with aircraft leaving at a rate of about one per hour.

In the months after President Joe Biden announced the U.S. would fully withdraw from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, veterans groups lobbied on behalf of Afghan nationals looking to obtain special immigrant visas, urging Congress and the White House to speed up the bureaucratic process for interpreters and other partners to ensure they would not be left to face a rapidly advancing Taliban. Now that the Taliban has seized control after an astonishingly quick conquest, U.S. troops remain only at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, and thousands of SIV seekers and their families face danger while veterans halfway across the globe scramble to help as many as they can.

The Air Force’s specialized emergency response team, which was called upon months ago to close down bases in Afghanistan, is back in the country to help bring Americans and partners out as the Taliban surrounds the last remaining U.S.-controlled airfield. The Pentagon announced Aug. 18 that Airmen with the 621st Contingency Response Group at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., are deploying back to Afghanistan, just weeks after returning home, to help run air operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport. Defense Department photographs show Airmen with the 821st Contingency Response Group from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., also deploying. They, too, recently returned home from Afghanistan. Air Force Magazine spoke exclusively with some Airmen who served in this mission before the Taliban’s advance.

The 11th and final Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) comprehensive lessons learned report reveals telltale signs over the 10-year U.S. drawdown that the Afghan government could not sustain progress made nor provide for its own security. The scathing report, released Aug. 16, also criticizes the $145 billion reconstruction effort for harboring unrealistic goals and timelines but commends social progress such as lower child mortality rates and increased per capita GDP and literacy rates. “If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that can sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture is bleak,” the report’s conclusion reads.

The head of U.S. Northern Command says the United States needs to modernize its communication and warning systems for homeland defense to ensure leaders have more time and better options before launching a kinetic response to potential threats. Future operations will inevitably demand that multiple combatant commands work together, often in multiple domains, to defend the U.S. homeland, said Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, who leads both NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, speaking Aug. 17 at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event. “I think this is the way of the future, whether that be for a peer competitor or even a rogue actor who has access to information that creates opportunities for them to challenge [us] across all domains.”