Afghanistan takeaways: What lessons did the US and NATO learn? |

When Joe Biden announced the early end of the Afghanistan mission he said this was no "mission accomplished" moment. And despite the Taliban's growing strength, the American president says it's not inevitable that the Islamist insurgents will return to power.

It's a sobering assessment of America's longest war. More than 2,300 US troops died in Afghanistan since the US went in to end the terrorist threat following the 9/11 attacks. And in recent years the country with the second-largest troop deployment in Afghanistan, after the Americans, was Germany, which has also completed the withdrawal of its forces. Fifty-nine German soldiers died in the mission. So what did they all die for?