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Afghanistan: The war Trump and Clinton have ignored

An Afghan man holds up the body of a child that was killed during clashes between Taliban and Afghan security forces in Kunduz province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, Authorities say a joint raid by U.S. and Afghan forces targeting senior Taliban commanders killed two American service members and 26 civilians. Afghan officials said they were still investigating the attack and its civilian casualties, some of which may have been caused by the airstrikes. (AP Photo/Najim Rahim)
An Afghan man holds up the body of a child that was killed during clashes between Taliban and Afghan security forces in Kunduz province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, Authorities say a joint raid by U.S. and Afghan forces targeting senior Taliban commanders killed two American service members and 26 civilians. Afghan officials said they were still investigating the attack and its civilian casualties, some of which may have been caused by the airstrikes. (AP Photo/Najim Rahim)

By Associated Press 5 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have said next to nothing about how they would handle the war in Afghanistan.

That’s remarkable, given the enormous U.S. investment in blood and treasure over the past 15 years – including two American deaths on Thursday – the resilience of the Taliban insurgency and the risk of an Afghan government collapse that would risk empowering extremists and could force the next president’s hands.

In addition to the two service members killed on Thursday, four others were wounded while assisting Afghan forces in the northern city of Kunduz.

President Barack Obama escalated the war shortly after he took office, but he fell short of his goal of compelling a political settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The next president will face a new set of tough choices on Afghanistan early in his or her term, including whether to increase or reduce U.S. troop levels and, more broadly, whether to continue what might be called Obama’s minimalist military strategy.

The difficulty of these choices may explain, at least in part, why Trump and Clinton have been largely silent on Afghanistan. They ignore it while campaigning; it came up only in passing during the first Trump-Clinton debate and was not mentioned at all during second and third debates.