u.s. intends to withdraw 4,000 troops serving in afghanistan. the announcement may come as early as next week. thousands of american troops will remain behind. joining me to break it down from the white house is nbc's hans nichols. >> well, good afternoon. what we see here is really what the formization of the strategy the president hinted at and what he wanted from the beginning of his administration. you will recall that in the beginning of 2017 something called the south asia review. president trump was forced by his generals, namely secretary mattis at the time, who was the defense secretary, to increase the number of troops there to try to have a little more stability for the afghanistan government. and the president went along with that but begrudgingly. then they started to draw down. they announced that 14,000, it was down to 12,000. they didn't do that with much fanfare, announced it after the fact. and the backdrop to this has been peace with the taliban. you remember those collapsed in spectacular fashion about three