I cannot understand the highlighted portion, although i know all the word meanin

If the Taliban had seized three provincial capitals in northern https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/09/world/afghanistan-live-updates a year ago, like they did on Sunday, the American response would most likely have been ferocious. Fighter jets and helicopter gunships would have responded in force, beating back the Islamist group or, at the very least, stalling its advance.

But these are different times. What aircraft the U.S. military could muster from hundreds of miles away struck a cache of weapons far from Kunduz, Taliqan or Sar-i-Pul, the https://www.nytimes.com/article/afghanistan-war-us.html.