"American power" after Afghanistan
After the disastrous war in Afghanistan comes to an end in an almost criminal way, many would have you believe the world will end unless America goes back to stay forever.
America’s military disaster in Afghanistan is the emblematic tragedy of our time. Afghanistan finds itself torn apart by domestic and international conflicts since the 1973 communist coup led by Mohammed Daoud Khan which saw the overthrow of his cousin Zahir Shah’s regime, and which would ultimately result in Daoud’s assassination and a bloody civil war. The nation and its peoples have had to suffer a radical communist regime, a Soviet invasion, a civil war, a radical Islamist regime, an American invasion, a brutal insurgency, and now finally face the return of the radical Islamists all in just under five decades.
In simpler words, life has been dreadful for many in Afghanistan.
On Monday, 16th August, US President Joe Biden spoke from the White House following the total collapse of the Afghan government the day prior. While Biden’s remarks were filled with a lot of brutal truths, like the fact that another 5 or 20 years of American presence wouldn’t have saved Afghanistan from the Taliban, the President made an absolutely ludicrous claim: “We planned for every contingency.”
No, they didn’t. Well, either that or literally no one thought that getting our allies, interpreters, guides, contractors, US nationals, human rights activists, women’s rights activists, Afghan government officials and Afghan soldiers out of the country might be a good idea before the Taliban entered Kabul. It’s true that American allies in the nation aren’t the only ones who will suffer the Taliban regime, millions will, but the difference between helping someone and no one is everything. Better save one life than none at all.
It’s also true that US and coalition forces helped secure Hamid Karzai International Airport on Tuesday in an effort to get allies out. But did it really have to be like this? No. America’s withdrawal decision was announced on April 14th, there was enough time to do it in an orderly fashion. How many will get left behind? How many have already been killed by the Taliban?
This utter disaster has been seized on by some to argue against leaving Afghanistan altogether, like famous war monger John Bolton did on CNN last Tuesday, instead claiming that the US should stay indefinitely in the country as an “insurance policy” against further terrorist attacks. Others, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, seemed to imply in UnHerd that the US will now appear weak before its allies, or that China and Russia should no longer hold back from doing whatever they please because America won’t fulfill its commitments. Bill Roggio of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies went on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to state that Taiwan should be worried because America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is proof that the US may not stand up to China should they seek to invade it.
This is an infantilization of the mindset of the world’s nations. China, Russia, and the rest aren’t little kids watching the US leave Afghanistan on Sunday and thinking to themselves “Oh wow, maybe we can get away with anything”. China and Russia didn’t suddenly realize that the US had failed in Afghanistan this week, they’ve known for a decade. All of America’s allies and enemies have known this was coming or was going to happen at some point.
Afghanistan is not Taiwan, it isn’t Europe either, how on Earth could anyone think you can equate the two scenarios? This is the exact mindset that resulted in American war planners thinking Afghanistan was the same as Yugoslavia and therefore needed to be treated in the same manner or risk having it splinter into 12 different countries. Heck, if anything now America has freed its military from the trap that is Afghanistan. Any thinking person could easily figure out that it’s best to attack someone when they’re distracted with something else. America’s armed forces have freed themselves from one such distraction.
America’s position of power in the world isn’t in some sort of cataclysmic risk because of this withdrawal, it’s at risk because of how inconsistent foreign policy has been for the past 20 years. China has been playing a different game, capturing allies and loyalty through infrastructure developments and investment in other nations, America has dragged behind.
One can wonder whether it’s good or bad for the people of the world to have the US playing the grand strategy game against China, but we can be sure that China won’t be the first to quit.
In short, don’t believe the fancy horror tales about America’s decline being told to justify an endless presence in Afghanistan, the US’s reputation depends far more on the way they left, than the fact that they left.
Luis Gonzalez is a lawyer from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Caracas, Venezuela) currently working in private practice and is founder and co-editor of The Explorer. You can find him on Twitter at @lagm96.
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