While being an explicit failure, the rapid disintegration of two decades of American military presence may not signal the decline of US overseas strategic support.
The ineffaceable images of the still-unfolding Afghan crisis have already left an indelible stain on US overseas credibility. Undoubtedly, the prevailing question in many diplomatic fora is one surrounding the integrity of US foreign policy promises, a notion already espoused by the Global Times, Beijing’s state-affiliated tabloid mouthpiece, drawing parallels between events in Kabul and warning Taiwan that a US military undergird could not be relied on to protect the island and its democracy.
President Biden may well, in perpetuity, bear history’s judgement for presiding ‘over a long-brewing, humiliating final act in the American experiment in Afghanistan.’, as penned by the New York Times. While the Biden administration’s credibility in Afghanistan has been truly decimated, the recent withdrawal of US force from the state may not reflect a deeper desire for international pullback.
In particular, US alliance commitments in the Pacific Rim are likely to remain strong in the wake of the Afghan fiasco. In effect, the broad relocation of US ordnance from the Middle East may elicit a strategic pivot to the Pacific, freeing up capital and capacity to better meet impending military challenges from the Eastern powers. Importantly, vested economic and geopolitical interests give much incentive to the retention of US strategic pre-eminence in the Pacific. US allies in Asia are germane to ‘upholding the prevailing regional order against Chinese challenges’, acting as a quasi-buttress against the Chinese economic steamroller – a major facet of the current Washington credo. This rather brutal, forthright question of national interest coupled with a shared accommodation of democratic tenets and liberal values by many of America’s strategic allies likely reduces the risk of US martial pullback.
In this regard, the contrast to Afghanistan is stark. Past conventional war in the aftermath of 9/11, US activity in Afghanistan centered around nation-building from scratch – the attempt to externally inject a stable political system in a nation suffering under the shadow of insurgency. While the sweeping advances of the Taliban and the ensuing establishment of an Islamic theocracy hardly present US resolve as an unshakeable bulwark to major insurgency and instability, clear differences exist in both the long-run and proximate situation in Afghanistan and other US security partners.
The long-running nickname of Afghanistan as the ‘graveyard of empires’ highlights a nation riddled with political instability, inter-group mistrust and corruption, features sparsely apparent in Asian-American partners including the Republic of Korea and Japan, who enjoy the largest concentration of US boots in the liberal international community. While the resolution, or lack thereof, of 20 years of US Afghan involvement is a rather hellish one, it is largely unsurprising, with Gil Barndollar, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities – a US foreign policy think-tank – noting the Afghan situation was ‘baked in’, with the domestic Afghan military’s control ‘unsustainable’.
However, regardless of whether geopolitical tremors and military fragility set up American failure in Kabul, short-run responsibility must fall on the nascent Biden administration. The capitulation of the domestic afghan military essentially resulted in the turnover of stockpiles of US armaments, with Taliban forces suddenly finding themselves flush with cost-free American gunmetal. Apparent political disregard of US intelligence, with officials in June noting ‘troubling trendlines in Afghanistan’ concluding that the Taliban could ‘overrun government forces within 90 days, or as soon as 30 days’ further point the proverbial finger towards the Biden administration.
While the short-term failings of President Biden in Afghanistan may not undermine broader US international security resolve in the eyes of many American allies, it is undeniable that American policy competence will be put under pressure. While a dramatic pivot in US foreign policy away from military intervention and support is unlikely in the face of Afghanistan, the belief that Washington can truly deliver in its policy initiatives has surely been shaken.
Sources:
Bearden, Milton. 2001. Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires. November. Accessed August 19, 2021. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2001-11-01/afghanistan-graveyard-empires.
Garrison, Joey, and Tom Vanden Brook. 2021. 'Nobody should be surprised': Why Afghan security forces crumbled so quickly to the Taliban. Accessed August 19, 2021. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/16/why-afghan-security-forces-crumbled-so-quickly-taliban/8149571002/.
Global Times. 2021. Afghan abandonment a lesson for Taiwan’s DPP: Global Times editorial. August 16. Accessed August 19, 2021. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1231636.shtml.
Larsen, Henrik. 2021. Misreading Afghan ethnic conflicts cost two decades and trillions of dollars. July 14. Accessed August 19, 2021. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/562961-misreading-afghan-ethnic-conflicts-cost-two-decades-and-trillions-of.
Roy, Denny. 2021. Afghanistan Fiasco Does Not Destroy US Credibility in Asia-Pacific. August 18. Accessed August 19, 2021. https://thediplomat.com/2021/08/afghanistan-fiasco-does-not-destroy-us-credibility-in-asia-pacific/.
Sanger, David. 2021. For Biden, images of defeat he wanted to avoid. August 15. Accessed August 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/15/us/politics/afghanistan-biden.html.
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