After nearly 20 years, it ended almost as many feared: with the swift collapse of the Afghan government and American troops flying away from the Kabul embassy reminiscent of the fall of Saigon. What was meant to be an orderly withdrawal became a hasty retreat where Americans that remain in the country having little guarantee of safe passage to the airport. The Taliban, which patiently fought us throughout the entire war, is now in control of nearly all of the country and few have any illusions that they won’t institute harsh sharia law. Many at home and abroad, including congressional Democrats, criticized the president after seeing the gruesome images of a failed evacuation on CNN. We will likely see more stories as the situation unfolds over the next month, but for now I want to offer my take on Afghanistan and what this means for this country.
I wrote my thoughts on the withdrawal from Afghanistan back in April supporting our withdrawal from the country given that the situation on the ground will not improve, especially with the unavoidable fact we were not going to hold Afghanistan with only 3,500 soldiers. I believe we went into Afghanistan for the right reasons initially - which was to avenge the deaths from 9/11 - though we bogged down for a mission we never prepared for. We then kicked the can down the road for nearly 20 years spending billions in aid that rarely went to the people, trained an army that wasn’t as large or effective as advertised, while losing inch after inch to the Taliban. In the end, Afghanistan outside of Kabul remained largely as it was before the invasion: poor, and dependent in growing opium for the heroin trade. I still support the withdrawal as I do believe our initial mission is complete but the expanded scope of our intervention was never going to succeed.
I don’t take pride in writing this as I know many veterans that have honorably served in the country who also know Afghans trying to escape the country. But the way we withdrew from Afghanistan shames their sacrifice and worsens a situation that was already bad within the country. With Vietnam, the withdrawal was orderly and provided the South Vietnamese government enough time and resources to keep fighting the Vietcong until the very end. In this episode, we’ve proved Marx’s point that history repeated is a farce as we abandoned Bagram airbase without informing the Afghans, taking away the Afghan armed forces’ ability to resupply leaving many to surrender, and failed to prepare for a quick evacuation when it became clear Kabul will fall within weeks or days. Now, the United States is wholly dependent on the goodwill of the Taliban, though Americans apparently cannot safely make their way to the airport. The withdrawal was always going to be messy at some level though its poor execution certainly can be placed in the hands of the Biden administration.
A Stain on the Biden Administration
When he ran for president, one of his main selling points that was touted was his years of experience. As recently as June, USA Today ran an op-ed by Rothkopf stating that Biden as president was the most experienced in foreign policy since George H.W. Bush. I will admit that I too thought that President Biden’s global background will be an asset as we move away from a pandemic focus and into a longer-term competition against China.
This past week shows how wrong we all were on Biden’s experience.
The full story will likely come out in bits and pieces in the months ahead, but from what we know for now the Biden administration, and the levels of bureaucracy in the foreign policy community, fully failed in its withdrawal. So far there appears to be three main failures that are showing. The first failure appears to be from intelligence as it overestimated the Afghan government’s ability to hold the Taliban back after we made a full withdrawal. Instead of holding for at least 18 months when the prediction was initially made in April, the country collapsed just a month before our official conclusion of the war. This was a failure that appears to be partially rectified by some within the State Department where they warned Secretary Blinken that the situation is deteriorating faster than anticipated, though the faulty analysis, and disregard for the warning, points to a deeper issue in fault: the failure of American foreign policy institutions.
American institutions have been decaying in competency for decades now, but its failures have been shown to light over these past few days. To begin, planning for a withdrawal took place two weeks after President Biden announced the withdrawal, and over a year since President Trump announced his deal with the Taliban. In the basement of the White House, it was decided to quickly evacuate the soldiers preventing any further casualties, though there was little talk on how to proceed in evacuating embassy personnel, translators and expats when Bagram Air Base was closed. This lack of initial planning at the top - both from the Trump and Biden administration until the very last minute - violates every rule in good leadership and sets up the withdrawal for failure.
Throughout the spring and summertime the State Department, despite frequent calls by congressman to ensure evacuation of Afghan translators, moved slowly to build any capacity for processing visas and ensuring the safe departure of American expats. This wasn’t helped by the Pentagon’s lack of a single list showing who worked with our soldiers, leaving many Afghan lives in suspense as the Taliban advanced closer to their homes. From what was reported in the New York Times it wasn’t until the very last minute that the Biden administration understood that the Taliban would sweep Kabul within days. At that point, the withdrawal became a mad rush to evacuate embassy personnel, though the communication sent to Americans was both contradictory and unhelpful as many sheltered in place, in fear for the fighters that were right outside their residences. All in all, our foreign policy institutions failed Americans and Afghans alike when it was needed the most, though the singular person that deserves most of the blame (at least so far) would be President Biden.
In a way, it is unfair to blame Biden for a withdrawal that was always going to be messy and I still believe he made the right decision in leaving. But his miscalculations and failures in planning the withdrawal were plain to see. Despite holding 36 NSC meetings on Afghanistan since April, he failed to ensure his staff planned for the worst in withdrawing from Kabul. He also failed to properly advise his European counterparts on the withdrawal leaving them scrambling to withdraw their own troops. Lastly, he holds full responsibility for his staffing of people who, while competent under fair conditions, need a strong leader at the top- leadership that Biden cannot provide. I find it shocking that even though Biden understood that Afghanistan was a growing quagmire, as well as the rhetoric of the need for alliances, he failed to ensure his team planned for any contingency or to consult our allies to ensure we leave together in concordance to our initial promise of “entering together, leaving together.”
It is ironic that while the Biden administration likes to highlight the contrast to the chaos of the Trump administration, the full withdrawal was very Trumpian in its execution further discrediting his administration after increasing pressure with COVID-19, passing the infrastructure bill and growing economic worries. I doubt this quagmire will leave any long-term harm to his approval ratings, though the Biden administration should never forget the failures of the past week.
What is America Going Back to?
It is very tempting to see this recent week as the beginning of the end of the “American empire.” The Russians and Chinese are certainly celebrating our blunder in evacuating from Kabul while our allies have been very open in criticizing our withdrawal. In fact, many self-proclaimed “internationalists” decry the departure with Bret Stephens even claiming, “every ally — Taiwan, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Israel, Japan — will draw the lesson that it is on its own.” Yet, it would be very foolish to see this blunder as the end of American credibility, or even the beginning of withdrawal from the world stage. Instead, some like Stephen Walt are seeing the United States focusing more on preserving our hard interests and in containing China’s rise instead of being distracted by nation-building. It is also noteworthy that some East Asian nations have been quietly supporting this move given that America can now focus on the Pacific and even build closer ties to India, now that it is no longer dependent on Pakistan for supporting the Afghan mission. Granted, there needs to be demonstrable proof of our commitment from our side, though if we are able to make this shift through our deeds, this can be a strategic victory for the United States.
That is not to say that Kabul will be seen as an isolated incident. Many, including noted author and IR thinker Bruno Macaes, are looking at this debacle with concern over the United States’ capabilities in defending its interests though they are not believing that American commitments overseas are now null-and-void. On one hand, this can be played to our advantage as nations realize they are primarily responsible for their own self-defense. We’re already seeing hints of this as Taiwan, whose armed forces are lagging behind China, is now publicly saying, “Taiwan’s only option is to make ourselves stronger, more united and more resolute in our determination to protect ourselves.” Yet there is also the risk that China will take the wrong lessons from Afghanistan and see this departure as a lack of American resolve. Propaganda celebrating America’s failure is one thing though the departure can cause Chinese strategists in underestimating American resolve in defending its Pacific interests or its allies. We do not know for certain if the Kabul quagmire will significantly change China’s calculus though many can safely point out that this decade will likely be more dangerous than the last.
For nearly seven months, we’ve heard President Biden utter the phrase, “America is back” highlighting the fact that America is going back to the level and type of engagement. In a way, President Biden is right: America is back but it is going back to the era before internationalism dominated our thinking in foreign policy. I will be writing about this further in my special series, but it’s noteworthy that despite our status as a global superpower everyday Americans never had the permanent desire to build a genuine empire in the form of Europeans both for moral and practical reasons. Americans by their nature are an insular people with foreign policy being a secondary concern compared to everyday economic issues or even cultural issues. True, we will accept an extended presence abroad, but only if it truly meets our interests for a safe and prosperous America, not because of some fantastical belief in democratic values.
Robert Murray in UnHerd argued that as Americans never had the strategic foresight and imperial desire to carve a genuine empire, our attempts in empire building will only end in failure, no matter how prolonged we draw out the war. Unfortunately, many in our foreign policy community is unable to fully understand that America is fundamentally a republic, not an empire. Ironically, by supporting costly interventions abroad, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, they have ensured their own demise as their aspirations can never be met by the limitations the American people set in place. Aeschylus once said that “in war, truth is the first casualty,” but it is only in our hasty departure that our delusions of empire became America’s last casualty.
The greatest tragedy is that it took us 20 years and needless loss of life for us to understand this lesson.
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On a Personal Note
I don’t pretend to know all of my readers but I know that some have served in the US Armed Forces with some probably doing at least one tour in Afghanistan. I fully understand that some of you have a lot of feelings towards what is happening and know that we value your sacrifice even if we couldn’t win this war. I highly encourage you to seek help if needed and if you are feeling a moment of crisis, please call 1-800-273-8255 or chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat. Please know you are not alone and you don’t have to go through this by yourself.
To those that know people who have served, I highly recommend that you reach out to them and make sure they are doing okay. Seeing a war being lost on TV is never easy but its even harder for those who were there to see their hard work being destroyed. Their sacrifice should never be forgotten or taken for granted and I recommend that when you reach out, let them talk about their experiences and if necessary, let them vent over what they’re seeing. Here is an article that I hope can be helpful when you make these conversations.