Biden needs to move in the right direction: away from Kabul

MONTREAL—U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan is actually long overdue. The withdrawal abides by the military principle of economy of force, allowing the scarce resources of the U.S. military to be re-assigned to more vital concerns, such as emerging threats in northeast Asia. It also follows the good business principle of not trying to endlessly recover lost sunk costs. In the age of ever more sophisticated drones, there is no longer permanent sanctuary in Afghanistan for any non-state actor, in any case. The plethora of arguments to stay in Afghanistan are highly predictable and follow a nearly identical template of arguments made at the end of the U.S. role in Vietnam War in 1972. These arguments consist of three assertions: the immoral abandonment of locally oppressed populations, a demonstration of weakness that will embolden adversaries, and conceding to hostile international forces. In fact, Biden’s courageous move harkens back to British Prime Minister William Gladstone, who made the same difficult decision to withdraw British commitments from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, following an ignominious defeat in 1885. In so doing, he abandoned the British governor, Gordon of China, to his death in Khartoum, despite almost universal condemnation by journalists on the basis of the four arguments made above. Newspapermen, who had never been to Africa, decried the oppression of the Sudanese people by the militant Islamist Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. Winston Churchill, who was in the Sudan, describes in his book, The River War, that the Mahdi and his successor were in fact dangerously popular, and any attempt to liberate the Sudanese would not be met peacefully. The idea that the U.S. departure from Afghanistan would demonstrate a lack of resolve to U.S. adversaries is flawed. The U.S. departure from Vietnam enhanced U.S. deterrence in Europe and East Asia, and we should expect that the departure from Afghanistan is a good signal to China and Russia of the U.S.’s increased freedom to act elsewhere. The final assertion, that the withdrawal from Afghanistan would embolden militant global Islamists, is also not convincing, because of the overwhelming evidence that these groups are primarily responding to local conditions. This is an old argument. The 19th Century British Raj in India sought constantly to make links between Arabian Wahhabists and Islamic political movements in South Asia, without success. This old presumption was absurdly resurrected to somehow link Saddam Hussein, Iran, and Osama bin Laden, and justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The cohesion and cooperation among the assortment of state and non-state Islamist actors in South Asia is persistently low. Afghan Pashtun do not trust Pakistanis, let alone the Iranians or the Saudis. The Pashtuns of Afghanistan, Punjabis and Persians mistrust the Muhajirs of Pakistan, an influential group whose philosophy of pan-Islamic resurgence is a far greater threat to Western interests than Iran, the Taliban, and Pakistan combined. Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan, a Muhajir, was caught trading nuclear secrets to Iran, because the Iranians betrayed him to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and the Pashtun and Punjabis elite that dominate Pakistan were hostile to his interaction with Iran. Historically, Republican efforts to politically humiliate sitting Democratic presidents, who for the most part are reputationally weak on foreign policy, tend to force precipitous and collectively irresponsible policy outcomes. Pressures against Franklin Roosevelt’s aid to Great Britain prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; against Harry Truman’s conduct of the Korean War; threats of impeachment against John F. Kennedy immediately after the 1961 Bay of Pigs; in the event of Soviet missiles in Cuba; criticism of Lyndon Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam War; of Jimmy Carter’s need to quickly resolve the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis; and of Bill Clinton’s 1993 Somalia debacle, are all examples of important foreign policy initiatives being distorted by partisan politics. More recently, the Republican-led extreme adversity to a single terror event on U.S. soil compelled Barack Obama to a questionable extension of the War on Terror. With the emergence of China as a peer competitor, Joseph Biden needs to focus above the tactics of politics, and reduce commitments to Afghanistan. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University, the director of the Canadian Centre for Strategic Studies, and a former operations officer in 3 Field Engineer Regiment. He has published extensively on South Asia, conducting research in Pakistan for over 10 years, with senior military, political, diplomatic, intelligence, and police leaders, from three of the four provinces and Kashmir, complemented by contracts at Fort Leavenworth and Coronado Island, and written extensively on the topic of Pakistan-Afghan relations. The Hill Times

Biden needs to move in the right direction: away from Kabul

Three arguments typically made against withdrawing military forces can be easily picked apart.

The West’s neglect of Latin American interests will lose them as allies

Washington needs Canada to be a better ally like Australia

Ottawa correctly staking a moral claim for the integrity of Ukraine

The West’s neglect of Latin American interests will lose them as allies

Canada needs a modern, national health data architecture

To address online harms, Canada must commit to digital media literacy

A cure for multiple sclerosis could be just around the corner

Renewable energy is the way to go, says letter writer

Supporting local broadcasters is critical for our democracy

China’s growing coalition of revisionist allies

Chinese hypersonic missiles make no difference to the strategic nuclear balance

Climate change will also impact Canada’s traditional security interests

The wrong choice of regime in Kabul

China threatens to end the nuclear non-proliferation treaty

News

Get free news updates

Opinion

Submit a guest opinion article

resources

Advertise

subscribe

get help

Biden needs to move in the right direction: away from Kabul

Three arguments typically made against withdrawing military forces can be easily picked apart.

Get The Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Newsletter