Biden’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan Undermines His Own Global Strategy

by Richard Kemp, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  May 2, 2021 at 5:00 am

• Far worse than failing to intervene is intervening to fail. The withdrawal from Afghanistan is just that.
• US allies who have themselves invested huge military and economic resources in Afghanistan fear a Taliban return to power and the blood-bath that would likely accompany it. Their concerns are shared by General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US CENTCOM, responsible for Afghanistan, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that Afghanistan’s forces might well collapse following US withdrawal.
• Jihadists everywhere would be encouraged and empowered by a perceived US defeat at the hands of the Taliban, which was being trumpeted by Al Qaida within days of Biden’s announcement.
• Biden justified his withdrawal with the need to counter challenges from China and Russia and strengthen democratic allies and partners against autocracy. His actions are likely to have the reverse effect.
• The abandonment of Afghanistan will long be remembered by countries around the world as they weigh their choices between the US and authoritarian regimes. Already Saudi Arabia has recognised that Biden will not protect them from Iran….
• Chinese President Xi Jinping says Taiwan must and will be “unified” with China, by force if necessary…. Xi will be… count[ing] the potential cost of moving against the country that he considers his own.
• As Russian forces massed along the border with Ukraine last month, Xi will also have noticed that Biden cancelled a planned transit of the Black Sea by two US warships after Russia told Washington to stay away….
• Like a kettle of vultures, Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia will all be circling the Afghan carcass following US withdrawal. Iran, which has long provided weapons, funding and safe haven to the Taliban, has been building its influence with them in recent months. Russia has also helped fund and arm the Taliban — sometimes in collaboration with Iran — to kill Afghan, US and NATO forces in order to challenge the US and increase its own influence in the country.
• China too has been cooperating with the Taliban…. It also sees influence in Afghanistan as a means to confront New Delhi. Beijing knows that India, as a US ally and democracy, is the only regional power that could play a genuinely constructive role in a future Afghanistan. Xi is not willing to see that happen.
• Pakistan, in cahoots with China, is also determined to keep India out of Afghanistan. Its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate created the Taliban and today remains by far the greatest external backer of its campaign against Afghan and international forces. Islamabad sees the country as vital strategic depth in a future conflict with India and intends to hold sway over a future Taliban regime in Kabul.
• The truth is this is a forever war only in the rhetoric of those who support surrender to the Taliban. The last US combat death there was over a year ago.
• The net strategic effect of Biden’s unconditional withdrawal is shaping up to be the opposite of what his national security strategy seeks to achieve: diminished confidence among allies, increased boldness among adversaries, the vital strategic territory of Afghanistan ceded to anti-democratic autocracies, a destabilised region containing two nuclear powers with associated proliferation risks, a spiralling of the global jihadist threat and massive population displacement.

Jihadists everywhere would be encouraged and empowered by a perceived US defeat at the hands of the Taliban, which was being trumpeted by Al Qaida within days of Biden’s withdrawal announcement. Pictured: Security personnel and local residents gather on May 1, 2021 at the site of a car bombing where, in the attack the previous day, at least 24 people were killed and 110 wounded, in Logar province, Afghanistan. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)<
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US President Joe Biden’s unconditional withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by September this year has potentially grave and dangerous consequences far wider than that embattled country and is set to undermine the national security strategy he proudly unveiled only days before announcing his pull-out.

In 1982, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, head of the Royal Navy, told Margaret Thatcher that if Britain didn’t retake the Falkland Islands when Argentina invaded, “in another few months we shall be living in another country whose word counts for little”. He knew that failure to resist a dictator who seized sovereign territory by force would be a green light to such aggression everywhere. The same calculation underpinned President George H. W. Bush’s decision to unleash one of the most powerful armies in history following Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

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