Sometimes, in politics, there are no good outcomes. Sometimes, the only choice is between bad alternatives. If you do X, ugly things will happen, and if you do Y, ugly things will happen. Whichever option you pick, commentators, affecting not to grasp the concept of the lesser evil, will point to those ugly things as evidence that you should have picked the other.
After the terrorist abominations in New York 20 years ago, there were no good outcomes. We can all see that invading Afghanistan and Iraq carried huge costs — civilian lives were lost, blood and treasure were dissipated, and American prestige suffered. We cannot say for sure what the costs would have been had the Bush administration sat tight, but let’s not pretend that they would have been zero.
Most people, of course, don’t like to admit this. The median voter switched from mildly deploring the continuing presence in Afghanistan to being shocked at the consequences of ending it. Perhaps, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Yet, at every stage, the West had to choose between unappetizing alternatives. Going into Afghanistan in the first place was one of a series of bad options. So was prolonging the mission there once al Qaeda had been removed. So was extending it to cover nation-building, education, female emancipation, and the rest. So was leaving.
President Joe Biden was not wrong to point out that, given the total collapse of the Afghan government, the choice was between the Taliban and a more or less permanent American garrison. Of course, that is not a knock-down argument: U.S. troops have been in South Korea since 1957. Still, I have been struck by how few presidential prospects for 2024 have been prepared to criticize the withdrawal in principle as opposed to the mode of its execution. The images from Kabul may be disturbing and shaming, but it does not follow that America has the stomach to police remote territories open-endedly.
What does it mean when the world’s greatest power ceases to act as an international policeman? It doesn’t mean that others step into the role. Britain responded to Biden’s decision by putting together an alternative coalition to hold the balance, but it was impossible without U.S. logistical support.
No, a world in which the U.S. is no longer prepared to act as a cop is a world without cops. It’s a world in which, when you dial 911, no one answers. It is not merely a world in which Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are emboldened — that had happened long before this latest debacle — but one in which every tinpot tyrant from Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega can do as he pleases.
“What are you going to do, Yanks? Impose economic sanctions? Ooh, stop, you’re scaring me!”
Perhaps it would have been better not to go into Afghanistan. Perhaps it would have been better to withdraw once al Qaeda had been crushed (broadly speaking, this is my own view). But, once the decision had been made to keep the Taliban out, America’s honor was on the line. To be defeated on live television after 20 years as the world watches is not the same as never having gone in in the first place.
For once, I’m going to quote that old shyster Richard Nixon. In 1970, he explained why he was authorizing what we would now call a “surge,” intended as a prelude to an orderly withdrawal from Vietnam:
“If, when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.”
Quite so. How do you imagine last week’s events look in neighboring countries? Will ambitious young Pakistani cadets want to train in the U.S. or in China? Will rising politicians there be honing their English or starting Mandarin classes?
You might shrug and say that the orientation of Pakistan is no more America’s business than the orientation of Afghanistan. If the Chinese have more access to Afghanistan’s copper, cobalt, and lithium deposits, you might continue. Good luck to them. And if they translate their rising wealth and power into the long-delayed conquest of democratic Taiwan, again, why should that be your problem?
But it is your problem. It’s everyone’s problem when freedom loses ground. Even before the Afghan fiasco, this column was fretting about the measurable global rise in authoritarianism since 2015, a process that has just accelerated dramatically. Our insouciance was an attitude bred by long decades of peace and plenty. We’ll regret it soon enough.
