In Afghanistan, the United States won a short war but lost an impossible peace. And a better peace is the only reason for going to war in the first place.
Yet America’s engagement there continues, without any clarity on why.
On Feb. 3, 2021, the congressionally mandated Afghanistan Study Group released a report that, among other things, called for the U.S. to extend the May 1, 2021, date set by the Trump administration for the withdrawal of all troops. Such a “complete” withdrawal, the report states, should not be based “on an inflexible timeline but on all parties fulfilling their commitments, including the Taliban making good on its promises to contain terrorist groups and reduce violence against the Afghan people, and making compromises to achieve a political settlement.”
The U.S. has been involved in Afghanistan for two decades. And despite the optimistic tone of the report, many Americans wonder what exactly we have accomplished there. I supported the original foray into Afghanistan as a strategic response based on U.S. interests, the intent of which was to deny sanctuary to terrorists bent on attacking the homeland. Although we achieved early success by working with Afghan tribesmen to rout the Taliban, we failed to follow through at Tora Bora, permitting the Taliban to regroup. The result has been a seemingly endless conflict.
In addition to the failure to effect a military defeat of the Taliban, two other factors have contributed to the stalemate in Afghanistan: first, the shift to Iraq, which diverted resources from the Afghan effort; and second, adopting the goal of spreading democracy to Afghanistan, a fool’s errand in light of its tribal structure. The fact is that despite our best efforts, the Afghan government remains illegitimate in the eyes of the Afghans, and the current constitution reinforces instability, something that we can’t repair.
It should be noted that the reasons given for remaining in Afghanistan are based more on “moral” considerations than on strategic ones. We are warned that a precipitous withdrawal would be a betrayal of our allies, both the Afghans and NATO, and that withdrawal means abandonment of our commitment to expanding democracy.
The Afghanistan Study Group report misconstrues the purpose of American power, which is to secure the American republic, protect its liberty, and facilitate the prosperity of its people. It is not to act in the interest of others, the “international community,” international institutions, or the like but in the nation’s interest. It is not to create a “global good,” including the spread of democracy. Our resources are finite, and good strategy requires prioritizing them.
As far as allies are concerned, they are a means to an end, achieving our own interests, not an end in itself. It is a tenet of prudent realism to realize that alliances tend to shift as strategic circumstances change. As Lord Palmerston said in a speech to the House of Commons in 1848, England has “no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests alone are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
As Palmerston’s observation suggests, the main consideration in the Afghan case, as well as in all other foreign policy decisions, should be strategic, and strategy must balance costs and benefits as well as risks. For a strategy to be of any real use, it must be more than aspirational: The goal must be achievable, cost-effective, and of benefit to the United States.
This is where the distinction between the moral case and the strategic case comes in. The report posits an aspirational goal that is not likely to be achieved: the emergence of an “independent, democratic, and sovereign Afghan state with the governance, stability, and security forces to prevent al-Qaeda … and other terrorist groups from attacking the United States and its allies and to contain other potential challenges to U.S. and allied security and interests, including those associated with illicit narcotics.”
In view of changing geopolitical circumstances, strategic sobriety and prudence would suggest that the U.S. curtail its involvement in Afghanistan. Our interests lie elsewhere. Our energy revolution, especially hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling (“fracking”), has decreased the strategic importance for us of the Greater Middle East — unless that revolution is undone by the Biden administration. Our strategic focus is now the Indo-Pacific.
In the 19th century, Afghanistan was the arena of the “great game” between Britain and Russia. The former absorbed many setbacks there in order to maintain the area as a buffer against a Russian threat to India, the crown jewel of the British Empire. Our “great game” is with China, and the main areas of confrontation in that struggle are the littoral areas of the Indo-Pacific, not the expanses of Southwest Asia.
There is an economic concept that also applies to foreign policy: the “sunk cost” fallacy. When making a decision about allocating resources in the future, an organization often decides, irrationally, to continue with an unpromising project because of the substantial investments it has already made. This fallacy applies in spades to Afghanistan.
Mackubin Owens, a retired professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, is currently a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
