Isolationism is Naivety
The withdrawal out of Afghanistan is the product of childish isolationism run rampant.
Welcome back to The Burnett Breakdown. If you missed my first response to the events unfolding in Afghanistan then you can read it here. Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss a new post!
Isolationism
If you read the last newsletter, then you know I focused most of my ire over the situation in Afghanistan on President Biden. While I did not originally intend to solely focus on President Biden’s response, he continued to earn the criticism by mounting more poor responses on top of one another and the situation continued to deteriorate. While I stand by all of those criticisms and could almost certainly think of more, I am going to set aside President Biden’s handling of Afghanistan and focus on the broader push to withdraw from Afghanistan.
While President Biden is the one executing (albeit incredibly poorly) the withdrawal, the American public writ large has been in favor of decreasing the American presence in Afghanistan for a while now. This is why the last three Presidents have all alluded to their desire to "end forever wars.” Considering those three Presidents have consisted of two Democrats and a Republican, this attitude appeared to cross the aisle and be a bipartisan sentiment.
While Republicans have been taking advantage of President Biden’s fumbling of withdrawal, many of them were on board with then-President Trump’s deal with the Taliban and drawdown of the number of troops in Afghanistan after 2018. This move away from support for the war in Afghanistan within conservative circles flew in the face of the prevailing conservative orthodoxy of the last few decades. However, this attitude is not without precedent as it is part of a larger strand of isolationism in American history and the conservative movement. Whether it was a push to stay out of World War I and World War II or passionate opposition to the Vietnam War, there is a long history of isolationism in this country.
By isolationism, I mean the idea that the best foreign policy that the United States can have is to keep the affairs of other countries at a distance. It is to stay out of other countries business and focus on the business within our own borders as much as possible. Very often it manifests itself in a statement like, “Why are we so focused on the problems in XYZ country when we have our own problems to focus on?”
Isolationism is by no means unique to America; however, it is more appealing to many Americans for a variety of reasons. For starters, our geography has provided us with the luxury of being separated by huge oceans from other great powers in the world. Whether it was Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, our enemies could not easily march an army across our border.
Furthermore, the isolationism sentiment goes right along with the American independent ethos. Our country was founded with the fundamental belief that government should be limited and localized in order to allow individuals the freedom to pursue happiness. Isolationism is essentially this idea carried into the foreign policy arena. We should limit our power and scope in other countries to allow those citizens to pursue their happiness. While I understand this sentiment, I also believe that this idea is hopelessly naive and rather utopian. I don’t think that the United States can simply stay within its borders and mind its own business.
I say all of this because, while I absolutely believe President Biden deserves the vast swath of blame for how the withdrawal from Afghanistan happened, I also blame the isolationist beliefs that have gained traction among the American public. It was this isolationist tendency that drove Barack Obama to set a timetable to leave the country, Donald Trump to sign an abysmal deal with the Taliban, and ultimately President Biden to oversee the calamitous failure that we have seen the last few weeks. You can tell me that I’m a neocon, warmonger, Warhawk, nation-builder, in favor of “forever wars,” or whatever slur you like but I’m convinced that withdrawal from Afghanistan was the wrong decision. America had a moral responsibility to the people in Afghanistan and a national security interest in maintaining a presence in the country.
America’s Moral Responsibility
I know that as soon as I say that America has a moral responsibility to the people of Afghanistan there are many people that roll their eyes at such a notion. The suggestion is typically met with a cascade of objections: “America can’t be the world police,” “bad things happen all over the world all of the time,” “we need to focus on our problems here before we worry about problems elsewhere,” etc. Sometimes the responses blame the Afghan people themselves for “needing to help themselves” or not being “open to a democratic way of life.” Either these types of responses are indicative of a misunderstanding of the people of Afghanistan or a callousness that has no place in America.
I want to make clear that I am making a distinction between the Afghan people and the Taliban. While I am no expert in the internal workings of power in Afghanistan, I know that the Taliban were essentially the ruling power of Afghanistan prior to 9/11 and the United States’ subsequent invasion. During their reign, the Taliban provided a safe harbor for and worked with al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I do not claim to know the level of support that the Taliban and al-Qaeda had among the broader Afghan people but anything approaching universal approval is unlikely. In other words, Afghanistan consisted (and still consists) of two distinct camps: those who are enemies of the United States and those who are not.
When the attacks on 9/11 happened and almost 3,000 Americans were killed, the United States had no choice but to defend itself. After the Taliban refused to hand al-Qaeda over to the United States, the U. S. toppled the regime and scattered al-Qaeda members. This is where the accusations of nation-building begin to kick in with people saying that we should have left immediately after that. Putting aside the clear hindsight is 20/20 nature of this and the security concerns that still existed, the United States had created a power vacuum in Afghanistan with no governing entity ruling the country. The only thing preventing Afghanistan from descending into utter anarchy was the American presence.
The Americans were absolutely right to create that power vacuum considering the previous rulers were enemies of the United States who had just harbored those that killed 3,000 Americans. However, it would not have been right for the Americans to create that power vacuum, leave the country, and send the country into chaos for the many Afghans that were not enemies. Thus, the United States essentially had three options: rule as colonizers, allow an Afghan power struggle to play out or attempt to establish an Afghan democratic government. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the United States chose the option that most aligned with its values.
This is usually when the argument is made that attempting to turn Afghanistan into a democratic nation was a fool’s errand because Afghan culture is incompatible with democracy. I don’t understand how this claim can carry any weight when one considers other cultures that have adopted democracy in spite of their cultures that were resistant. Japan, South Korea, and Germany all possessed cultures that were not conducive to democracy, and yet they are all stable, function democracies today. The idea that Afghanistan could not become a democracy because its culture would not allow it is a theory that flies in the face of all available historical evidence.
While setting up an Afghan democratic government may be great in theory, the cost to the American people and the actual results on the ground in Afghanistan are important considerations. Due to different cost-benefit analyses, people can reasonably disagree whether the results in Afghanistan were worth the time, resources, and lives put into it. Unless one believes that one dollar, minute, or life spent on another country is too much, I believe the benefits to Afghanistan far outweigh the costs to the United States.
First, the most important cost that Americans have incurred in Afghanistan is the lives lost. These Americans were spouses, parents, children, friends, and citizens that leave behind many loved ones. The “cost” of each life lost is impossible to calculate and such an attempt is in no way meant to minimize the tragedy of their death. With that said, roughly 2,500 American service members lost their lives in the 20 years that America was in Afghanistan. That means almost 500 fewer American service members lost their lives in Afghanistan than died in the September 11 attacks that started the war.
When these deaths occurred is an important factor as well. As the chart below demonstrates, the bulk of American forces killed was during the surge under the Obama administration with recent years experiencing much fewer American deaths. This was due to the drawdown in American troops in the country as the Afghan government did most of the fighting while using American support and intelligence.
This chart also dispels the notion that the Afghans were not willing to fight off the Taliban. The Afghan forces experienced tens of thousands of losses in their fight to maintain their government throughout the years, taking on more of the fighting recently. The quick takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban is better explained by America’s undermining of the Afghan government with the Taliban peace deal and withdrawal of the support in which the Afghans were trained to use in their fight.
The amount of money spent in Afghanistan needs to also be taken into account as well. A frequently cited study from Brown University calculated that $300 million a day was spent on the war in Afghanistan. This number out of context seems outrageously high but put it within the context of daily government spending and it’s more reasonable. The federal budget for the fiscal year 2021 was $4.829 trillion. Averaged out for the 365 days in a year and the government spends roughly $13.2 billion per day. In other words, just over 2% of the federal government’s daily budget was spent on the war in Afghanistan.
An argument can be made that the government should not be spending any money on other countries while the deficit is as out of control as it is. However, the way to address the out-of-control deficit is to address the 2/3 of the federal budget that is mandatory spending going toward Medicare and Medicaid. Plus, this assumes that the government would redirect the money spent on Afghanistan to pay off its debts, not on some other ineffective social program. More likely, the government would merely find another way to waste $300 million a day.
With the costs in mind, they are all pointless if the results on the ground in Afghanistan were nonexistent. Fortunately, that was not the case. I will let Jonathan Rauch summarize the improved situation of the Afghan people because of the United States involvement in the country. Rauch wrote,
“As for the Afghans, they assuredly suffered in the war, but they suffered more under Taliban rule. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution figures that the war may have cost 400,000 Afghan lives over the past 20 years, but he guesstimates that U.S. activities there saved a million or more lives, a significant net positive.
Consider: Infant mortality dropped by half during the U.S. operation. Life expectancy improved by six years. Electricity consumption, a key quality of life indicator, increased by a factor of 10. Years in school increased by at least three years for men and four for women. University graduates rose from under 31,000 to almost 200,000. (Those and other indicators are available at the Brookings Afghanistan index.)”
In other words, life was significantly better for many Afghans with the United States there then when the Taliban was in control. There was absolutely still work to be done in Afghanistan and progress to be made, but the gains were substantial. Again, my cost-benefit-analyses may be different than other people but substantially improving the lives of Afghans with the costs to the American people being what I discussed above seems worth it.
America’s National Security
I know that there are still some that are not swayed by the moral responsibility that the United States had to the people of Afghanistan. Regardless of the moral responsibility, the United States had a national security interest in maintaining a presence in Afghanistan. Let’s not forget that the reason the United States invaded Afghanistan was because al-Qaeda executed an attack that killed almost 3,000 Americans on our own soil. al-Qaeda was able to successfully carry out the September 11 attacks because it had a safe place to plan and train under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. With the United States leaving, al-Qaeda will likely have Afghanistan again to train and plan for another attack on the United States.
As Thomas Joscelyn wrote a week or two ago, the Taliban still has a close partnership with al-Qaeda. This is despite the assurances made by Mike Pompeo when he was Secretary of State that the Taliban would fight al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It was always naive to believe that the Taliban has changed at all over the last few decades. They are a committed group of ideologues who think in terms of generations, not in 4-year election cycles like the United States. Establising and supporting a democratic Afghan government was in the interest of the United States because it kept the Taliban, and thus al-Qaeda, out of power.
The national security success of this endeavor is obviously seen in the reality that there has not been another 9/11 type of attack on the United States in the last two decades. One of the main reasons this was true is because al-Qaeda’s primary mission changed from attacking the United States to winning the war in Afghanistan. With al-Qaeda’s attention turned away from the United States homeland, Americans were safer at home. With American withdrawal, al-Qaeda, under the safe haven of Taliban rule, can turn their attention back towards successfully planning and executing attacks on America.
I’m not saying that America is essentially in the same position that it was pre-9/11. Counterterrorism security has significantly improved and more resources are devoted towards preventing such attacks. Also, America’s understanding of Islamic extremists and the dangers it presents has enhanced its ability to keep the homeland safe. However, it is a gamble for America to bank on its counterterrorism alone being competent enough to prevent future attacks.
This is particularly true with Afghanistan becoming a safe zone once again for al-Qaeda. Without having the constant worry of being discovered and killed, al-Qaeda has the time and space to think of creative ways to get around America’s counterterrorism security. It is hopelessly naive to expect al-Qaeda to be incapable of being clever enough to plan and execute a murderous plot unbeknownst to the intelligence community. Remember, these are the same people who turned commercial airliners into missiles by flying them into buildings. By keeping troops in Afghanistan, America could have kept al-Qaeda constantly on the move making planning and training for a cleverly crafted attack on the American homeland significantly harder.
I am aware that President Biden, among others, has assured Americans that the United States has “over-the-horizon” counterterrorist capacities to keep an eye on terrorism in Afghanistan. Essentially this means that through the use of satellites, drones, and other instruments located in the region, the United States can keep al-Qaeda in check and America safe without needing boots on the ground. While I am sure that the United States does have remarkable “over-the-horizon” capabilities, the idea that those capabilities are on par with troops in the country is absurd. In addition, using North Korea as an example (albeit I acknowledge a different situation), U. S. intelligence is typically sparse from countries with zero U. S. presence. Remember when everyone was unsure whether Kim Jong Un was even alive? This decreased intelligence from Afghanistan is detrimental to the counterterror security that the U. S. is now relying more heavily upon.
This is to say nothing of how withdrawing from Afghanistan puts America in a worse position to deal with other foreign adversaries like China and Russia. Though it is not the end all be all, I’m sure having a military presence and base in a country that literally borders China would have been useful in the case of Chinese aggression. I understand that withdrawing from Afghanistan doesn’t mean the United States is left without troops anywhere in the region, but I don’t see the geopolitical downside of maintaining that presence in Afghanistan.
In fact, the withdrawal from Afghanistan could very likely encourage aggression from our foreign adversaries as they look to exploit what appears to be American weakness. What’s stopping China from advancing on Taiwan or Russia advancing into Ukraine? If the United States didn’t have the willpower to continue to defend itself against a group that killed 3,000 of its own citizens, then why would it have the willpower to defend either Taiwan or Ukraine? Whether the United States is genuinely weaker or not, even the appearance of weakness can lead to the provocation of foreign adversaries that could force the United States into another conflict.
Which brings me to my last point: the damage done to America’s standing in the eyes of its allies could have serious national security consequences. The United States was unwilling to stand by the Afghan people in the fight against the Taliban but the Taiwanese are certain that America will stand by them? I don’t think so. Allies like Britain will be quick to come to America’s defense in the case of conflict after America made their sacrifices in Afghanistan all for naught? I don’t think so. Americans like to think that we can do it all by ourselves, but the reality is that we need our allies across the world. They provide international stability to regions around the world and allow us to have our own presence via bases and/or airspace permission. Damage to these ally relationships make Americans less safe whether they want to admit it or not.
Childish Dreaming
Again, President Biden may have been the president to execute the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan but the American public had been in favor of it. Platitudes such as “bring the troops home” and “end the forever wars” sound great but are ultimately empty. They stem from childish naivety that if America just minds its own business then it won’t have any enemies. As evidence from Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and al-Qaeda’s attack on 9/11, the United States cannot afford to put its head in the sand and ignore the affairs of other countries. When it does, the affairs of other countries are forced upon the United States and American citizens are often killed in the process.
Yes, the pullout from Afghanistan was disastrously executed. Yes, the deal that Trump made with the Taliban was disastrously designed. Yes, withdrawing from Afghanistan was/is what the American people wanted. President Biden and other progressives are banking on that remaining true into the future and not hurting them in future election cycles. It is on conservatives to rediscover their hawkish roots and call out isolationist tendencies for the childish dreaming that they are.