After Afghanistan: A Reflection on American Foreign Policy One Year On Just over one year ago

Just over one year ago, the last of the American military departed Kabul, whisked away by military aircraft from the clutches of the Taliban to bases in the Middle East. For the first time in two decades, not even a token American presence remained in Afghanistan. In its wake, the United States left behind a fractured shell of a state, wracked by tribal conflict and threats of extremist violence and controlled by militants entirely unpracticed in governance.

The American departure from Afghanistan was a painfully poignant reminder of the intervention as a whole. Both were fundamentally undergirded by a desire to do good, seeking to help individuals threatened by extremism and in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Nevertheless, the evacuation was marred by painful loss, thirteen servicemen and -women killed in a suicide attack, and the innumerable Afghan civilians who died both in the attack and in desperate attempts to flee the country. Simultaneously, it saw the American acceptance of unlikely cooperation with the Taliban, an extreme iteration of early American cooperation with tribal militias and warlords who shared nothing in common but a desire to oust the Taliban. Unlike the intervention, however, the airlift was somewhat successful, rescuing 120,000 people.

In the days following the withdrawal, international rhetoric honed in on American weakness, especially considering the brisk collapse of the American-trained Afghan National Army and National Police. Russia and China conducted joint military drills in the Northern Pacific, a show of force and perceived slight toward American power.

However, international rhetoric was destined to have little concrete impact on American foreign policy. Indeed, Moscow and Beijing shared feelings of grave concern over the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. While the Putin regime had worked with the Taliban, the prospect of Afghanistan under Taliban control stoked the Kremlin's fears of Islamist terrorism. Behind closed doors, Kremlin officials fretted over the potential of Chechnyan militants receiving aid and support from Afghanistan. In Beijing's eyes, the seventy-four-kilometer-long Sino-Afghan border constituted a corridor by which Afghanistan might aid supporters of the East Turkestan Independence movement. China responded by militarizing the border and further curtailing civil liberties in Xinjiang, where it has already conducted a campaign of human rights violations against the Uighurs. Russia and China attempted to capitalize on a propaganda victory over the United States, yet, fundamentally, withdrawal had only created a less stable, more dangerous world for all.

In the year following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it has become entirely apparent the degree to which American foreign policy has become politicized and polarized. The isolationism-inflected politicization of the American intervention in Afghanistan and American foreign policy as a whole poses a threat to the United States and its allies on the world stage. Shortly following the Kabul Airlift, the Biden Administration and former President Trump spoke positively on the end of America's "longest forever war." President Biden took credit for overseeing the final exit of US forces, while former President Trump gloated about how he was responsible for the agreement that set a timetable for withdrawal—while omitting his choice to exclude the Afghan government from the plan. Generally, Americans welcomed the "end to forever wars." However, large segments of the national security establishment digressed substantially.

The intervention in Afghanistan was not, unto itself, wrong. Instead, the American intervention in Afghanistan was drawn off course by politicization, facilitated by those who most supported the conflict's end. Politizing the conflict shifted the focus dramatically away from its core humanitarian mission. Consequently, rather than reflecting on the situation on the ground, troop levels fluctuated in response to swings in the polls or anticipation of an election before rising again. Rigid timetables and objectives dismissed reality in-country, constraining commanders and advertising to the Taliban when best to launch a counter-offensive. In all, Afghanistan swung wildly from immense mission creep to incompetent rigidity, surrendering the flexibility uniquely available to the United States military and eminently necessary to fight a modern, asymmetric conflict against an irregular foe.

Tragically, Americans were too willing to ignore other realities of the intervention in Afghanistan, which, when incorporated into even the simplest of cost-benefit analyses, would have demonstrated a real benefit for the United States to remain engaged. In the last years of the American mission, advisors (political and military), instructors, and fire & air support coordinators composed the bulk of personnel in-country, enabling the Afghan National Army to operate as a modern force while massively reducing casualties. This minimal footprint kept humanitarian aid flowing into Afghanistan, keeping civilians fed, housed, and clothed. It raised literacy rates and education rates, and saw the emergence of Afghan middle and professional classes. It enabled Afghan girls and women to attend school, work, and have freedom of movement and autonomy in their personal lives. It guaranteed access to civil liberties and many benefits of modern society. However, politics betrayed those lives, putting opinion polling ahead of civil liberties, in turn disproportionately harming Afghanistan's most vulnerable.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan posed a grave threat to American credibility as an ally and a global power. Washington thus found itself at a crossroads of whether to pursue a foreign policy that put America first but left America alone and neglectful of allies and those in need, or an agenda aligned with a core commitment to the defense of liberty and justice on the world stage. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February catalyzed a swing toward a more multilateral, interventionist foreign policy approach that would not betray an ally but work tirelessly to help them. The United States, in collaboration with its allies, NATO, in particular, facilitated the delivery of large quantities of aid to support Ukraine in defending its sovereignty. Moreover, through global forums, specifically the United Nations, the United States effectively denounced Russian aggression and took concrete steps to isolate the Russian regime, implementing sweeping sanctions and driving divestment from Russia.

Ukraine presented a clear moral choice; there was a stark contrast between right and wrong. However, few conflicts are nearly as black and white as those that pit a violent, genocidal aggressor against a valiant defender of one's sovereignty and people. They will almost certainly lack the allied leadership with the charisma and generational heroism of a Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a truly Churchillian figure. While the United States has responded decisively in Ukraine, Washington has not taken action elsewhere, an oversight that has undoubtedly cost unquantifiable lives. The United States has done little to stop the Ethiopian Civil War, which threatens to lead to the death of millions by famine in Tigray. It has been slow to act in Yemen and unwilling to restrain Saudi Arabia, facilitating the prolonging of the conflict and humanitarian crisis there. In Southeast Asia, America has done next to nothing in support of the Rohingya, an ethnoreligious group persecuted by the Burmese government, neither providing humanitarian aid nor going further than an official condemnation of Myanmar's actions.

American foreign policy must be clear, committed, and values-driven. Fortunately, it has been bestowed with a long legacy of ideals-centered policy, and perhaps at its core might stand a commitment to the defense of Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Worship, Want, and Fear. The United States need not send the 82nd Airborne at a moment's notice to topple a government for censoring a journalist but must take concrete steps through the plethora of forums and pathways it has been central in developing precisely to defend core values of liberty and justice.

It is understandable to fret over realpolitik is understandable to fret over in the presence of a "values-driven" policy. However, realpolitik creates bad friends far more often than it does trustworthy allies. Saudi Arabia exemplifies this concept. Its horrible human rights record precedes it; Washington engages out of want for oil and a regional counterbalance to Iran. However, Washington has neglected to push for reform, to transform the Kingdom into more than an ally of convenience, creating a bloated regime wracked by immense nepotism and corruption, with a military that is strong on paper yet wilts under fire. Only when the United States can look inward and critically examine and overhaul its existing relationships will it be maximally effective.

Overall, America must hold to its defense of the four freedoms. Opposition journalists are suppressed across the Arab world, the Rohingya are forcibly displaced by the nature of their religion, the Uighurs are systematically "re-educated" and suffer egregious human rights offenses, refugees globally suffer from terrible, constantly worsening conditions, and millions worldwide fear for their lives and their children in the face of state-sanctioned violence, war, and ethnic cleansing. The United States has the resources and the imperative to dedicate itself to justice. Insofar as to whom much has been given, much is expected—should America sit idly by while others suffer, it forfeits its very essence, a nation conceived in defense of liberty and justice for all.