Afghanistan and America's Credibility
America's rushed exit from Afghanistan and the rise (once again) of the Taliban to power has raised a fascinating academic and policy debate: Have these events degraded the credibility of the U.S.?
Those who argue in the affirmative (a motley crew that includes hawks and political opponents in the U.S. and self-interested actors and opportunists abroad)—that America's credibility has taken a hit—claim that by leaving Afghan civilians and the government in Kabul behind, and therefore vulnerable to the brutality of Taliban and other militant groups, the White House has elevated the possibility that foreign nations and groups worldwide now wonder if the U.S. is willing to defend its commitments to them.
Is this a cogent argument? There is some evidence in support of it. Already, a few European leaders have expressed concern about America's withdrawal, fearing that it portends that Biden is maintaining Donald Trump's America First policies and that Biden’s "America is back" mantra is effectively meaningless. The EU despises Trump and especially his nationalistic foreign policy, seeing both as selfish, retrogressive, and harmful to European security. On America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, German CDU head Armin Laschet (the likely successor to Angela Merkel) said, “It is the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we're standing before an epochal change.” Similarly, on the same topic, E.U. foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell Fontelles calls it “a catastrophe for the Afghan people, for Western values and credibility and for the developing of international relations.”
As Ronald R. Krebs and Jennifer Spindel write in The Monkey Cage (a WaPo blog), America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the prospect of Taliban rule have triggered serious concerns about Afghanistan (human rights, political stability, refugees, political stability, regional security, etc.), but America probably doesn’t have a credibility crisis. I agree. I find the alarm over U.S. credibility quite overheated and divorced from existing empirical data.
First, we already have an empirical case study—the Vietnam War—that shows how a tumultuous exit from a war affected U.S. credibility: In short, it didn’t. U.S. credibility wasn’t significantly damaged as a result of messily getting out of Vietnam nor losing the war. After Vietnam, the Soviets were more willing to challenge the U.S. in the “periphery,” in the developing world, though those efforts either didn’t amount to much or simply backfired. Indeed, the major response by Moscow, an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, led to a decade-long quagmire. Interestingly, the Soviets didn’t seek to take advantage of America’s Vietnam imbroglio by challenging Washington on its core interests. Why? The answer is because the Kremlin correctly figured out that what happened in Vietnam had nothing to do with how the U.S. would probably act on other issues, in other areas of the world. I suspect will see a similar response from today’s world powers, Russia and China, to America’s Afghanistan mess: increased pressure in the periphery, but no significant challenges to U.S. core interests.
Second, the Europeans have strong incentives to complain to and about the U.S. They don’t want the U.S. to scale back its interests. They want America to continue to be a global cop that provides free protection for its friends and allies around the world, a so-called “security umbrella,” which allows then to them free ride on American efforts/resources and ignore and downplay local security threats and problems. Protesting the exit from Afghanistan is a not so subtle way for the Europeans to tell Biden that they don’t want the U.S. to even think about reducing its support and commitment to EU/NATO members.
Third, it’s very likely that the Europeans don’t entirely believe their claims about the U.S. In other words, it’s doubtful that they see U.S. moves in Afghanistan as a proxy for how it might behave when/if their security is on the line. Why? Well, the bulk of the scholarly empirical evidence tells us so. The IR literature suggests credibility is a function of state power and interests. In short, a state’s commitments—its promises to do something—are viewed as credible if they are connected to that state’s core national security interests and if it has the military and economic power to enforce them.
Most of the world, most of the time, views America’s ability to enforce its commitments as fairly credible. The U.S., as the world’s leading economic and military power, has the capacity to project its power around the globe quickly and ferociously. (Of course, though, should U.S. power decline in the future, then questions about America’s enforcement capabilities will inevitably surface. And that’s something to watch, given China’s seemingly inexorably rise.)
Nowadays, the more significant debate about U.S. credibility centers on American national interests. At bottom, the U.S. has the power to uphold its commitments, but it might not necessarily be willing to do so, because vital interests aren’t on the line. This means we have to carefully delineate between core U.S. interests and secondary and tertiary ones. That matters. It determines whether American written, verbal, military, and economic commitments are more or less likely to be sustained—and whether others are more or less likely to believe they’ll be sustained by the U.S. The last part is especially important because credibility is at heart a psychological concept, dependent on how others (2nd and 3rd parties) perceive what actors (those who make commitments) will likely do in the future.
A conventional take says that U.S. core interests are in Europe and the Indo-Pacific (home to America’s treaty allies and its great power rivals, Russia and China) and to a lesser extent in the Persian Gulf (so as to ensure stability in the world oil market). What happens in these areas of the world is of vital importance to the U.S. and the White House will go far to defend its interests there. The rest of the world is a secondary or tertiary interest to the U.S. What this suggests, then, is that despite 20 years of war—and enormous sunk costs—Afghanistan is NOT a core interest of America. It’s a weak, poor, and unstable country located far from the U.S. homeland. There are humanitarian and terrorism concerns associated with Afghanistan, to be sure, though neither are bedrock strategic priorities of the U.S.
Do others outside of the U.S. know this? It’s possible some sincerely believe Afghanistan is a core national security interest of the U.S., but I suspect most don’t see it that way. All they have to do is listen and observe the words and actions coming out of the White House. It’s clear Biden administration has more pressing concerns, like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, repairing relations with America’s democratic allies, and climate change.
Certainly, Afghanistan remains an important security puzzle because of the counterterrorism challenge the country presents to the U.S., South Asia, and the world. But we shouldn’t overhype that threat, especially to American security. Jihadi terrorism doesn’t pose an existential threat to the U.S. homeland, and terrorism in/emanating from Afghanistan is even less of a vital threat. It’s something to be managed and contained largely via intelligence, inter-state cooperation, and law enforcement, not by investing in nation building and occupying foreign countries. This is something almost every terrorism expert, policy analyst, and foreign leader agrees with. Moreover, keep in mind that the U.S. has tried to extricate itself from Afghanistan for years, believing the war has been a costly fiasco, if not a downright waste. Both Presidents Obama and Trump wanted out of Afghanistan and made moves toward that end (Obama ended combat ops, Trump negotiated a departure with the Taliban), though neither one had the guts to completely pull the plug on the war. In effect, then, the White House, for over a decade now, has been explicitly saying that Afghanistan is not especially valuable to the U.S., that it’s a commitment America wants to shed. Most reasonably informed observers of U.S. foreign policy should see Afghanistan for what it is: a non-vital strategic interest.
As a result, exiting Afghanistan does not say much about America’s willingness to defend its core interests—in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, or the Middle East. The scholar Stephen Walt, in a recent Financial Times op-ed, put it well: “A chorus of overwrought pundits, unrepentant hawks and opportunistic adversaries now proclaim that defeat in Afghanistan has left US credibility in tatters. They are wrong. Ending an unwinnable war says nothing about a great power’s willingness to fight for more vital objectives. Ending Vietnam did not cause US cold war alliances to collapse, and extricating Nato from the Afghan quagmire will free up attention and resources for more important tasks, such as balancing China.”
Exactly. If anything, the Europeans—as well as any other ally that says it fears a U.S. credibility crisis—should be pleased America is now out of Afghanistan. This exit will free up time, effort, and resources that can be devoted to core national interests. U.S. allies should look at the entire global war on terrorism waged by Washington with horror—in part because of violence and human rights abuses, but also in part because the U.S. has been bleeding itself dry for 20 years. Europeans should not want to see their main external patron weakened, as that directly, negatively impacts their security. Terminating the Afghan War just might enhance America’s ability to check China’s bid for regional hegemony, which should please China watchers and America’s allies in the Indo-Pacific. The Europeans and the pro-Europe lobby should feel similarly. America is now in a better position to repair Trans-Atlantic ties and enhance European security. Notably, when the U.S. left Afghanistan, it also helped to extricate NATO from the quagmire, freeing it up to focus more of its energies elsewhere, as Walt suggested above.
So instead of portending a dark cloud for IR, getting out of Afghanistan—yes, even in such a slapdash manner—should offer a number of strategic benefits (to the U.S., to America’s partners, and to the world at large) over the long-term.