Contrary to popular belief, Biden’s Afghan withdrawal could undermine Asian change

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (Reuters) – White House chief adviser Kurt Campbell said last month that a historic shift in U.S. foreign policy was underway that would move the U.S. focus away from the next East to Asia, where China’s growing power has cast shadows on Washington’s allies.

“It will be painful, in all likelihood. We will see some real challenges in places like Afghanistan,” Campbell told an Asia Society webinar, a compelling assessment of what has happened from the moment the rapid take of the country by the Taliban has provoked a humanitarian crisis.

Officials argued that the withdrawal from Afghanistan would free up time and attention for U.S. political and military leaders, as well as some military resources, to focus on the Indo-Pacific.

But experts and former officials say the withdrawal of President Joe Biden’s troops in Afghanistan appears to be, in the short term and possibly for much longer, undermining the purpose of liberating the United States to concentrate on China, something successive presidents have only sought to return to the Middle East.

Contrary to the planned quick withdrawal, Biden has been forced to send thousands of troops to protect the evacuation of potentially Taliban-paid U.S. and Afghan personnel, while chaos has unleashed a political storm on his home.

Biden has said the original August 31 deadline to withdraw troops can now be extended to finish the job.

In addition, the United States was forced to move its lone aircraft carrier to the Asia-Pacific, the Ronald Reagan, to the Middle East in June to help with the withdrawal. As the situation in Kabul has deteriorated, the carrier’s planes have flown over the city to provide additional security.

While redistribution can only be short-term, the need to divert the Asia-Pacific carrier has raised questions about the U.S.’s ability to project power on it.

U.S. operations in Afghanistan are likely to continue to consume the attention of senior officials who might otherwise have their eyes set on Beijing.

“As deputy secretary of the Indo-Pacific, Ely Ratner has Afghanistan in his portfolio. Where do you think he focuses primarily on the next three months or so?” said Eric Sayers, a defense policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

Others warn that terrorist groups are likely to re-establish themselves in Afghanistan under the Taliban, raising the prospect that the United States will have to return in some way, just as they returned to Iraq to fight the rise of the Taliban. ‘Islamic state.

David Sedney, who served as deputy deputy secretary of defense in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, rejected claims by U.S. officials that counterterrorism operations could be conducted from outside the country as a mirage.

“No one who talks seriously about terrorism believes it,” he said. “The United States will pay a terrible price for this at some point in the future. Another September 11.”

‘PROTECTION OF OTHERS’

For Campbell, architect of former President Barack Obama’s pivotal detention to Asia, building good faith in the United States in the Indo-Pacific has meant doing good business pending and Afghanistan was a lasting distraction.

However, the chaotic evacuations of Kabul have evoked images of the 1975 US withdrawal from Vietnam, which a country’s vice president, Kamala Harris, will visit next week to withdraw China’s land claims to the US Sea. South China. Read more

This trip, which includes a stop in Singapore, will make her the last of a series of senior officials to travel to Asia as part of Biden’s effort to step up her engagement.

“Our strategic competitors around the world would have liked nothing more than to see us in Afghanistan for another 5, 10, 20 years devoting even more resources to Afghanistan while remaining in the midst of civil war,” he told Reuters a senior US official. .

But the hasty withdrawal after a failed 20-year project in Afghanistan seems to have shaken some of the allies Washington was hoping to strengthen with its Indo-peaceful push.

In Taiwan, claimed by China, President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday responded to the chaos in Afghanistan by saying the self-governing island had no choice but to boost its own defense.

“It’s not an option for us to do nothing ourselves and rely only on the protection of others,” he said.

The state-controlled media in China have seized on Afghan developments and shown American support for the Allies as fickle.

And while experts reject most of the geopolitical comparisons in Afghanistan and Taiwan, there is widespread concern that this latest blow to American prestige undermines Biden’s promise that U.S. leadership will follow trends again. isolationists from the Trump administration.

“As Bin Laden said around 2001, it’s about proving who the strongest horse was. The United States seems to produce mills and mules instead of racehorses,” said Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation conservative think tank. , in reference to Osama. bin Laden, the orchestration of 9/11 attacks led the United States to invade Afghanistan.

“Taiwan and other East Asian states will think about it.”

Reports by Michael Martina, David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington, additional reports by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; edited by Jane Wardell

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