Melting of American power?

What happened after Aug 15 when Kabul airport, controlled by US forces, witnessed a worst type of chaos and disorder

“Despite the messy pullout, there was never a good time to withdraw US forces. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” — US President Joseph Biden

Since August 15, when Kabul fell to the Taliban forces, till today, one can observe a hectic debate on America’s failure in global leadership and the melting of its power with each passing day. Questions are being raised in America and elsewhere about the ‘mother of all failures’ in Afghanistan despite the spending of $2 trillion as well as thousands of US casualties and injuries over the last 20 years. Critics argue that America is not indispensable and is fast declining in terms of its power and leadership.

The naivety of President Biden about the ground realities in Afghanistan more than a month ago could be gauged from the fact that on July 8 he confidently said, “The Taliban are not the North-Vietnamese army. They are not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There is going to be no circumstance where you will see people being lifted off the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.” Yet what happened after August 15 when Kabul airport, controlled by the US forces, witnessed a worst type of chaos and disorder during which 20 Afghans were killed while desperately trying to get on evacuation planes flying out of Afghanistan. On August 26, several American soldiers and Afghans were killed in a terrorist attack in Kabul airport which proves the worst fears about an impending violence in Afghanistan.

The cover story entitled “Biden’s debacle” published in August 21^st issue of London Economist laments, “America’s flight from Kabul, like its departure from Saigon in 1975, is a defining geopolitical moment: the world’s mightiest country has been defeated by a weaker enemy. In both cases — then as a senator, now as president — Joe Biden advocated a rapid exit. And then as now, fierce critics of America predicted that such a chaotic abandonment would alarm allies and embolden adversaries.” If Vietnam still haunts the United States, its humiliating exit from Afghanistan and the rapid takeover of the country by Taliban will be a source of permanent shame for America. Even then, will it not be an exaggeration to call the United States a melting superpower and a lame duck incapable of leading the world and providing enough opportunities to China and Russia, its two main adversaries, to replace it? Is American power, as put by a Harvard University Professor Joseph Nye, indispensable and bound to lead?

In the last 50 years, the United States has spent around $10 trillion on overseas wars ranging from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere in Africa and Latin America. Doling out trillions of dollars collected from taxpayers only on wars without winning and causing millions of deaths, America’s moment of truth has arrived. History teaches us the lesson that the decline of power gets an impetus when the people and the government of the concerned power deviate from the path of accountability, truth, innovation and justice. Arrogance and ignorance of America despite its abundant wealth were unable to prevent the irreversible process of its decline unleashed since the end of the Vietnam War and culminating in its abrupt, unplanned and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Melting of American power needs to be analysed from three ground realities, as follows:

First, the only power which has so far prevented America’s collapse is its edge in science and technology along with Research and Development (R&D). It is America’s educational institutions, research organisations, laboratories and space technology which have so far prevented the melting of its power, but such an edge cannot hold the process of its demise because its leadership in the last 50 years has been incapable to deal with back to back overseas humiliation despite the fact that it spent $10 trillion of the taxpayers’ money on foreign adventures. When American presidents and other decision-making actors are unable to redeem the situation and describe wrong as right and right as wrong, one cannot undermine lethal implications of such a leadership failure. Equipped with latest technology and resources, the US failed not only in the Afghan war but in other overseas wars also. Yet, it is also true that America succeeded in nation-building and establishing democratic institutions in Japan, South Korea and in some European countries but it failed particularly in Muslim countries because it coped with ultra-conservative culture and way of life. Amazingly, if America is anti-Muslim then why the local people of Afghanistan are desperate to leave for the US and escape from an Islamic system which the Taliban are establishing?

Second, it is not only its overseas debacles which pose a challenge to the American power, but domestic issues in the United States, particularly ugly race relations, surge of white supremacists and the costs of the reigning pandemic are also contributing to the melting of American power. Domestic fault lines in America deepened after November 2020 elections. Ironically, President Biden’s pledge to restore his country’s image, glory and power failed to materialise which questioned America’s leadership role also among its allies who term it mediocre and below mediocre. Now, the famous phrase which has become quite common these days is “America is not reliable and trustable, and ditches its allies.”

Third, money cannot buy everything. The US failed to invest in democracy, human rights and human and social development. It is not the recipient countries which received trillions of dollars of American economic and military aid with meager results, but corruption at both ends has eaten the US taxpayers’ money. As a result, the US is barely the world’s first economic power, but its debt is more than its GDP. If the US founding fathers had worked hard to build their country and America was able to seek power in phases culminating as a superpower along with the Soviet Union after the end of the Second World War and the only superpower following the demise of the USSR in 1991, its present generation has wasted resources and vitiated their country’s prestige which it acquired after much hard work and innovation.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2021.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.