A Harsh Lesson for Europe in the Afghanistan Report

 

"Most European politicians (and, if we're honest, many European citizens) breathed a sigh of relief when Joe Biden was elected president in 2020. They're hoping for a Kamala Harris win in November, too. The mystery is why. It's all the more puzzling in light of this week's U.S. House report on Mr. Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.

That 350-page policy postmortem from the Foreign Affairs Committee lays out in detail how a headstrong Mr. Biden, apparently with at least tacit support from Ms. Harris, forced his will on deeply skeptical advisers, diplomats and military officials. Everyone told Mr. Biden that a total U.S. withdrawal in August 2021 would be a bad idea. He ordered it anyway. Chaos, and the deaths of 13 American service members, ensued.

This has become a domestic political story in America, and rightly so. But credit committee chairman Michael McCaul for also highlighting the international dimension. This disaster leaves scars in Europe, too.

From the beginning of the war on terror, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization participated in the effort to secure Afghanistan and suppress terrorism there. At the height of the mission, in 2011, more than 130,000 troops from dozens of NATO allies and partners were stationed in Afghanistan, of whom around 100,000 were American. At the time of the withdrawal a decade later, around 7,000 troops from 35 countries were involved alongside the 2,500 remaining Americans.

These allies invested their blood in the mission, as 1,144 non-U.S. NATO troops were killed alongside 2,465 Americans. They also sacrificed considerable treasure -- billions upon billions of dollars trying to build a civil society with hospitals, schools (including for girls) and democratic institutions that would be overrun by the Taliban in 2021.

Leading NATO partners believed the Biden-Harris withdrawal was a mistake from the start. In 2020 the Trump administration had attempted to negotiate a deal with the Taliban, which the Taliban never honored. "Withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban, which would weaken the Alliance and embolden extremists the world over," the House report quotes Gen. Nicholas Carter, then chief of the U.K. defense staff, as warning in January 2021. At a March meeting of NATO foreign secretaries, Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced opposition to the administration's withdrawal plan from his British, German and Italian counterparts, the House report observes.

Mr. Biden pressed ahead, and his decision was a disaster for those allies. Caught unprepared when the moment arrived, NATO partners struggled to evacuate their troops, citizens and Afghan allies as the country fell to the Taliban. They then had to explain to their electorates that two decades of military engagement and foreign-aid largess had come to nothing.

It gets worse, as Europe has borne the brunt of the withdrawal's baleful consequences. The Biden administration's show of weakness probably encouraged events in Ukraine less than a year later, Europe's largest land conflict since 1945 with sanctions on Russia as the catalyst for an energy crisis still shaking the Continent.

Then there's the terrorism. The House report warns that individuals with alleged ties to ISIS-K, Islamic State's Afghan offshoot, have smuggled themselves across America's southern border. Such terrorists are in Europe, too, and already acting.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack in Moscow in March that left dozens dead at the Crocus City Hall concert venue. Officials in Berlin warned the group may be plotting attacks in Germany, and ISIS claimed responsibility for the knife attack in the city of Solingen in August. At least one of the people accused of plotting an attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Austria is alleged to have pledged allegiance to ISIS; his lawyer has described the claims as "exaggerated." It's likely that Afghanistan has become a breeding ground for the Central Asian terrorism now arriving in Europe.

European leaders hate Donald Trump, both because they dislike the populist aesthetics of his politics and because they recognize that he doesn't respect them. They expected Mr. Biden, an old hand in Washington's foreign-policy establishment, to be more eager to cultivate alliances and more willing to cater to Europeans' many and varied opinions, dysfunctions and neuroses.

Talk about a miscalculation. One lesson for Europe is that the Continent must be better able to provide for its own defense, and ramped-up military expenditures since 2022 suggest this point finally is sinking in. This is much to the good both of Europe and the U.S.

The other lesson is that Europe must be warier of America's willingness and ability to work with allies under either a Democratic or a Republican administration, given the isolationist temper of the times in the U.S. This will be good for no one in an ever more dangerous world, and may come to be viewed as the greatest of the many foreign-policy failures of the Biden-Harris era." [1]

1. Political Economics: A Harsh Lesson for Europe in the Afghanistan Report. Sternberg, Joseph C.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 13 Sep 2024: A.15.