President Biden returned to the White House Monday to address the nation after the Taliban ousted the Afghan government. The takeover sent thousands to Kabul’s airport seeking flights out of the country, leading to striking images of people clinging to American transport planes and several deaths. In his address, the president said he stands by his decision to pull out American troops after two decades. For analysis of the U.S. response, WAMC’s Jim Levulis spoke with Sarah Kreps, a former Air Force officer and a professor at Cornell University in the department of government.
Kreps: So I watched the speech. And my kind of takeaway was that he was, I think, confident in the decision to withdraw. And I think that makes good strategic sense, because the outcome today in 2021, is what it would be in 2025 if we stayed, you know, a few more years. What I think sort of the oversight that I saw in his proclamations was that he didn't address at all the chaotic nature of the withdrawal. And so he didn't seem to address the visuals, the optics of what we're seeing in Kabul right now. And that seems to be the problem that I saw with the way he defended the decision making in the speech that he gave yesterday.
Levulis: And also, in his remarks on Monday, the President was rather critical of the Afghan National Security Forces, saying they didn't have the will to fight the Taliban. Is that a fair assessment in your mind?
Kreps: Well, I mean, it seems as though he threw our allies under the bus a little bit. Now, I mean in some senses, you know, he has only been president for what, seven months. So he doesn't necessarily sort of own the lack of will on the part of the Afghan military. And as he said, he did not support the surge in 2009, when the Obama administration decided to increase troops there. At the same time, he has supported that effort. And so it seems a little bit sort of disingenuous to then suggest that this is all on them as to why the country fell as quickly as it did. It is notable, I would say that the Afghan military has 300,000 troops compared to the Taliban 70,000. And so there must be something accounting for the fact that the Afghan military has a four or five to one advantage over the Taliban and yet collapse so quickly.
Levulis: And the President also says keeping a US presence in Afghanistan is no longer a national security interest for the United States. Do you agree with that statement?
Kreps: I think our kind of utility in Afghanistan, really sort of showed that it was longer needed or that it did come to an end, probably a decade or so ago. Again, I think that part is true. I mean, there's debate, of course on that point. There are some people who suggested that with such low level presence in Afghanistan, 2,500 people there compared to, let's say, 30,000 in Germany and South Korea, why can't we just keep this sort of minimal presence going? On the other hand, that was very kind of open ended and indefinite. And so, again, I think that the concern I would have is not so much the withdrawal, but the manner of withdrawal. So it was clear that there was no longer kind of a reason to stay, it was time to withdraw, but the withdrawal was so poorly managed.
Levulis: And do you think that there will be an involvement on the part of the United States whether or not it's a physical presence, but just in the region and diplomacy, etc, when it comes to Afghanistan now under what seems like Taliban control?
Kreps: Well, I you know, what I think also is disappointing about how this has all gone down, is that it's not clear that the US has negotiated all of the kind of agreements that it should have with neighboring countries that would allow it to have kind of a more of a regional presence. It doesn't appear that those have been negotiated, let alone successfully concluded. And so it seems as though sort of the pejorative phrase of cut and run is what exactly what happened. And now, the US has sent in for evacuation purposes, more troops than it withdrew. So it has now sent back in 4,000 troops, which is more than the number that it had withdrawn. And so I think in that sense, too, when we think from kind of an international relations perspective about what different US behavior signals, that's not really a confidence inspiring action that the US took, which is well, we're going to quickly withdraw the 2,500 troops. Oh sorry, we need to send 4,000 back in. It just looks like the US didn't anticipate and plan for the kind of contingencies that most people predicted were exactly what would happen.
Levulis: Are you concerned at all that Afghanistan will become a breeding ground for international terrorism efforts under the Taliban?
Kreps: So the Taliban, I think never really had kind of these transnational ambitions. It was a really uneasy partnership between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda had taken root and taken safe haven in the Taliban-held Afghanistan. But those two groups don't really like each other. What I think now has happened is that Al-Qaeda has, in the last two decades, been able to establish a foothold in other countries. So I don't think it has that same need that it had two decades ago in the years leading up to 9/11, to find safe haven in Afghanistan, and I just don't think that the Taliban has these sort of international ambitions.
Levulis: And earlier on you mentioned sort of how this is all playing out in regards to international relations. How do you think other members of the Western world are going to continue to respond to the situation in Afghanistan, maybe putting the United States aside in this question?
Kreps: I mean, I think objectively speaking, this doesn't put the US in a very positive light internationally. I think Russia and China are looking at this, probably mockingly. I mean, you can see from social media that sort of official Chinese accounts are casting aspersions on the chaotic nature of US withdrawal in Afghanistan. I mean, obviously, Russia went through something similar, but I think they probably have this sense of schadenfreude about US withdrawal after 20 years. And I think US allies are probably looking at this and feeling that their own confidence about what the US can support is very much eroded in their eyes, because it is not a show of strength in terms of what the US is managing, both kind of that after 20 years, that there is this sense that the outcome is exactly what it would have been more than 10 years in 2009. But also kind of the way in which this withdrawal has taken place looks like the US can't kind of manage a large scale operation.
