The pictures from Afghanistan document the failure of western intervention politics.
The mission with its nation-building dominated by the United States was in many ways a special case.
There are many more crises and conflicts in the world, where instead of NATO, primarily peace operations by the United Nations, smaller crisis management missions of the EU, or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) intervene, the latter for example with its observation mission in eastern Ukraine.
Of course, those responsible for these missions can also learn from Afghanistan. However, the current events in the Hindu Kush must not call into question the missions.
Until the fall of Kabul, the European Union was - at least verbally - on the way to "European autonomy" or more sovereignty in foreign and security policy. This new ambition, which has so little in common with the realities of European foreign and security policy, was sparked above all by the discussions about a “strategic compass” for the EU - a compass with which the member states can finally focus on clear and achievable strategic goals want to agree to strengthen the EU as a security and defense actor. In addition, the compass is intended to provide political orientation for future military planning processes.
The fact that the European countries involved in Afghanistan are not able to evacuate their own citizens from Kabul in time without American help, either alone or in a coordinated EU approach, shows mercilessly how the EU is able to react to crises. At their meeting in May, the EU defense ministers pondered a future European rapid reaction force of almost 5,000 soldiers. Actually, such a rapid reaction force has existed since 2007. However, the so-called battle groups have not been deployed once to this day. In some cases, the member states do not even manage to hold the contingents necessary for operational readiness.
Even before the events of the past few days, the European political will for external crisis management was not in good shape either. This is also shown by the current difficulties in mobilizing 200 to 300 trainers from the ranks of the member states for the new, rather small, military EU training mission in Mozambique. Germany has already canceled participation in it.
In its beginnings since 2003, crisis management in the EU was still quite diverse and ambitious.
At that time, the Europeans were engaged from Kosovo to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from Georgia to Somalia, with operational strengths of up to 3700 soldiers.
But the EU's eastward expansion with the Treaty of Lisbon has changed that since 2009.
Put simply, the new member states from Eastern Europe have different threat perceptions and interests, which has since affected, among other things, the size and mandates of EU operations.
With a few exceptions, the number of new EU missions since 2010 has generally only been between 20 and 100 men.
"A Europe that Protects"
The change in European crisis management intensified from 2015 onwards due to the dramatic increase in refugee movements across the Mediterranean Sea and the adoption of the EU Global Strategy in 2016, which redefined the future of European foreign and security policy. The protection of the EU and its citizens has since become one of the main goals, unfortunately at the expense of the traditional approach of the EU as a community of states which, in terms of foreign policy, primarily wants to advocate values and ensure security.