Biden administration wants to end military interventions
Europeans fear the return of American isolationism after the withdrawal from Afghanistan
The US military presence in the world has continued since World War II.
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In the wake of the US's shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan, continental European leaders have done little to hide their frustration with the US president's foreign policy, but while the real plight of Afghans, especially women and children, is understandable, the Europeans' broader concerns are exaggerated, if they listen carefully. They will realize that Biden looks intrinsically European, and they will discover that while there may be problems with the United States, those problems are entirely at home.
At the heart of European fears lie fears of a return to American isolationism. When Biden took office, declaring that “America is back,” the Europeans, after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, responded suspiciously: “For how long?” Since then, Biden has taken a series of moves that suggest the question remains open. And if the United States gets away easily from Afghanistan, can it do the same in the Balkans, and perhaps in the Baltic states, too? This existential concern is misplaced. There is nothing the Biden administration has said or done to suggest a waning commitment to European security. The president's foreign policy doctrine is that of a superpower that recognizes that its resources are limited, and strategically chooses to direct it where it matters most: against its main opponents (China and Russia) and toward its liberal democratic allies, especially in Europe.
And withdrawing from Afghanistan, as chaotic as it was, does not undermine this point but rather reinforces it. Clarifying his foreign policy in the wake of the disaster in Afghanistan, the US president declared, "Human rights will be at the center of our foreign policy, but the way to do that is not through endless military deployment, but through diplomacy and economic tools."
In addition, Europeans are very disappointed with the lack of coordination in Afghanistan, and this is a fair criticism, but it is not new. The lack of consultation has been a longstanding irritant in the transatlantic relationship, across both Democratic and Republican administrations. And as long as America's decisions to intervene militarily were presented to America's allies as a fait accompli, with the expectation of participation nonetheless. And in the 1990s and 2000s, from the Balkans to the Middle East, many in Europe felt that Americans did the cooking while they left out the dishes. However, there is good reason for Europeans to be alarmed by Afghanistan.
Ten years later, drained by the financial crisis, eternal wars, democratic setbacks in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and the rise of nationalist populism, the West is slowly rediscovering its raison d'être. The looming confrontation with China and Russia is interpreted as a clash of political systems and ideologies. Thus, liberal democracy and authoritarianism came to the fore again; Abandoning the Afghans to the Taliban looks like a retreat from the very thing the West stands for.
Gone are the days of promoting democracy through military interventions and nation-building, as Biden's foreign policy doctrine states.
It is time for humanitarian interventions, sanctions, conditions for development and trade, and the socialization of elites through diplomacy and civil society.
Today, that is unlikely to happen.
The successful promotion of Western values, in our time, requires new political tools and methods, combining principles and pragmatism.
It will require Europeans to take greater responsibility and risk, and it will require inventing new multilateral forms of support for liberal values.
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