Why Biden is sticking to withdrawal

Why Biden is sticking to withdrawal

After a week of chaos in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden is not changing his mind: He still believes that withdrawing from the country is the right call.

 

Biden forcefully argued for that position on Monday, after the Taliban swiftly swept through the country’s security forces and took over the capital of Kabul.

 

That led to harrowing scenes this week — of people rushing to Kabul’s airport, climbing on moving planes for a last chance to flee a looming, oppressive regime. Some of these people were those who had helped the US during its 20-year occupation of Afghanistan and now feared retaliation by the Taliban, but were denied visas and refugee status to flee to America.

 

Biden acknowledged the withdrawal has been “hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect” and that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan “did unfold more quickly than we anticipated” (despite increasingly dire intelligence warnings).

 

But he argued withdrawing was still the right move.

 

“If anything, the developments of the last week reinforced that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” Biden said. “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.”

 

Biden went on to detail the support the US gave Afghanistan and its security forces over the years. “What we could not provide them is the will to fight for that future,” Biden said.

 

Based on reporting from the New York Times and Washington Post, much of this was clearly coming for years — as Afghanistan's government under-committed to its own security forces, and those forces showed few if any signs of improvement. One grisly anecdote from the Post: “The first Afghan battalion commander whom [US Major Greg] Escobar mentored lost his job after he was charged with raping one of his male soldiers. The commander’s replacement, in turn, was killed by his own men.”

 

Those failures culminated in the last several months in Afghanistan, as security forces frequently laid down their arms without putting up much if any resistance against the Taliban. Many felt they shouldn’t fight a war they’ll lose.

 

The big question now, for the US, is if the Taliban’s return to power will once again make the country a haven for international terrorism. 

 

If that were to happen, Biden said, America would react militarily. But he drew a distinction between needing permanent forces stationed in Afghanistan to achieve that versus deploying troops as needed when threats arise. It’s a belief that the US can defend its interests without permanent occupation and nation-building, which are, after all, expensive and can put American lives at risk.

 

Another lingering question is whether, even if this is all true, the US could have done a better job preparing for the last week.

 

But Biden argued there were limits to, for example, evacuating people sooner: Many didn’t want to leave, hoping what they had helped build would endure. (Although some clearly did want to leave and were denied support.) And the Afghan government didn’t want to start a panic or signal a premature surrender with mass evacuations.

 

It’s also true the collapse of Afghanistan’s government was always going to look bad. It’s why US presidents over the past two decades resisted the decision to leave, knowing that it would look messy and chaotic — if nothing else, a political hit for them.

 

“After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces,” Biden said.

 

Yet Biden is sticking to his decision, arguing that, despite the scenes of the last week, it’s the correct choice for America’s interests.

 

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PAPER OF THE WEEK

Covid-19 mitigation was worse than elimination

A new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that countries that took more aggressive measures against Covid-19 saw better results across the board — for Covid-related health outcomes, economies, and general well-being.

 

Researchers John Helliwell, Max Norton, Shun Wang, Lara Aknin, and Haifang Huang looked at a range of data from 2020 for their analysis, including Covid-19 deaths, excess deaths, unemployment, and mental health. They then compared countries that pursued an elimination strategy (to drive Covid-19 cases as close to zero as possible) versus a mitigation approach (to reduce spread but tolerate some levels of Covid-19).

 

The elimination countries fared better, as expected, with Covid-19 and excess deaths. But they also did better, or at least fared equally, across other metrics — suggesting there was no net cost to more aggressive approaches.

 

A chart comparing the effectiveness of elimination and mitigation strategies.

“Our basic conclusion is that the absence of significant well-being harms from the COVID-19 elimination strategy, combined with its greater effectiveness at preventing deaths while supporting income and employment, strongly suggests an overall well-being advantage for the elimination strategy,” the researchers wrote.

 

This is just one study, and more research is needed on what strategies work best against different diseases. But as we continue dealing with the delta variant and look forward to future pandemics, this paper indicates that it might be better to aim higher than much of the world, including the US, has against Covid-19.