"The symbol of the withdrawal of the United States is not only the military rout of the United States in Afghanistan, but also the political rout of the United States, and the collapse of the credibility of the United States."
In addition to "counter-terrorism" and supporting a pro-US government, the United States invaded Afghanistan, and it also had a reason, that is, to use the Xinjiang problem to clamp down on China on the Chinese border. ”
"After the war in Afghanistan, will the situation in which a president like the United States defines war, and war also defines the president, will change?"
In the 113th episode of "This Is China" broadcast by Oriental Satellite TV on September 13, Professor Zhang Weiwei, dean of the China Research Institute of Fudan University, and Li Weijian, researcher of the Shanghai Institute of International Studies and vice president of the Middle East Society, interpreted the Rout of the United States in Afghanistan.
Zhang Weiwei:
The more than 40 years of China's rapid rise in reform and opening up are also the more than 40 years of continuous war in Afghanistan. From the decade of the Soviet invasion around 1979, followed by more than a decade of Afghan civil war and Taliban rule, and then the War in Afghanistan launched by the United States in the name of "counter-terrorism", which lasted for 20 years, to the middle of August this year, when the United States began to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
In 20 years, 2461 U.S. soldiers died in the war in Afghanistan, of course, the U.S. calculation method is very unique, it only counts the U.S. military (the number of deaths) here, not the mercenaries of various U.S. security companies. More than 4,000 people died at the security company, many of them Americans. More than 20,000 U.S. troops were wounded, costing more than $2.4 trillion.
The Rout of U.S. troops shocked the world: fleeing crowds chased planes on runways, and Afghans clinging to them fell one by one. In the words of German President Steinmeier, the desperate scene at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan is a disgrace to the United States and the West, but it is a catastrophe for the Afghan people, a "human tragedy" that has ruined lives.
In the past 20 years, according to an incomplete statistics from Boston University in the United States, cited by CCTV News, more than 241,000 people have died and tens of millions of people have been displaced during the war in Afghanistan, and the average life expectancy of the country has dropped to 45 years.
The symbol of the withdrawal of the United States is not only the military rout of the United States in Afghanistan, but also the political rout and credibility of the United States. Let's look at the U.S. military rout: Throughout the War in Afghanistan, the United States rallied 11 countries to launch attacks, but in the end Afghanistan became a graveyard for invaders everywhere. On 16 August, marked by the occupation of the capital Kabul, the Taliban regained power.
But a month before that, U.S. President Joe Biden had vowed that the Taliban would "never" rule Afghanistan. He was confident in the strength of the Afghan government forces, believing that they were well-trained, well-equipped, and capable of fighting," but then we saw that the Afghan government had no intention of resisting, the government forces were vulnerable, the Taliban quickly captured the capital Kabul, and the U.S. leaders' sworn remarks were "punched in the face."
The U.S. military has not yet been withdrawn, the Afghan capital has been taken over by the Taliban, the last withdrawal of the US military was carried out in full view of the Taliban soldiers, and the world's media almost likened this moment to the "Saigon moment", that is, the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, in 1975. It is no wonder that so many Americans have cursed Biden, the Pentagon, and the CIA.
On a larger scale, how can the Afghan army, which the United States has been fully armed and trained for more than 20 years, be so vulnerable? How could the Afghan intelligence system, which is fully infiltrated and controlled by the United States, be so wrong? To use the joke of Chinese netizens: If you feel that you have achieved nothing and are very unsuccessful, then think about the United States today. It changed presidents four times, spent more than $2 trillion, killed more than 2,400 soldiers, and then over a full 20 years, finally succeeded in changing the Afghan regime from the Taliban to the Taliban. Is there a tragedy worse than this ending?
In the early hours of August 31, after the last U.S. plane took off from Kabul airport, Taliban militants fired their guns in celebration. (Source: AFP)
This is about the political rout of the United States, which is first manifested as the rout of the US democratic export strategy. After the 9/11 incident in 2001, President George W. Bush of the United States claimed that only through the democratic transformation of the Middle East could the problem of terrorism be fundamentally solved, so in the name of the "process of democratic transformation in the Middle East", he launched the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. The United States has always believed that only it represents the "lighthouse" and "truth", disdain to understand the civilization and culture of other countries, as long as you are different from the United States, you are backward, and even do not hesitate to export your own democratic model and political model through force, the result must be unsatisfactory, everywhere hit the wall, bring deep disasters to the people of other countries, but also seriously damage their own soft and hard power.
The political rout in the United States is also manifested in the fact that the entire Afghan war is a very corrupt process. According to a confidential document about the war in Afghanistan revealed by the Washington Post on December 9, 2019, and interviews with more than 600 insiders, the United States has invested $2.26 trillion in the war in Afghanistan, equivalent to 300 million US dollars per day for 20 years, but the Afghan government supported by the United States is itself very corrupt, and it is estimated that about one-third or even half of them are "ghost soldiers" who "eat empty pay".
The report also surveyed 380 former U.S. government officials, former members of Congress, and former senior military officers who lobbied for the military-industrial complex, a quarter of whom worked for the top five U.S. Department of Defense munitions contractors, namely Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Noeg. The top five major U.S. munitions contractors nearly tripled their share prices during the 20-year war in Afghanistan. Many of the board members of the five arms dealers are from the U.S. military, retired senior generals, officers, or former civilian officials in the Pentagon.
Of course, this Afghan rout is also a rout and a disaster for the credibility of the United States. The hasty withdrawal of the United States, even the incongruity of its allies, has aroused strong resentment from its allies. If the Trump administration pursues "America First", then the Biden administration even withdraws troops as "America First". America's hardcore ally Britain followed the United States in the 20-year war in Afghanistan, killing 457 people, but the United States did not care about the lives of others, only cared about its own withdrawal, no wonder the former British ambassador to the United States Christopher also said: This fiasco has shaken the british government's recognition of the special relationship between Britain and the United States.
The New York Times quoted the analysis of French defense (analysts) as pointing out that when Biden said "America is back", many people will say "Yes, America is home". A columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian satirized this: the United States was either sadly absent or domineeringly involved in the world, but ended in tears of failure. Some people say that "the peace in the United States is over", this "peace in the United States" is a very important concept expressed in Latin, called pax Americana, which can be interpreted as whether the "peaceful order under the leadership of the United States" is now coming to an end. This concept originated from pax Romana, which is "peace under the domination of the Roman Empire", and pax Britanica, which is "the peace of the past under British domination".
But today's U.S. rout in Afghanistan has triggered the western conversation about the "end of peace in America." Of course, the discussion also involved a lot of China's rapid rise relative to the United States, and even many people began to openly discuss the "world peace order under China's leadership", called pax Sinica in Latin.
When it comes to Biden, we can't help but think of his old rival Trump. In the face of such a god-given opportunity, how can Trump be idle, he immediately launched a full fire to bombard Biden. In an August 17 interview with Fox News, Trump said, "This is the most embarrassing time our country has ever had," saying that "China must be happy to die when it sees this, it must be happy to die, it must be happy, Chinese is laughing at us." Later, our Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was also asked this question. She replied well, she said: Does this still need us to laugh at?
I can't help but think once again of the 10 years after the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, when it had to withdraw its troops, in 1989. Less than 3 years after the withdrawal, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The withdrawal of the United States this time is even worse than that of the Soviet Union, after all, after the Withdrawal of the Soviet Union, the pro-Soviet Afghan regime persisted for two to three years. This time, the pro-American regime supported by the United States has lost very completely, so what kind of impact will this outcome have on the fate of the United States?
Personally, I think that the decline of the United States will accelerate, and the era of "one super hegemony" in the United States has ended. If the rout of the epidemic prevention and control in the United States has completely walked off the altar of the United States and the United States model in the hearts of the vast majority of Chinese, the rout of the United States in Afghanistan has made the United States and the United States model walk off the altar in front of the vast majority of people around the world.
But there are still some people in our country, frankly speaking, who are nervous, spreading the idea that after the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, it can go all out against China. This reminds me of what Deng Xiaoping said to foreign guests in 1987. At that time, the foreign guest asked Comrade Xiaoping: In the border conflict with Vietnam, are you worried that the Soviet Union, Vietnam's largest ally, will launch a war against China?
I remember that Comrade Xiaoping took a puff of his cigarette and then said something loud in a thick Sichuan accent: The Soviet Union is a superpower, but a small, small (he said "small" twice) Afghanistan can not be defeated, how dare to fight China? I think this is the bottom-line thinking of China's great politicians and military experts when they encounter such major challenges, and history proves that Deng Xiaoping's judgment is accurate and correct. Comrade Xiaoping's judgment at that time also applies to the war provocation of the United States against China today: A small Afghanistan cannot be defeated, how dare it fight China.
Li Weijian:
I have been to many Middle Eastern countries, Islamic countries, and I have also worked and studied there, and I would like to talk about my views on these issues from the background of the current Sino-US game.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is due to the fact that the United States has made some strategic adjustments in light of changes in the situation, because the situation has changed, the focus of the core interests of the United States has also changed, and the strength of the United States has also changed, so it has to make an adjustment in response to these changes. Not only Afghanistan, but also in a more distant and larger context, it has to withdraw from many parts of the Middle East, Iraq, syria.
The trend of withdrawal did not begin with Biden, but actually began in the time of George W. Bush. Before the "9/11" incident, the strategic material focus of the United States was in the Asia-Pacific region, but the "9/11" incident disrupted the strategic deployment of the United States and had to shift the strategic center to "counter-terrorism." When the United States invaded Afghanistan and wanted to take the opportunity to deploy military forces to the Sino-Russian border, an aide of former US Secretary of State Powell said: In addition to countering terrorism and supporting the pro-US government, the United States also wants to directly use the Xinjiang issue on China's border to create chaos, and its fundamental purpose is to clamp down on China. So if it weren't for the current stretch of strength, the United States would not have easily withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan.
Screenshot of CNN's January 18 report, Mizhguli Tursun tells "personal experience"
Second, the purpose of the US strategic contraction is mainly to deal with China. During the George W. Bush period, he wanted to shift the strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region, and the "Asia-Pacific rebalancing" that was more obvious in the Obama era and the "Indo-Pacific strategy" in the Trump period were actually in this direction.
But what is different is that on the one hand, Bush Jr. wanted to deal with the rise of China, and on the other hand, the entire Asia-Pacific region was the fastest growing place in the world at that time, and the United States also wanted to benefit a little. During the Obama era, although the China-oriented side was strengthening, there was still discussion at home about whether to change China through more engagement. So he wants to change China through a policy of engagement while containing it.
In the Trump era, the United States was very disappointed to see that the engagement strategy had completely failed, so it became a crackdown on China. Trump is a businessman who thinks more about fighting a trade war through economic means. In Biden, it is even more obvious, with China as the number one strategic opponent. Now that the United States has openly said that it will concentrate more energy on Dealing with China, it is indeed the real idea of the United States, but whether the United States can do it is another matter.
Recently, the US fleet has conducted military exercises in the waters surrounding China and even created all kinds of troubles in the Taiwan Strait, and indeed there is a military attempt to suppress China, but the fundamental purpose is to create chaos in the surrounding areas and provoke incidents in the South China Sea and Taiwan's maritime affairs. Involving China's energy in these issues is actually aimed at curbing China's momentum of development.
In addition, we need to see that the game and confrontation between the United States and China are multifaceted, the military is one aspect, and more importantly, in the field of development, such as high-tech, 5G, and artificial intelligence. In addition, in the manufacturing industry, the United States has been "hollowed out", and China's manufacturing industry is now very complete, and the impact is getting deeper and deeper. At the international level, China's "Belt and Road" influence in the world continues to expand, which is the source of the sense of crisis in the United States.
The United States recently introduced the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, which is mainly aimed at China's "Belt and Road". It will fund anti-China media or social institutions through a large amount of investment and financing in a few years. On the other hand, it is following China's example and has joined hands with the European Union to put forward such an initiative at the G7 conference: to build a better world, to spend trillions of dollars to build infrastructure around the world. But its aim is to compete with China, offset China's influence, and even replace China's "Belt and Road."
Round table part
Host: The American scholar John Millsheimer mentioned in "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" that the United States is a country that promotes liberalism in words but is extremely realistic in action. It has to be useful to yourself, to have good resources. But to do something from an extremely realistic point of view often backfires. With so many routs in front of us, will the United States begin to reflect on making adjustments?
Zhang Weiwei: There are many people in the United States who reflect, many scholars and think tanks will reflect, but from the perspective of big data, these reflections cannot play much role. This also speaks of the side of American realism, behind which is the game of military interest groups. As long as there is profit, there is an impulse to start a war.
Li Weijian: It is not the United States that needs to reflect, it is the situation, and the decisions made in the past are based on the situation that there are many advantages. The rise of the United States coincided with World War II, and many countries had border security issues, so the United States had military bases or stations around the world, which did drive the US military industry.
But we say that the situation is stronger than people, and the current world demands are no longer like that, although the world is still unsafe, but the connotation of insecurity includes undevelopment and poor governance. Without development, all kinds of extreme ideas will come out.
Host: Afghanistan's geographical location, although the United States has left Afghanistan now, but the geopolitical power is still here, will the United States still intervene in the situation in this region in the future?
Zhang Weiwei: An important reason why I look down on the United States is that its current layout has not been completed according to the original plan, so geopolitics lacks enough grip. In the past, it has worked closely with India to use the puppet regime of (former Afghan President) Ghani to specifically undermine China's "Belt and Road" and indirectly, directly and clandestinely support a large number of terrorist organizations. India has suffered a huge setback and strained relations with the Taliban, which has now publicly expressed its desire to join the Belt and Road Initiative and expand the CPEC to Afghanistan. This is a big blow to India and the United States. At present, the situation is favorable to China and unfavorable to the United States and India, which is the general trend.
"Belt and Road" Chinatown in Kabul, Afghanistan (Source: China-Arab States Trade Promotion Commission website)
Host: In the future, there may be a lot of cooperation in Afghanistan, will the United States intervene in this area in other ways?
Li Weijian: There will definitely be US sanctions against Afghanistan and financial means, and there are still many tools in this basket, all of which are its "grasping hands". Many things in many countries in the Middle East are in the hands of the United States, which is a double-edged sword, and if it is not done well, it will hurt the United States itself, and there have been too many cases in the past, such as the democratic regime cultivated in Iraq, and finally the Iraqi government asked the United States to withdraw quickly.
Zhang Weiwei: It turned out that Iraq and Iran were the opposite, and after the war between the United States was fought, Iraq and Iran were both Shiites in power and became friends, so the United States often made stupid mistakes.
Li Weijian: Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting even harder, we all said before that this is an irreconcilable contradiction, and now in private this dialogue and this communication are moving towards relaxation, which in turn proves that what you and the United States have created in this place is some instability (factors) and provoked sectarian struggles.
Host: What are the usual methods used by the United States to intervene in the Middle East?
Li Weijian: Intervention in internal affairs, such as Saudi Arabia's actions, follow the United States because it needs to rely on the United States to ensure security. The United States seized on this, crown prince Mohammed (Saudi) came to the United States to seek American protection, and Trump directly marketed arms to him at the White House. In addition, in the past, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had differences, and the United States dumped weapons on both sides to gain benefits. In terms of economic sanctions, Iran is living a difficult life now because as long as other countries do business with Iran, the United States will sanction.
Host: When some countries ask the United States, they may take what they need through short-term cooperation, but after a long time, it is actually a very deep "sense of insecurity."
Li Weijian: In the past, many articles discussed that the people in the Middle East have a kind of "insecurity", and in the past, insecurity was an insecurity in the traditional sense, there may be terrorists and friction between the two countries, but now it is more because of political instability and wealth. Therefore, in the future, when studying the Middle East or other developing countries, we must introduce the concept of development and governance into the security issues.
Zhang Weiwei: In fact, the Arab world and the Islamic world are very concerned about China's experience and the Chinese model, because a developing country can rise to become the world's second largest economy, they know that China is remarkable, and President Xi Jinping said that China has created a new form of human civilization, which is very remarkable.
I had a conversation with the chief writer of Egypt's Pyramid newspaper about national governance, and he was very inspired. People want to learn from you to succeed in the experience, which is good soft power. I had dinner with the first Afghan president, Karzai, whom the United States had supported, and talked very deeply, and he started with the United States, but two years ago, he scolded the United States into a mess, saying that now the Ghani regime is a puppet regime, and at that time he still wanted to take the road of self-development, but soon turned his face with the United States.
Host: Afghanistan has been in turmoil for nearly half a century, and it is a very difficult and painful process. The country may now have a different start, is it possible that external conditions will give it some help to stabilize the region?
Li Weijian: External factors are an important factor, but more are internal factors. Foreign aid is unsustainable and unstable, and if it is broken, problems will arise. So now it's more about telling them that they have the real impetus for development through their own development, and in the past it didn't think about it because there was too much external intervention. Now that the United States has withdrawn, it is a benefit in general, and these countries must develop on their own, from the perspective of self-reform and transformation.
Zhang Weiwei: Theoretically, Afghanistan has experienced the Soviet model, the Soviet occupation, the American model, the American occupation, all of which have failed, and after the Taliban model of the late 1990s, it has completely returned to traditional fundamentalism and failed. It is reasonable that Afghanistan can explore a new path after experiencing so many failures, but in historical development, national maturity is to wait for the opportunity, and it also needs suitable leaders, qualified political groups, political parties, and a combination of various factors, so from this point of view, it is not easy for China to find this successful road.
Question-and-answer session
Audience: How will Western sanctions affect Afghanistan, and what can China do to help Afghanistan?
Zhang Weiwei: Personally, I don't think the sanctions are of much use, because the people of this country have suffered for more than forty years, but they may make the Taliban get more support. Humanitarian assistance is not really substantive help, and substantive assistance must be for the two countries and governments of the two sides to establish diplomatic relations, fully respect each other, understand each other, and only after the relations between the two sides are truly and fully established will there be large-scale cooperation.
Li Weijian: On the Taliban issue, we can see that sanctions have no effect. There are several points of consensus in the international community that have formed a common pressure to guide the Taliban on what basis they should go, such as counter-terrorism and the establishment of a pluralistic and inclusive government.
Audience: After the war in Afghanistan, who should decide whether to start a war or not?
Zhang Weiwei: The political system of the United States is a problem, and its president has dictatorial tendencies.
Li Weijian: The president represents a group interest. For example, the fight against Iraq is behind the military industrial group, and in peacetime, it also hopes to create military tensions and profit from a large number of weapons exports. At the level of the composition of American power, minority group interests may determine American politics. But overall, the United States' demand for war is decreasing, and in the past, it has invested so much money to fight wars, but in fact, there is no gain. But change is difficult because of the benefits.
Host: Yes, back to what we just said, the interests are too big, maybe as you said, people in so many parts of the world are actually pursuing peace, pursuing a road of development, and pursuing an environment suitable for development, but if it is like the US military industry interest group, it has no chance to take advantage of the fire, it knows that you are safe here, it will also stir up trouble, then if this line of thinking remains unchanged, the war will not be broken. Well, let's see if there is a problem with the friends here, come, welcome.
Audience: An Indian host interviewed the Afghan Taliban spokesperson about why so many Afghan people chose to leave after the Afghan Taliban proposed amnesty, and the spokesman replied that if this happened in India, more people would choose to leave and go to the United States. With a large number of Afghans leaving the country, how does the United States respond to the wave of refugees?
Afghan Taliban spokesman Mujahid (Source: AP)
Zhang Weiwei: The ringer must still be tied to the ringer, and you are responsible for causing the accident This is the first principle. The United States must reflect deeply on the catastrophe that has been created in Afghanistan and shoulder all responsibility. I think the Taliban or any regime in Afghanistan should be offered war reparations to the United States after it has been formally secured, or the United States will create a new refugee crisis.
Li Weijian: There are many complicated reasons for the refugee problem, many refugees are actually middle-class people who want to take this opportunity to flee to other countries, and the direction is very clear. Of course, part of it is too deeply remembered by the Taliban's rule twenty years ago. So more practical action is needed to improve its image.
In the end, the people who really want to leave their homes are a minority after all. On the one hand, the international community must help it tide over some of the current difficulties, including emergency assistance for food and medicine. It is more important to consider one's own long-term development plan, which is the most effective way to avoid refugee problems.
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