Jin Feng: The deep reason why the US-EU alliance lost Afghanistan

Source: Global Times

The Taliban's entry into Kabul and its effective control of the Afghan regime marked not only the end of 20 years of occupation by the United States and its allies, but also the end of the era of the United States and its allies interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of human rights and pursuing the Western "democratization" model in other countries with strong financial and military power. Even so, some politicians and media in the United States and Europe are still looking for excuses for failure and creating discursive cover. Matthias Nass, a European opinion leader who was deputy editor of Germany's Die Zeitung newspaper, even said that the West had failed, but it was not just the West's responsibility, it was the world that was helpless.

Such shirking of responsibility is clearly self-deception. The root cause of the failure of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan is, first of all, that the western civilizational arrogance and institutional hegemony have plunged themselves into the trap of self-imposed value interventionism. Since the concept of "civilization" appeared in the West, the West has taken it for itself and conquered the world again and again under this banner. Since World War II, especially after the Cold War, the West has defined "human rights" and "democracy" as "universal values" in international relations and the legitimacy of political power, and has not only established the international interventionist doctrine that human rights are above sovereignty, but has also repeatedly intervened arbitrarily in weak and small countries that do not conform to their interests and do not submit to their oppression. The failure of the United States and its allies to intervene in Afghanistan in an all-round way declares the total failure of this value interventionism.

Second, the West has given interventionism the name of human rights, but it cannot hide its naked hegemonic and expansionist behavior. When it invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago, the United States and its allies vowed to "establish a democracy without the Taliban" in Afghanistan, but when they had to lose 20 years later, the U.S. government excused itself that it had entered Afghanistan for counterterrorism and had now accomplished that goal. The two sides have different arguments, but they cannot hide the reality of failure, and also expose that the intervention in Afghanistan is not fundamentally for "human rights" and "democracy", but for its own geopolitical interests.

Not only the United States, but Germany is one of the countries that have followed the United States in its intervention in Afghanistan the most vigorously. Former German Defense Minister Struck gave Germany the reason for sending troops to "defend German security in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan." The deep logic of this statement is that powerful countries can "freely" define their own sovereign space, and in their bones is hegemonic expansionism. According to this logic, does the failed withdrawal of the German army from Afghanistan also mean that The German security policy has failed? At least for now, there has been no reflection from German politicians, and the current German defense minister gives the impression that she is still determined to follow the United States "to fight for values", although she is speechless when asked by soldiers about the significance of the Afghan war for which they shed blood and died, and there is nothing she can do in the face of Afghans who may fall into disaster because of their work for the German army.

Third, the colonial-like arrogance of the US EU military regarded the Afghans as the object of "democratic transformation" and the instrument of transformation, misjudged the situation, and led to a military and political "fiasco of the century". The Allied forces have occupied Afghanistan for 20 years, invested a lot of money, weapons and personnel, and their strength has surpassed the Taliban by several times in every way they look at it, but in the end, from Washington to the european capitals, generals and politicians have been surprised to say that the Taliban have marched at an unexpected speed. Just a few days ago, the U.S. side believed that the Taliban were unlikely to seize power anytime soon. The German Government insists on the repatriation of Afghan refugees who have fled to Germany in the past on the grounds that Afghanistan is safe and eligible for repatriation.

On the occasion of the "flag change" in Kabul, an Afghan who had worked for the allies texted a European lawmaker saying he was still waiting to go to Europe. But where does the Afghan, who thinks that he can be saved by doing things for the allies, knows that the allies are racing to flee at this moment, and they have no time to take care of themselves, even if they can take care of the Afghans. In the eyes of the Allies, I have brought back the Afghan elite from overseas to set up a government for you, and through these elites, I have legislated for you to establish a system, and you have given you money and guns, and you should give me a good job and create a "democratic system" and a modern country that I need. And now I have to lose, all because you are incompetent, you are corrupt, you deserve it. In the eyes of the United States and its allies, Afghans are not the main body of the country at all.

Over the past 20 years, the United States and its allies have invested trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, countless intelligence personnel, and all sorts of advanced weapons, but in the end there has not even been time for a dignified retreat, which is another historic and dramatic joke for the Intelligence, Military, Bureaucratic, and political high-level of the United States and its allies.

It should be noted that the occupation of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies is over, but the troubles brought to Afghanistan are not over, and it is still creating new instability in the region. The possibility of a large number of refugees, neighboring countries will suffer the consequences of the defeat of the Allies in Afghanistan, and some refugees will knock on the door of Europe through Iran and Turkey, which will make the refugee crisis plaguing Europe worse. Can the U.S. sit back and relax safely after the withdrawal? In an interview with the media on Sunday, Blinken said that when the Biden administration came to power, the strength of the Taliban had reached the level of 20 years ago, that is, before 9/11. If so, how can the United States explain that the withdrawal is justified by "having dismantled the terrorist fabric of Afghanistan"?

It should also be noted that the defeat of the US military in Kabul is by no means comparable to the defeat of the US military in Saigon in 1975; the allied forces in Afghanistan are unprecedentedly powerful, the contrast with the Taliban's power is unprecedented, the defeat of the allies is therefore unprecedentedly tragic, and the lessons of the United States and its allies are even more tragic: Democracy and human rights are the values that mankind pursues together, and if we take this for ourselves, respect it, and abuse it as tools and weapons for personal gain, we will ultimately fail. Moreover, the defeat of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan is yet another ample testament to the need for respect and observance of the principles of international relations of national self-determination and non-interference in internal affairs. (The writer is a researcher at Shanghai University of Chinese)