Afghanistan withdrawal to colour Biden’s policies

摘要

The fallout from the ignominious collapse of the US-backed government of Afghanistan will result in greater scrutiny of President Joe Biden’s push to disengage from the Middle East and his attempt to build a broad coalition to address what he sees as China’s challenge to the US-centred global order. The Biden administration’s calculation behind the disentanglement from Afghanistan was that it would yield strategic benefts by untying Washington’s hands to pursue its broader objectives elsewhere. The US would no longer have to spend billions of dollars a year underwriting the Afghan government, and it would be able to end costly military operations that distract from the planned reposi- tioning of its forces in the Indo-Pacifc to confront China. Afghanistan, meanwhile, would become somebody else’s problem.