Michael Hughes
AOPNEWS | April 15, 2021
*Breaking News*
The US military will be able to focus more resources on perceived challenges in the Indo-Pacific region after exiting Afghanistan, a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Thursday.
Biden, in a major address on Wednesday, announced that U.S. troops would exit Afghanistan by September 11, while acknowledging that the extended NATO military presence had failed. The move violated the US-Taliban Doha pact which requires all foreign forces to be gone by May 1.
“One of the reasons why the president and his team has taken the careful steps on Afghanistan is actually to free up the time and attention and resources from our senior leadership and our military to focus on what we believe are the fundamental challenges of the 21st century and they lie fundamentally in the Indo-Pacific,” the unnamed U.S. official said during a teleconference.
NATO will be withdrawing nearly 10,000 troops, including 2,500 Americans from Afghanistan beginning May 1. Biden said the move was necessary because the Western military presence in the country had not proven effective since the U.S. took out Osama bin Laden.
Biden also said remaining in Afghanistan did “not make sense” as a counterterrorism strategy when the threat is dispersed globally.
Critics have accused Biden of putting troops in harm’s way unnecessarily by delaying the exit when he could have simply followed Trump’s plan. The Trump administration not only adhered to the Doha agreement but was ahead of schedule in terms of removing American troops. However, after taking over in January the Biden administration froze the plan amid a number of excuses.
The U.S. originally accused the Taliban of violating the Doha pact by failing to split with al-Qaeda, and expressed concerns about escalating violence and lack of progress on intra-Afghan talks. Some advising the White House even wanted the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan until the country was stable, sovereign, independent and democratic.
The Taliban have slammed the U.S. for failing to meet the deadline and vowed not to engage in the Afghan peace process until all foreign troops are gone.
Earlier this year the same U.S. congressionally-funded analysis that called for delaying the exit, concluded that staying in Afghanistan would hurt American interests vis-à-vis China.
In fact, as the U.S. leaves Afghanistan they appear to want China to enter the fray, as evidenced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comments during a surprise visit to Kabul earlier today. He called on China – in addition to Russia and Turkey – to do more to support Afghanistan.
The term “Indo-Pacific” was fabricated less than fifteen years ago and propagated to new heights recently by the U.S. and its allies – mainly Japan, India and Australia – in an effort to check the rise of China.
According to a U.S. State Department fact sheet, the region spans from the west coast of the United States to the west coast of India. The U.S. has some 375,000 military and civilian personnel operating in the region and has provided more than $1.1 billion in security aid to partners. In terms of commercial value, the United States has also conducted more than $1.9 trillion in two-way trade in the region.
Hence, it is easy to understand why Washington is eager to leave Afghanistan behind and address the existential prospect that China may surpass the Americans in terms of material power in coming decades.
One slogan often bandied above by American leadership is the need to preserve a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” which refers to a well-articulated defense strategy unveiled two years ago wherein the U.S. vows to develop a more “lethal, resilient, and rapidly innovating Joint Force” to militarily encounter China to ensure freedom of navigation. In this 64-page defense strategy document the phrase “Indo-Pacific” is mentioned more than 40 times and China more than 100.
Meanwhile, Beijing warned that the problem of terrorism is far from being solved in Afghanistan and called on the United States to execute a responsible and orderly exit.
“We have to emphasize that the political solution to Afghanistan and early realization of peace and stability in the country and the fight against terrorism are in the common interest of all parties concerned, including China and the US and are also common aspiration of the international community,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a briefing on Thursday.
Zhao also slammed Washington for linking the Afghan exit to countering China.
“This reflects deep rooted zero-sum mind-set from the Cold War which is detrimental to mutual trust between the two countries and it is not conducive to cooperation and coordination on international and regional issues,” Zhao said.