The Afghan Situation and the Trajectory of the West

The Afghan crisis has pointed up some of the failures of the West and encouraged Russia and China to strike out as its equals and yet, in fact, the international system is collaborating quite well to try and resolve difficulties. The collaboration between the Taliban and Western military at Kabul airport may irritate ‘hawks’ and liberals but it has showed that it was possible to work together even if we saw a fire fight between unidentified gunmen and Afghan, US and German soldiers. In fact, it was an Afghan soldier who died and there were no other body bags to fuel Western hysteria. The West has insisted on conflating the Taliban with terrorism just as the West needs to collaborate with the Taliban who are not, in fact, terrorists except in the fevered imaginations of psy-ops ‘hawks’.

The 'Wickedness' of the Taliban and Realpolitik

The refusal to believe that the Taliban will not be the Islamist equivalent of the old Comintern may be a sensible approach on the precautionary principle but it also smacks of some well-funded special interest groups digging in to defend their political positions. You can call the Taliban liars but you might also take at face value the relatively moderate position at today's Press Conference or the article in today's Asharq Al-Awsat (directed at a Saudi audience but translated into English) which looks pretty straight to me. The danger, as we noted last week, is that the aggressive 'hawkish' approach of the 'usual suspects' will turn the Taliban into precisely what we fear because they have no other option. Already we sense they are 'losing patience' on the street.

Fortunately, to counter the neuroses and paranoia of our security apparat, we know that the Afghans need to have a strong economy, that 70-80% of the current economy is (unhealthily) the creature of Western aid and NGO spending and that China and Russia (and Iran or Pakistan) do not want a basket case on their hands, nor to throw their own money into the money pit without something in return and will be voices of restraint. The Taliban, too, have won. They need space to reconstruct their society on lines Western liberals will not like but have lost the right to have any say in. Such a society may not be one we would want to live in but it need not be a disaster for the bulk of the inhabitants whereas a further continuation of the war or the usual business of the major powers forcing the winners into brutal revolutionary justice (as happened after the French and Russian revolutions) through their threats are going to be much worse for all but the emigre middle classes, once embedded in what was effectively a colonial 'nation-building' economy. Personally I would not trust the Taliban further than I could metaphorically throw it but then I would not trust any of the other parties involved in this imbroglio. There is too much at stake for the bulk of the population in trying to gain advantage when the game is lost.

The general expectation last week was that this situation was going to collapse further on differing expectations. The Taliban have a country to control including dealing with protests, with Massoud in the North and with their own hot heads so they (not entirely without justification) have insisted that foreign troops leave on August 31st to assert their sovereignty. However, no one seriously believes that the West can do this and not leave behind some of its own citizens and certainly the bulk of its dependents. Nor is it going to be at all easy to re-intervene to effect evacuation without considerable bloodshed. Radical militant Islamists may also see an opportunity to de-stabilise things further with terror attacks on Western operations.

What seems likely to happen if the US Administration and Taliban can keep talking is that the US will get its own people out but leave behind Afghan citizens with visas. These latter are going to have to make their way out as refugees until they can get somewhere from which they can reach the US or whichever country granted the visa. Since the US is privileging its own people, the risk is that the Europeans may not even get their own people out, leaving all sorts of NGO and aid-related workers to come to Kabul and take a flight later, hoping that the situation has not deteriorated. The signals are that the Taliban will not be encouraging its own people to leave so we will have instinctively normative individuals going through trauma as they escape leaving their loyal people behind. This is particularly painful for people working in feminist organisations. We have years of liberal internationalist campaigning to look forward as they try to rectify that situation by diplomatic or other means. If the Sudanese funding negotiations are anything to go by, continued aid for Afghanistan will be a 'trade' - protection for what is now the clientage (the NGO workers) of an external warlord (the West) for cash. There is, in fact, enormous scope here both for a sensible compromise between the victors and losers in a war and for media-driven hysteria and a mood of 'revanchism' in the domestic politics of the West.

The disarray in the Western political class is almost complete at this time. The blame game continues although in a much more ‘through gritted teeth’ subdued way within the foreign policy establishment on the basis that the international system must hang together lest it be hanged together.?Various ‘allies’ may be letting it be known to Washington that they are not pleased with the handling of the withdrawal but they are also trying to rally around the US to effect a successful outcome through the G7 (chaired by the UK).

The Struggle Over Narratives

What we are seeing is a struggle over narratives as much as a struggle to evacuate tens of thousands of people from a war zone. Nevertheless, the ‘hawks’ and liberal internationalists outside decision-making power have hit back hard (notably in Blair’s contribution) to try to restore their own narrative as dominant. They are not afraid to place the blame on Biden in what is now a ‘split in the ruling order’. Perhaps this is the final break between the two wings of Western liberalism that constructed the dominant centrist narrative of the 1990s through to 2016 - one hawkish and liberal internationalist and one socially progressive domestically. Nonsensical posturing right-wing populist narratives add to the instability so we are in danger of falling into the trap that France did in the 1840s of wanting to have more than it could possibly achieve and so manoeuvring itself into disaster (1870).

Naturally, the Russians and Chinese tut-tut from the side-lines but the most significant developments last week were Moscow’s powerful reaffirmation of support for Lukashenko of Belarus in total defiance of Western liberal ‘norms’ and, even more important, President Xi’s major shift of policy against the wealthy and his call for more equality in Chinese society. Non-Western authoritarianism is now increasingly assertive with a strongly nationalist flavour but it is also moving back towards its socialist roots in a way that might be attractive in the West to those losing out from the pandemic recovery and from the green transformation, as well as triggering a countervailing liberal ‘nationalism of the West’ that increases tensions over flashpoints.

Over a matter of days, you could see the tectonic shifts in geo-politics as countries at the borders of the Western Empire either sought reassurance - which is why Vice President Harris was so busy in East Asia - or started to enter into dialogue with the 'other side' to hedge their bets. China is moving into the vacuum very quickly much as rising regional powers like Turkey are assessing the situation. An example is the disappointment of Ukraine with the West and concern that it now has no effective security guarantee from the US. It cannot turn to Russia and so it is turning to China: this is peculiar, given the close security relationship between Moscow and Beijing, unless Kiev believes that Beijing can restrain Moscow which is currently doing some serious sabre-rattling over the Donbass. Serbia is already China’s ‘de facto’ political base in the Balkans. On the other hand, Lithuania has also alienated China by supporting the rights of self-determination of the Taiwanese.

A new Hadrian’s Wall is emerging quite quickly in Europe, claimed as security measures but actually directed at migration concerns. Both Lithuania and Poland are putting up border fences with Belarus which will be completed by next year. The Poles are increasing their military border presence.?European analysts see Afghanistan as not the only source of high levels of illegal immigration and importation of terrorism – the two other regions of concern are the increasingly troubled Iraq (we would add Lebanon) and the Sahel which is rapidly spinning out of control.?

As a sign of the times, Russia, China and Iran have announced that they will be holding joint military exercises in the Gulf later this year. We read this as a warning that any resistance to China’s ambitions in the South China Seas or Russian interests in Ukraine, Belarus or Central Asia will result in serious threats to the West’s energy lifeline before the latter has ‘transformed’ into energy independence (which is a long way off). Personally, I tend to think we are in a game of bluff but the danger is obvious - someone calls the bluff and the railway timetables result in war.

All three nations are engaged in similar overlapping missions directed at the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans.?Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey – the major NATO block to Russian aspirations in theory – also look to be getting closer The West is thus losing control of its South Eastern flank in Eurasia (the Nordstream 2 acceptance throws the Ukraine to the wolves but is absolutely necessary during the transitional period to a green economy for German industry) but its Southern African [Sahel] flank is equally vulnerable. With impotence elsewhere, as in the Ethiopian situation to date, and difficulty in getting its will even when it tries to buy its way in (as in Sudan), US policy on several fronts appears to be in disarray.

Biden's blunder in promising military support for Taiwan against the standard position of 'strategic ambiguity' which then saw back-tracking by his officials simply pointed up the probability that 'strategic ambiguity' meant inaction - it would not be a surprise to see Taipei beginning to consider a dialogue with Beijing much as Kiev has started one. Taiwan is probably the most dangerous current global flashpoint which our (British) Prime Minister has stupidly implied we might regard as Sir Edward Grey regarded Belgium in 1914 - the difference being that Taiwan is not central to Britain's strategic position.

The Mass Migration Issue

Then there is the issue of mass migration about which there is something of a conspiracy of silence in the Western liberal media. We have noted the beginnings of an Eastern European Hadrian's Wall (not only in Lithuania and Poland but in Greece) but the effect on Biden's popularity of the lack of such a wall in Arizona and Texas should also be noted. The liberal narrative is falling apart as it becomes clearer that mass migration is not just a matter of nice middle class people, employed by nation builders and escaping evil regimes who then contribute to society with their taxes, but equally of relatively young men beholden to organised crime and settling in to create increasingly ‘no go’ areas of the urban West. The security agenda becomes not only security against external threats like terrorism but internal threats like criminal violence as well as increased competition for reduced housing, education, social and health services with the indigenous working classes. Criminal violence in Sweden related to migration has become a hot and disruptive political issue already that threatens to dispose of centre-left dominance of the country later this year.

The Afghan crisis is already seeing the machinery being put in place to try to stop the latest ‘volkerwanderung’ from making its way into Europe (the Turks and Belarussians seeming quite happy on occasions to conduct people to the border) but the problem is much bigger than that. As emerging country economies buckle under the Delta pandemic and as the growing number of small wars and failing states drive more people from their homes (Tigray in Ethiopia is only a taster), the numbers coming up from the south towards the west are likely to increase substantially with the liberal narrative still in denial that these are not the temporary problems of European displacement in 1945 (which is the basis of our current refugee agreements) but something much bigger, much closer to events in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Eventually, something is going to snap amongst indigenous electorates if there is not an acceptable new strategy.

The US – The Volatile ‘Top Dog’

But how does all this affect America, the world's top dog? Well, certainly it will not cease to be top dog but it can no longer afford liberal internationalism or neo-conservatism as its driving ideologies when it desperately needs to turn its attention to national infrastructure and social cohesion. Everyone is waiting with bated breath for Jay Powell’s statement after the Federal Reserve Chairs’ meeting in Jackson Hole on Thursday. Investors are growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of guidance coming from the Fed but what is clear is that the 'roaring twenties' model of economic recovery is looking a little threadbare as recovery momentum begins to slacken in both Asia and North America on Delta concerns. Supply chain problems globally threaten to drive high inflation in the context of high consumer demand from the middle classes. Goldman Sachs cut its third-quarter GDP outlook for the US from 9 per cent to 5.5 per cent and reduced its 2021 full-year forecast by 0.4 percentage points to 6 per cent. This does not mean that the US is weak or busted, far from it. It remains the best organised and strongest power possibly in human history and it is not in decline but simply going through a process of withdrawing in order to become stronger. But it does have serious social cohesion problems made worse by culture wars, the aggression of the two wings of the political class towards one another and media hysteria. The underlying reality is quite stark. America's fundamentals are good. Its politics are dysfunctional.

McKinsey has a survey that indicates the depth of the malaise amongst the American working and lower middle class. Based on this and other material, we can perhaps say that the US is going off in a direction quite different from that of Europe which has managed to sustain greater social cohesion. It is too early to say what this means but the fate of Afghanistan might not add up to much (other than to add to a more general gloom) in a population where 50% think they are on the financial brink and the bulk of the population is ‘pessimistic’ about their future.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which covers an estimated 57m gig workers and freelancers, will end on September 6, as will other jobless benefits, leaving millions short of cash at a time when Covid cases are rising again disproportionately affecting African-Americans and Hispanics. OECD data also suggests consumer pessimism but the most significant finding is that the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment report has driven its index to its lowest level in nine years. This is referred to as a staggering fall. Far Right/Far Left clashes have already started up again in Portland (an existing US flash point). If the US is, no more than the West as a whole, not in danger of imminent collapse, it is likely to go through further volatility with many of the same tensions as Europe. Migrants coming up through the Southern border are increasing in number and the Administration appears to be like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming car on that score. Similarly, the Afghan withdrawal was the right thing to do but its manner of implementation has raised serious questions about elite competence.

While infrastructural investment and helicoptering money to the masses is welcome in current conditions, nervousness about inflation is increasing. Behind that is nervousness about high taxation. And behind that will come nervousness about the costs as well as the benefits of the green transformation. The danger is of the West going down a vortex of competitive populisms as sections of the elite compete to control a situation that appears to be spinning out of control (it is not, in fact, if there was strong leadership) because of the instinct for hysteria amongst journalists and intellectuals. One spark or misjudgement – Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran and so many others – could set things off in a bad direction at any time in the coming years.?

The Relevance of the Afghan Crisis

So, how does this link up to Afghanistan? Because of the 'optics' in three ways. The first is that the entire 'nation-building' project and the liberal imperialism promoted by Blair at Chicago in 1999 is dead and buried. There will be attempts to revive it and it does not mean that humanitarian values have been lost (quite the contrary as Secretary of State Blinken's policies testify) but it does mean that vast sums of money are no longer available to build para-state structures at the margins of empire. This means an awful lot of middle class graduates are going to have to reinvent themselves in the coming months and years. As they return home to less opportunities, these elements are likely to be disruptive because of their favoured access to a like-minded liberal media. France's instabilities and failures in the nineteenth century can be tracked back to the behaviour of media in the capital city that was detached from reality. Plus ca change!

Second, the 'war in terror' narrative that fuelled the homeland security mentality and the harder edge of overseas intervention is looking rather threadbare not because it did not contain truths at the time it was developed but because time passes and the narratives, designed to maintain anxiety, fear and funding (and so jobs), no longer fit the new reality which is that there are as many types of Islamism as there are liberalism and democracy and by calling everyone terrorists, no one in the end is a terrorist. The 'moderate' conduct of the Taliban in the last few weeks is in danger of pricking one narrative bubble and is disconnecting the narrative of threat (which exists but not always where we are told it is) from the narratives of humanitarian intervention and cultural imperialism. This is another group in Western society who will be like the Bourbons in that they will have learned nothing and forgotten nothing and who will simmer for years if necessary until their almost religious intensity breaks out in some future campaign or disaster.

Finally, and most importantly, two decades and $1trn later, leaving behind an economy that was 70-80% dependent on Western aid and employed more intellectuals than workers, the failure and the withdrawal has brought into salience a doubt that has existed in the minds of many people for quite some time and which is discussed much more aggressively than most by Dominic Cummings in his blog - are our rulers really competent to rule? is our democracy all it is cracked up to be? to which I would add the question that all Amerticans should be asking themselves: why is the condition of our people at home so bad while a trillion dollars could be wasted in a faraway country to be inherited by people we were told were the bad guys and with whom we are now collaborating by necessity?

Where all this will lead is unclear and the European Union is less affected than the United States by the current debacle. With the usual canny skills of 'Perfide Albion', the British have managed to come out of this smelling of roses (relatively) but questions of competence are as prevalent in Bordeaux and Norwich as in Cincinnatti. Our rulers are going to have to work very hard not to be next after President Ghani at this rate.