When the United States announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan in May of this year, the Taliban movement immediately seized the time to launch an offensive to retake Afghanistan. Then a wave of warnings followed, believing that the new situation would lead to the downfall of the Afghan government and the outflow of large numbers of people. But this did not prevent US President Joe Biden from continuing to implement his plan to complete the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan before September 11 this year, 20 years after the World Trade Center in New York was attacked on September 11th.
In an article, the editor and news writer Spencer Bokat Lindell of the US “New York Times” talked about the declining importance of military intervention in the United States over the past 20 years. He also cited well-known writers in the field. And the views of thinkers to illustrate this problem.
Lindel pointed out that Biden said this month when talking about the US decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, “We are not going to Afghanistan to build this country. Only the Afghan people have the right to decide their future and how they want to manage their country. This is also their responsibility.”
Lindel believes that the message conveyed by Biden’s statement is completely different from what the United States has publicized at the beginning of the 21st century. At that time, former US President Bush Jr. declared in a high-profile manner, “Ending the tyranny in our world has become ours. The call of this era”.
“American Century”
This article explains that the United States does not always regard itself as the “world police.” The United States began to expand its influence in the Western Hemisphere in the 19th century, and it was not until World War II that it became a super military power on a global scale.
The author quoted journalist Daniel Imowara in an article published in The New Yorker last year and explained that “The fall of France in 1940 made American leaders more convinced of the need to participate in the war.”
He also stated that the author Henry Luce went further on this issue and proposed the so-called “American Century”, which is a post-World War II global order dominated by American values, institutions, and military power. law. The author pointed out that “Luce’s idea was quite controversial at first, but with the end of the war, it seemed inevitable.”
The author explained that the reasons why the United States established military hegemony and influence are related to the challenges it faced after World War II. At the time, American leaders viewed the spread of the Soviet Union and communism as a threat to their national security.
A founding document of the National Security Council wrote, “In a shrinking world facing the threat of nuclear war, it is not enough to just seek to verify the design of the Kremlin, because the lack of order between countries is becoming more and more. The more unacceptable, and this fact is imposed on us. Therefore, for our own benefit, we need to take the responsibility of leading the world.”
Humanitarian military intervention!
The author points out that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the unipolar hegemony of the United States in the world was formed, and the so-called “humanitarian military intervention” logic of the United States gained vigorous strength.
The author points out that this logic was strengthened after the September 11, 2001 attack, when the connection between national security and the promotion of democracy outside the United States became a topic of word of mouth among American conservative politicians.
Former U.S. President Bush Jr. declared after his invasion of Iraq in 2003 that “the failure of Iraq’s democracy will encourage terrorists around the world, increase the danger to the American people, and destroy the hope of millions of people in the region.”
He also promised, “Iraq’s democracy will succeed, and news about this success will send a message to Syria, Iran and other countries that freedom can be the future of every country.”
Mask comes off
Lindel explained in his article that the popularity of American foreign military intervention and hegemony has declined rapidly in the United States. There are many reasons for this, including the reasons for intervention and hegemony to enhance American national security, which are no longer the same. That touched the people’s nerves during the “911” incident.
In this regard, the author pointed out that in a book titled “Clear and Present Safety” published in 2019, it was pointed out that “Americans now live in a safer and freer world than at any time in human history.”
Lindel emphasized that the global war on terrorism and the US invasion of Iraq have severely undermined the humanitarian justification for military intervention.
An article published in 2010 by the historian Stephen Wortham in the Journal of Genocide Studies pointed out that after the genocide experienced in Rwanda, neoconservatives and liberals greatly underestimated the existence of stopping racial conflicts. Difficulties have also ignored the challenges faced in post-war state building, and described military intervention as an urgent need to recklessly ignore public opinion, thus paving the way for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
But nearly 20 years later, American journalist Peter Bennett pointed out in an article published in the “New York Times” that, as mentioned in the Watson Institute report, it is difficult for the United States to maintain its unique global status. The image of political participants. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the war waged by the United States resulted in the deaths of more than 800,000 people and the displacement of more than 37 million people, costing approximately US$6.4 trillion in funding.
sign
Lindel put forward some signs suggesting that the United States‘ willingness to act as a world policeman and continue to implement foreign military interventions is beginning to decline. Among them, US President Biden rejected the request of the Acting Prime Minister of Haiti to seek military support from the United States last week. , Haitian President Moise was assassinated.
The author points out that some political analysts see this decision as another sign of the weakening of American hegemony.
He also pointed out that Max Bout, a political analyst specializing in national security affairs in the US “Washington Post”, commented on this incident in an article, thinking it was “the official retirement of the world‘s police.”
Bout pointed out in this article that after the disastrous defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has lost interest in establishing democracies abroad.
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