Announcing the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan two months ago, President Joe Biden invoked the need to focus on Washington’s No. 1 foreign-policy priority: China. Ending the war would, the president argued, permit America to redirect its energies toward new, more pressing challenges, foremost among them “extreme” competition with an assertive Beijing. As a rising authoritarian superpower threatens to eclipse the United States technologically, militarily, and economically, the thinking goes, we can hardly afford to be tied down in an endless war.
The idea that the U.S. needs to extricate itself from the greater Middle East to get serious about the Indo-Pacific has a natural appeal. It is also not new. The Obama administration similarly justified its withdrawal from Iraq as part of a pivot to Asia.
Yet as details of the Biden administration’s post-withdrawal strategy for Afghanistan emerge, its benefits for American competitiveness against Beijing look nebulous. In fact, the U.S. departure from Kabul could end up undermining, rather than strengthening, America’s strategic hand against China.
