United States President Joe Biden's America is not only back, but is back home. At least for now, nursing a self-inflicted wound. In a post-withdrawal speech on Tuesday, he finally made explicit what the world knew all along: the 20-year forever war was "not just about Afghanistan". In Biden's words, "it's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries." No, America is not giving up war, only that it will not fight a ground war. Unlike Europe, the United States wants to wage a "human rights" war by not putting boots on the ground. What shape this war takes is anybody's guess. But Biden's move to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan has torn asunder an already divided America. Lining up on the side of Biden are people who have grown tired of the US policing the world at great expense to the taxpayers. A recent Boston University report estimated it to be more than US$8 trillion. And in Afghanistan alone, more than US$2 trillion. Add to this the loss of lives, the support for no boots on the ground becomes clearer.
But Biden is not without his detractors. Neoconservatives and liberal interventionists — or regime changers, to put it more bluntly — are among the growing number of people who want America's wars to continue. Perhaps it was this group Biden was trying to recruit when he said "human rights will be at the centre of our foreign policy but the way to do that is not through endless military deployments". An enticement of sorts for a "humane" war, though an oxymoron it is? Biden is right in withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, but wrong in wanting to wage a "human rights" war. Start with why he is right. Afghanistan has been very costly to not only Americans but also the Afghans. One account puts Afghan deaths at more than 60,000 while others estimate it to be double that. Imagine the widows and orphans America's 20-year war has left behind. Afghans who are in their 20s today have seen nothing but war. After spending US$300 million a day for 20 years, America has nothing to show, except deaths and destruction. Now why Biden is wrong. As pointed out by Professor Evyatar Friesel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in a letter to The Economist on Saturday, the sources of the disaster in Afghanistan — and by implication in Iraq and Vietnam — "are neither political nor military, they are philosophical". He is right. Friesel says it best: "Western thinking, shared by Europeans and Americans, is conditioned on Enlightenment thinking, which is centred on the improvement of the individual." This isn't the way to understand societies, especially Eastern ones. It is Western social engineering at its worst because it is not only arrogant, but has left behind a long trail of social and political tragedies, Friesel writes. He names Russia's communism as one. If Vietnam is too long ago in the past, just think of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Biden must discard his "Utopia" chase for a universal civilisation through "humane" wars. He must keep his troops on American soil and only use them when America is attacked. Wars, be they "humane" or otherwise, must not be waged to reengineer societies. Because to do so will be to remake the world by force. Biden's penchant for social tinkering must stop.