It was brave for U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan to hold a news conference on Aug. 17, 2021, and face the music. I am surprised none of the journalists asked him if he had considered resigning over the Afghanistan debacle.
But what Sullivan, and I guess U.S. President Joe Biden, just don’t get is the fundamental damage this does to the credibility and durability of the NATO alliance. I hear serious people in the Baltic states really doubting now that the US would respond to the triggering of NATO’s Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) if they were attacked by Russia. And if they are thinking it, so must the Russians – open season on Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet space for Moscow because of Biden’s actions on Afghanistan?
Arguably Trump built NATO’s coffin, and now Biden and Sullivan are hammering in the last few nails.
Sad and worrying.
And he also does not get that while he might see China as the biggest clear and present danger to the US and Western world, most others don’t. China is not intent on regime change in the US, and West, as Moscow has so amply demonstrated to be in the 2016 elections and Brexit. Sure China wants economic and military parity even hegemony but it does not want regime change with the US – coexistence has brought huge economic gain to China. And avoiding damaging wars has been part of the Chinese development script – which US exceptionalism has failed to understand. As long as the US does not mess with China, Beijing is happy with the status quo – well I guess they would say that as economically they are winning.
But Sullivan seems obsessed with China.
And in any event, he just does not see that US actions in Afghanistan, while perhaps freeing US resources to take on China, actually means it is less likely allies will saddle up with the US to defend the ranch against China’s push for hegemony
