The Afghanistan Withdrawal Is The End of the Pax Americana

President Barak Obama was on television last evening to announce his drawdown plan for taking American troops out of Afghanistan.

The facts are simple : 33,000 troops will be withdrawn between July 2011 and Summer 2012. Of these, 10,000 are to be withdrawn by the end of this year. The details of who will be withdrawn were not given in the President’s brief speech, probably because the US military and Obama’s civilian advisors have very different views about how to proceed.

France has already announced that it will also begin a progressive withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan. Britain has supported Obama’s decision but has not yet announced the details of its own troop withdrawal.

In the United States, some commentators are comparing it to President Bush’s speech announcing victory in Iraq. What should be understood about this comparison is that it is not flattering. The sense is that Bush declared victory and left Iraq in somewhat of a mess, and now Obama is declaring victory and will leave Afghanistan in an even greater mess.

The real news in this announcement is far more important than Afghanistan. It is about the American presence and power in the world at large.

Since it came to the rescue of Europe in the World War II, America has been the supreme guardian of the peace, or attempted peace, of the world. Its incursion into Vietnam to save Asia from Communism, after the French failed and were driven out, was the beginning of its fall from grace. America left Vietnam because it had run out of political ideas, its politicians refused to follow their military leaders’ advice, and the American public was tired of TV pictures showing the reality of guerrilla warfare’s effect on civilians.

Since Vietnam, the United States has powered its way into and out of Iraq and, now, Afghanistan, in a desire to help downtrodden people and to show those who would challenge her leadership that they are doomed to failure.

But, with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Pax Americana is over. The United States does not have the money or the popular will to continue to serve as the world’s protector of last resort.      

This does not mean that America is to be consigned to the trash heap of history. But, it does mean that the 21^st century is not going to belong to America. It will be many years before we can fully know the results of this historical demarcation. However, one thing is certain. Americans will have to learn how to live in a more collegial and less America-dependent world. Their egos will suffer in the process, but their wallets may feel better if they can find the national will to use the opportunity to repair their broken economy.