3 reasons Afghanistan withdrawal could ruin US influence in Southeast Asia and beyond

Biden’s decision to press ahead with the exit from Afghanistan was meant to free up US resources for full-spectrum competition with China
However, polarised domestic politics, doubts over US commitment and worries about terrorism emanating from Afghanistan could all backfire

Richard Heydarian

Published: 9:15am, 31 Aug 2021

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“Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another,” Winston Churchill said of the collapse of British forces at the hands of Axis powers in the Siege of Tobruk. As an astute politician, the British prime minister instinctively grasped the psychological impact of unexpected military defeats and, more crucially, the overall centrality of prestige to global power.

Despite his best efforts to preserve the British imperium and an impressive streak of Allied military victories across the Mediterranean throughout World War II, Churchill ultimately failed to turn the tide of history. Within years, his country’s once-mighty empire had to give way to a resurgent Moscow and a self-assured Washington.

Eight decades later, the United States is grappling with a similar dilemma following the collapse of the Afghan government in the face of Taliban forces. While America could still preserve a measure of global primacy for years to come, the Biden administration’s flawed exit from Afghanistan has dissipated US prestige and deepened concerns over its commitment to key allies across the world.

This is especially true in critical regions such as Southeast Asia, where a resurgent China is rapidly gaining influence with its combination of large-scale economic incentives, technological sophistication and growing military prowess.

US President Joe Biden and his team of advisers are aware of the fragility of America’s global position as well as the centrality of Asia to the future of the international order. As Biden warned in his first speech before a joint session of Congress, we are approaching “a great inflection point in history” and the US is “in competition with China … to win the 21st century”.

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To this end, throughout its first six months, the Biden administration has embarked on a turbocharged diplomatic offensive to rally like-minded powers and win over reluctant allies across the Indo-Pacific.

Under Biden’s watch, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, grouping with Australia, India and Japan has reached its greatest level of institutionalisation, with high-level meetings and joint military drills becoming a regular sight in recent months.

According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the goal is to turn the Quad into a robust yet informal alliance which can address the “most important issues of our time”. After a somewhat slow start, the Biden administration has also stepped up its charm offensive across Southeast Asia.

In Washington, Blinken held cordial conversations with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi, with both sides agreeing to regularised “strategic dialogue” amid increasing defence and economic cooperation.

Meanwhile, Biden deployed Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Vice-President Kamala Harris to the region within a week in an unprecedented show of diplomatic engagement with Southeast Asian counterparts.

As Harris acknowledged in her recent visit to Singapore, America’s heightened engagement with the region is because Southeast Asia – the ultimate theatre of US-China competition – will “in large part … dictate the future of our world”.

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Biden’s decision to press ahead with the exit from Afghanistan was meant to free up US resources for full-spectrum competition with China across the Indo-Pacific. Paradoxically, the withdrawal could end up weakening the American position elsewhere, especially in Southeast Asia, for three key reasons.

To begin with, the events in Afghanistan have further polarised American politics, placing Biden under growing domestic pressure. The ensuing blowback, with opportunist Republicans and hawkish Democrats lambasting the president, could weaken Biden’s position ahead of the midterm elections next year.

In contrast, the US withdrawal from Vietnam following the fall of Saigon served as a sobering moment of unity at home, with Americans largely welcoming the end of decades-old conflict in Indochina. More recently, the US withdrawal from Iraq was also largely welcomed at home with little backlash.

An internally divided and polarised America will inevitably face growing constraints in terms of projecting power overseas. But what was even more troubling to many Southeast Asian observers was the US appearing to suddenly abandon Afghan allies, leaving tens of thousands of ordinary civilians as well as Western-trained soldiers to the mercy of Taliban forces.

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Across Southeast Asia, including among US treaty allies such as the Philippines, the Afghanistan withdrawal could strengthen the hands of pro-Beijing elements, who have been portraying America as an unreliable ally that abandons its strategic partners in the darkest hour.

The fall of Kabul also brought back memories of American abandonment of the Philippines in the early years of the Pacific War as well as its bombings during the Battle of Manila against imperial Japan.

Doubts among regional countries over American commitment could also partly explain why, just hours before Harris’ touchdown in Hanoi, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chose to meet a Chinese envoy to relay the message of his country’s strategic neutrality and refusal to side with any superpower against another.

Finally, Southeast Asia is worried about the potential consequences of Biden’s refusal to maintain even a residual yet decisive force in Kabul to prevent the return of Islamic extremist groups in Afghanistan. In the past, Afghanistan has served as a training ground for many Southeast Asian terrorist groups, which have wreaked havoc across the region in recent decades.

This is why even the relatively sympathetic Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who has expressed his appreciation of the “benign and constructive influence of the United States as a regional guarantor of security and support of prosperity”, told Harris: “We hope Afghanistan does not become an epicentre for terrorism again.”

Despite its best efforts to decouple from the Middle East and pivot to competing with China, the Biden administration now faces the challenge of restoring American prestige and reassuring allies across Asia.

Richard Heydarian is a Manila-based academic and author of “Asia’s New Battlefield: US, China and the Struggle for Western Pacific” and the forthcoming “Duterte’s Rise”