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Afghanistan Hasn’t Damaged U.S. Credibility

The withdrawal has been tragic—but it hasn’t been a strategic disaster.

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

U.S. Marines raise an American flag over their base in the Farah Province, southern Afghanistan, on Oct. 6, 2009. DAVID FURST/AFP via Getty Images

August 21, 2021, 7:29 AM

As predictable as the sunrise, a chorus of reflexive hard-liners, opportunistic foreign adversaries, and even some usually sensible commentators have concluded that U.S. credibility has been damaged or destroyed by the debacle in Afghanistan. Uber-hawk Bret Stephens of the New York Times is now convinced that “every ally — Taiwan, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Israel, Japan — will draw the lesson that it is on its own.” In an overt attempt to undermine Taiwanese morale, the Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times agrees with Stephens and warns Taiwan’s leaders that the U.S. military won’t fight if Beijing were to attack, implying the fall of Kabul is an “omen of Taiwan’s future fate.” Even the usually sober-minded Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times believes Biden’s credibility has been “shredded” and that the disaster in Afghanistan “fits perfectly” with the claim that “American security guarantees cannot be relied upon.”