The Final Development Of The Afghanistan War – OpEd

By Chan Kung*

The withdrawal of U.S. military from Afghanistan under the Biden administration has brought about severe consequences to the world. This brings to the concept of “spatial fragmentation” that we proposed previously. The concept suggests that the world is not consolidating into two strong camps like how it did during the time of Cold War, but instead it is fragmented into more self-contained regional spaces. The current situation in Afghanistan actually proves this trend even more. The existence of the Afghanistan problem is a global manifestation of the American order where both the U.S. currency and values are circulated. 

In the United State now, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are unwilling to shoulder this global responsibility, hence there was the military withdrawal from Afghanistan. While avoiding the problems facing Afghanistan, they shift the focus instead to the U.S. economy, infrastructure and other domestic issues. This has brought about today’s tragic situation in Afghanistan, and tomorrow’s depreciation of the dollar, as well as a serious decline in the status of the U.S. military. Biden and Blinken fail to understand that it is impossible for the U.S. to achieve economic prosperity without taking on global responsibilities. The U.S. economy has never been in a structural form where it could ignore such responsibilities, not unless there is a new global system to substitute it. Otherwise, the U.S. must assume this due responsibility.

Of course, Biden and Blinken, and perhaps the international relations academia in the United States, have yet to realize this. Hence, the withdrawal was done in haste, which results in numerous issues. As it stands, now there is nothing that can stop the spatial fragmentation of the world. As long as the United States is unwilling to assume global responsibilities, its retreat will cause the spatial fragmentation to continue deepening.

*Founder of Anbound Think Tank in 1993, Chan Kung is one of China’s renowned experts in information analysis. Most of Chan Kung‘s outstanding academic research activities are in economic information analysis, particularly in the area of public policy.