Ending the Forever Stupidity

There's just no way this isn't a positive development:

The departure from Bagram follows President Biden’s decision in April to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September, ending what he and other critics have called a “forever war.” As the Taliban launched a bloody offensive and encircled numerous provincial capitals, defense leaders last month briefly considered slowing the military’s departure from the air base, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Biden administration ultimately decided to continue the withdrawal.

The end of a significant military presence will be bad for many Afghans.  There's no point in pretending otherwise.  But, ultimately, America can't fix Afghanistan, and there is no reason to continue failing at the task, which never should have been undertaken in the first place.  America should have withdrawn long ago, but didn't due mostly to internal reasons.

A sure sign of a failing state is the inability to adapt to new information.  I am cheered by Biden's willingness to adapt.

Already there has been a dramatic reduction of drone attacks and other types of airstrikes, which once reached thousands a year. “The [United States] appears to be in a holding pattern in most conflict theaters that it still has a presence in—with no reported strikes in Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, or Somalia since Biden took office. U.S. strikes are continuing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—though at historically low rates,” said Chris Woods of the London-based Airwars monitoring organization, considered perhaps the most reliable tracker of U.S. airstrikes around the world.

Even in the early 2000s it was clear drone strikes were overused, and again in retrospect it was bad policy to use them outside of the immediate theater of battle.

The White House team is also seeking a broader reorientation toward what the president has called “the battles for the next 20 years, not the last 20,” including climate change, the threat from China, COVID-19-type pandemics, and America’s economic and social problems at home.

Finally, some foreign policy that makes sense.  There will be pushback from the usual suspects - the DoD, the MIC, the Blob, warmongers, deeply concerned centrists, and Repuke opportunists.  But if Biden continues to push foreign policy in the directions outlined, American will be better off in the short term and long term.