Afghexit: a bonfire of vanities

By Pete North - August 20, 2021

It is a fact that NATO cannot operate in Afghanistan without the USA. America does the heavy lifting. If America pulls the plug then that’s it. If Britain had other ideas about Afghanistan then waiting until C17s are being chased off the apron at Kabul airport is leaving it too late.

For those would say it need not have been a defeat, it is for them to outline what replaces US inputs and who is going to pay for it. And that’s the real problem. Nobody particularly wants to pay for the upkeep of a puppet regime that cannot withstand our departure.

They like to think of our military presence as stabilisers on bicycle that will eventually come off, but nobody is surprised it disintegrated as fast as it did. The fundamentals were unsound and though the Allies occupied Afghanistan we never really controlled it. More than 80 percent of the population live in poor rural areas. Support for women’s emancipation and other liberal ideas is a tiny minority position confined to urban areas (teachers and so forth). There was no particular will to prop up the western idea of Afghanistan. Liberal culture is something nations evolve into on the back of prosperity. You first have to build that – which we failed to do and were never likely to.

What was built in Afghanistan was a narcissistic projection; a mirror of our own society they assumed Afghans wanted and would fight for (without even asking them). We decided it would take the form of a liberal democracy. We decided it would have equality for women. We decided to up-end Afghan cultural values. This is how we roll. It’s not dissimilar to the EU imposing its liberal attitudes to teaching homosexuality in schools on conservative Eastern Europe. You will have drag queen story hour – or else.

It is not surprising then that our final departure from Afghanistan is met with similar anger and disbelief to Brexit by some quarters of the ruling class. They speak of the scenes at Kabul airport as a humiliation – and for them it was because it represents their ideals in retreat. Another repudiation of them. Another of their enterprises cut down by “isolationist populism”. It’s also a P45 for NGO industrial complex. The UN sustainable development missionaries have been sent packing.

The bitter outpourings since are those of a wounded ego. They who still imagined Britain as a global military actor capable of shaping the world in their own image. Realists have known for some time this is not the case but by tagging along with America’s adventures we could continue to deceive ourselves that Britain “has a role on the global stage”. Americas retreat is the removal of their comfort blanket. Both Brexit and Afghexit are a crushing blow to the self-image of Britain’s internationalist aristocracy who now have to face up to that fact they are bit players in a world that doesn’t care about their feelings or share their values.

As with their attempts to overturn the Brexit vote, they’re scrambling for any way to save face in Afghanistan – forgetting that they’ve presided over two decades of military shrinkage. They have their power projection toys and their nuclear deterrent but nothing that could hold their ideas in place. The Taliban does not lose sleep over aircraft carriers and submarines.

For all that it was the Brexiteers who were supposedly “pining for empire” one begins to notice that so much of this was projection. It’s our liberal establishment struggling to come to terms with their own global irrelevance and their rejection even by their own electorates. The public is no longer willing to send their sons and daughters to the arsehole of the world to serve their vanity. They grew tired of politicians strutting on the “world stage” committing us to ever more narcissistic folly. If leading on the world stage means more endless unwinnable wars resulting in yet more mass immigration, there’s a lot to be said for staying off the stage.

This is precisely why Brexiteers were so vehemently against the notion of a European army. The last thing we ever want to do is give the elites of a Europe an expeditionary force to play with, to rack up yet more expensive and bloody failures, having learned nothing from the last three.

Ultimately the tide is going out on western power, but also its cultural influence. It was once the global beacon of prosperity and freedom but now it projects decadence, dysfunction and decline. The culture wars have spilled over on to America’s streets revealing a deeply divided country, riven by class enmity and growing inequality of opportunity. Britain is not far behind. The elites become ever more authoritarian and censorious in their rush to kick away the ladder. We’re not in a position to export “our values” being that we’re no longer clear what they even are.

As much as we’re not equipped to fight our wars of cultural imperialism, there are few left willing to fight for a decaying establishment that continually rewards failure and where grand larceny and incompetence carries no penalty. They could buy their tanks and MRAPs, but finding people willing to drive them could well be the fly in the ointment.