End of Empire: Obama begins to wind down US war-machine

When Empires crumble, there are no comets seen. Or we’d have seen the heavens blaze forth this morning, when US President Barack Obama told his war-weary nation that he was, effectively, beginning to wind down the American Empire. On the surface, Obama was only delivering on his pledge, made in 2009, to begin bringing US troops back from Afghanistan, where they’ve been at war with a faceless enemy for some 10 years now.  Even after this draw-down, the US will still have over 70,000 troops in Afghanistan. Yet, the circumstances that compelled Obama to overrule his military commanders – and announce a bigger than anticipated and speedier withdrawal – signal starkly the end of American economic and military overreach in the region. In a sense, Obama’s speech wasn’t just a minor blip on the radar of history. Taken together with a creeping isolationist feeling within an economically enfeebled America – including, strikingly, within the erstwhile conservative, war-mongering right-wing that is now waking up to its folly – it is the prologue in a new chapter of world history, where America realises it doesn’t have the appetite for many more costly wars or for “exporting democracy” or for nation-building in far-off frontiers. It is a moment when America realises that it ought to “mind its own business”. [caption id=“attachment_29988” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“In his speech, Obama claimed that the US was beginning its Afghan pullout from a position of strength, citing the recent spectacular killing of Osama bin Laden as a symbol of a crippled Al-Qaeda. Reuters”]  [/caption] In his speech, Obama claimed that the US was beginning its Afghan pullout from a position of strength, citing the recent spectacular killing of Osama bin Laden as a symbol of a crippled Al-Qaeda.  “The tide of war is receding,” he said. “The light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.” However, for all the near-term victories that the US can cite in its “war on terror”, including the killing of bin Laden, the US paid far too high a price in terms of economic and human cost for its blundering into war. And yet, the terms on which the US claims “victory” in Afghanistan today are specious. Despite the substantial NATO presence in Afghanistan, it is the Taliban that still controls large swathes of the country. And far from being in a position of strength, the US today has been forced to open “peace talks” with the same Taliban that it was fighting for a decade. If anything, the Taliban, backed by its Pakistani handlers, are playing hard to get, knowing that they can outwait the US. Obama’s announcement of a troop withdrawal “will likely bolster the morale of the Taliban and encourage them to stick with the fight,” reasons Lisa Curtis, South Asian policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “Since Al-Qaeda has not yet dissolved as an organisation and its relationship with the Taliban remains strong, reducing military pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan could benefit Al-Qaeda and provide it a lifeline at a critical juncture in the fight against terrorism,” she adds. India has to up its game Obama’s announcement also has enormous strategic implications for India’s Afghanistan policy, given that there is a congruence of its interests with the US – in combating Taliban terror. India’s interest in Afghanistan is limited to ensuring that Afghan territory isn’t used as a breeding ground for Pakistan-backed terrorists who would target India, as happened in 1999. That enterprise will be rendered more challenging after Obama’s announcement of troop withdrawal. India will increasingly find itself drawn into expanding its security footprint in Afghanistan, at least to the extent of keeping out pro-Pakistan Taliban units from power. Then there’s Pakistan itself. Ás Curtis points out, Obama’s announcement on troop withdrawals “will further discourage Pakistan from cracking down on the Taliban leadership that finds sanctuary on its soil.” It will, she adds, reinforce Islamabad’s calculation that the US is losing its resolve in the fight in Afghanistan and effectively encourage Pakistani military leaders to continue to hedge on support to the Taliban. In other words, the slow retreat of the American Empire might require India  to up its game as a strategic player in the region. There’s also a price to be paid - in economic and human terms - for the eternal vigilance that will be required of it.