USA's Afghanistan debacle: Thus passes worldly glory

Eighty-eight billion dollars – this is the amount that the US has invested in the Afghan army and police. This number is approximate, and the actual amount is likely to be higher by an order of magnitude, or even two.

USA's Afghan debacle is the loss of superpower status

This is positive news for Russia: the less money a potential aggressor has, the safer the life gets. Washington has spent a staggering $2 trillion 261 billion over 20 years of intervention in Afghanistan, financial experts at Brown University calculated.

• The lion's share of this sky-high bill – $ 1 trillion 435 billion – was taken from the budget of the State Department and the Department of Defense;
• As much as $296 billion was required for treatment and general expenses for campaign veterans;
• $530 billion was spent on interest payments on all the loans that the United States has raised to finance the war. 

The Pentagon also confirmed that as much as $815 billion was spent for intended purposes – to conduct hostilities that is. As much as $19 billion was simply embezzled, while $143 billion was spent on the revival of infrastructure of Afghanistan, that is, for the needs of construction in the country.

According to Brown University analysts, the war will be echoed for a long time. Social insurance of former soldiers will cost from $800 billion to $1 trillion in the coming decades. Six trillion 500 billion will have to be spent to pay interest on loans, including the cost of operations in Iraq and Pakistan. One will have to pay them for many years to come, till 2050. 

To leave to return?

One may take a look at the crisis in Afghanistan from a different perspective. Many in Europe believe that the Americans come to realise their place in the world, and this awareness leaves a bad taste in the mouth for them. The actions and decisions taken by the Joe Biden administration are somewhat reminiscent of the behavior of General Charles de Gaulle during the decline of the era of colonies.

"The Americans may have come to realize that they no longer have the financial, military and technical capabilities to withstand the pressure from Russia and China in Central Asia. Therefore, the USA's withdrawal resembles the state of affairs in France, when the abandonment of colonies liberated the country's economy from the unbearable burden and gave an impetus to further development. Therefore, the Americans are leaving to come back in a better shape," Xavier Moreau, an analyst at Stratpol French news agency believes.

And if this is the case, it appears that the crisis in Afghanistan and the pullout of US troops from the country are part of the operation to balance out international relations.

It seems that Europe can only welcome such an approach, because neither France nor Germany want to interfere in Afghan affairs, where people's habits and culture in relation to women still live in the Stone Age. 

Thus, the new reading of the true background for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrates a positive, rather than a negative outcome for the world in general and for Eurasia in particular. The revival of the union of the northern lands of Afghanistan, grouped around the Panjshir, corresponds to this logic as well

Mathematically impossible

The civil strife on the territory will become a new vector in the country. In a nutshell, it will aim aggression to maintain power in Kabul, rather than to invade neighboring states. The Talibs* seem to understand their position well, so they hastened to establish contacts not only with Russian diplomats, but also with China.

They speak with respect to Moscow and Beijing, but appear to be tough on Washington. On August 23, Taliban* spokesman Suheil Shahin simply demanded the US withdraws its troops by the last day of the month and threatened that consequences would follow should the intervention continue  after the agreed evacuation term. Yet, neither Americans nor Europeans know how to evacuate not only their own military men (more than 6,000 of them are stuck in the area of ​​the Hamid Karzai airport), but also all Afghan citizens who helped the western bloc during the Afghan campaign. One could hear such remarks from James Heppie, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Defense Secretary Ben Lobban Wallace and European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said that an operation to evacuate so many people in the next nine days was "mathematically impossible."

It just so happens that in addition to the financial fiasco, the loss of superpower status (at least in Central Asia and throughout Eurasia), the United States may still carry responsible for another humanitarian catastrophe in the event the Taliban goes on the offensive and attacks the zone of the  Hamid Karzai airport on September 1.

Thus passes worldly glory (Sic transit gloria mundi).

*terrorist organization, banned in Russia.