...AND THEN CUJO CAME AROUND THE CORNER...:

Hours after the last US plane left Kabul, marking the end of Afghanistan's Twenty Years' War, Joe Biden gave a televised speech to the American people. The ostensible aim was to justify his decision to leave and the manner in which it was conducted. But the President's defiantly unapologetic apologia also contained the core of what may in future become known as the Biden Doctrine. It is this, rather than his self-justification, that repays analysis and reflection. For this insight into the thinking behind the abrupt exit from what he again called "the forever war" is loaded with significance not only for US policy, but for the future of the West.

"The fundamental obligation of a president, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America, not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow," he declared. After Biden had insisted that he was not ending the war on terrorism, but merely updating the methods for prosecuting it, he turned to the other threats now facing the United States: "The world is changing. We're engaged in serious competition with China. We're dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia. We're confronted with cyberattacks, and nuclear proliferation." Biden does not see these new (or not so new) threats as an alternative to the war on terror. Insisting that "we can do both", he argues that the war in Afghanistan was a hindrance rather than a help to fighting either. It's unclear how this fits with the risk assessments of Western intelligence agencies, most of whom see the triumph of the Taliban as having inspired jihadis everywhere. As for Biden's claim that he can now focus on China and Russia: that remains to be seen. The perception of an America in full retreat may even embolden the designs of Xi Jinping or Putin on their neighbours.

 Nothing daunted, Biden presses on to articulate the principles underlying his foreign policy. He identifies two "paramount" mistakes of the past two decades from which lessons must learned. "First, we must set missions with clear achievable goals, not ones we'll never reach. And second, we must stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interests of the United States of America."

For Biden, anything that smacks of "nation-building", let alone spreading democracy around the world, by the use of "large-scale troop deployments" is to be avoided at all costs. This "mindset" -- whether it be defined as "liberal internationalism" or "neoconservative interventionism" -- is now anathema to the Biden Administration.

Tweet   @brothersjudd