Should I Stay or Should I Go: Analyzing the Cases for and Against United States Humanitarian Intervention and Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Abstract

The final U.S. military exit from Afghanistan in August of 2021 precipitated country-wide concern for the Afghan people. Videos circulated capturing Afghans falling from the sides of a U.S military plane in their futile efforts to flee as the Taliban mounted a resurgence in Kabul. Upon viewing these troubling events, by and large, Americans were mad at the government for betraying the Afghan people. Blame was directed at President Biden, who only weeks early announced the U.S. would fully drawdown its troops from Afghanistan, effectively ending the 20-year long war in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the military exit, his domestic approval ratings dropped, and other westerners scorned America’s ostensible indifference to foreign despotism.

Ironically, most Americans supported full military retrograde from Afghanistan just two months before the exit. This was evidence that, while disheartened by the humanitarian fallout from U.S. departure, people were also sensitive to bringing troops home and allowing Afghans to determine their own political institutions. This thesis unpacks the questions that underpin the discrepancy between pre-withdrawal and post-withdrawal public consensus. I address three main questions: 1) Was U.S. intervention in Afghanistan justified, 2) Was U.S. withdrawal justified, and 3) Did the U.S. have a moral obligation to remain in Afghanistan beyond August 2021?

To answer these central questions, I undertake a qualitative research approach that harmonizes academic literature, historical events from the war in Afghanistan, and two interviews with military logistics officers. First, I present a historical timeline of the U.S. War in Afghanistan. I begin with a short prelude to the war, traverse the twenty years of intervention, comment on the present-day human rights situation, and conclude with a discussion of the timeline and its relevance to the central questions of this thesis. Next, I examine domestic and international law on intervention. Then, I assess John Stuart Mill’s non-intervention doctrine and comment on Montague Bernard’s hardline non-intervention position. I also discuss Michael Walzer’s contributions to the academic discussion which partially amend Mill and Bernard’s theories. Subsequently, I comment on Samantha Power’s interventionism and Stephen Wertheim’s rebuttal. Then, I undertake the question of jus post bellum: specifically, whether the U.S. engaged in just exit of Afghanistan. Finally, I consolidate the evidence into key findings and present policy recommendations that seek to ameliorate human rights quandaries in Afghanistan and establish guidelines for intervention moving forward.

I conclude the thesis with five main findings that inform broad policy recommendations. In recognizing that U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was justified on national security reasons, I claim the U.S. should have exited years ago, specifically after it deposed the Taliban in 2001. Moreover, I assert that, while moral arguments for continued intervention exist, the U.S. does not have any special obligations to continue intervention in support of the Afghan people. I reinforce in my recommendations that more coherent exit criteria must be present before any future intervention, and that, to strengthen human rights progress in Afghanistan and other nations beset by despotism, the U.S. should wield its financial tools to uplift people rather than resort to coercive military occupations that can set countries years back.