The American intervention in Afghanistan was one of the features of the unipolar phase after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, as this phase has become characterized by giving importance and priority to the tools of military geography, since the events of September 11, 2001, as the American strategic vision gave importance to the issue of military mobilization to consolidate the roots of its leadership of the world after the fall of the eastern camp led by the rival pole, the Soviet Union.
The stage of the American exit from Afghanistan came to consolidate the idea of the failure of unipolarity in creating global stability, in addition to the American failure in Iraq to create a state of strong institutions that monopolize the use of force, which helped give the opportunity to terrorist organizations such as ISIS, and sectarian organizations such as the popular mobilization forces, in strengthening their presence, compared to the weak performance of the Iraqi security establishment.
The scenario is repeated in Afghanistan, where the US withdrawal revealed the state of slack in the Afghan security establishment, which made it collapse in front of the Taliban movement to consolidate its control over the Afghan state.
The Afghan case, which is characterized by the American failure to achieve stability, comes as a complement to the Iraqi case, and thus reinforces the failure of the unipolar stage in creating a stable world order. Events have proven that the American leadership of the international system has produced a flabby and chaotic international system. Perhaps the situation in the Middle East, especially after the period of the so-called Arab Spring and the performance of international organizations from the “United Nations and the UN Security Council” that deviated from their main principles on which they were founded, namely the protection of international legitimacy, to prolong crises, reflected the urgent international need for restructuring the chaotic international system.
Today, the international order is facing a new phase characterized by “multipolarity.” The economic rise of East Asian countries has contributed to changing the tools of power from political and military geography to “economic geography” tools. Therefore, this change is enough to move to an international system in which economic forces play a central role. Thus, the American failures in Iraq, and the most recent in Afghanistan, is what has reinforced the decline in regional and international confidence in American policies, and reduced the United States’ chances of owning an important position in the new international order, which makes rising powers such as “China and Russia” in front of a power that suffers from slack and has a record of failures, which makes it unable to compete in the new phase and maintain its global position.
