20多年来，反恐战争一直充斥着美国的社会政治言论, intermingling itself over time with the Western democratic ideal, permeating domestic policy and foreign relations. Simply put by Muhammad Ishaque Khan, a scholar of Peace & Counterterrorism Studies, “Afghanistan is an enigma, 还没有人找到解决问题的关键”(可汗2021).
As such, 我不想在这里对阿富汗战争进行决定性的分析, as that would be painfully reductive, 而是在社会建构主义的视角下审视美国的战略, which can be defined as the “idea that individuals within societies construct the ‘realities’ of their identity and interest through the dynamic processes of social interaction and social definition” (Wendt 1992). This view acknowledges that social reality plays a crucial role in interactions between logical decision-making actors with competing preferences, 对于探索西方霸权的文化差异特别有用, liberal intervention, and democratization.
当时美国在拜登总统的命令下突然结束了在阿富汗长达20年的军事和民事存在, Kabul immediately descended into the control of the Taliban amidst disturbing reports of chaos in the sudden absence of American institutions and security forces (Stewart 2021). 美国人离开阿富汗时已经达到了直接目标——彻底摧毁基地组织, yet, 对入侵的公众舆论压倒性地表达了不温不火的幻灭, 描绘了美国在逗留过久后夹着尾巴逃跑的画面.
Boots hit the ground in Kabul, Afghanistan under the name Operation Enduring Freedom for the first time in the aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks on the Twin Towers by Al-Qaeda (CFR 2024). 布什总统有一句名言:“你要么支持博彩平台推荐，要么反对博彩平台推荐”(《博彩app推荐》),”2001) – a threat not only to terrorist syndicates, but to the United States’ allies abroad. The message was clear: the United States was willing and able to act unilaterally in a manner that was both unprecedented and unparalleled, 任何不愿合作的人不仅是美国目标的敌人, but an enemy of the liberal world order.
It’s needless to say the United States has enjoyed substantial influence in the international system since the end of World War II, but this shift in approach marked its entry into total, unperturbed ideological hegemony. America was preparing to carry out its modern Manifest Destiny, 以“民主作为改变国际政治体系性质的使命”(尤努斯2024). 美国已经不再像一个受国际准则和法律约束的行动者那样行事, 而是自称是全球民主新秩序的设计师.
阿富汗的政权更迭和建立一个稳定的民主政治是20年占领的一个成熟的意图, offering geostrategic, economic, and ideological value to the United States. 阿富汗在中亚占有重要的领土, 毗邻未开发的石油储备，靠近关键的地区参与者——伊朗, China, and Russia (Khan 2021). 在阿富汗建立一个友好的民主政府是一个长期目标, 意在超越美国在该国的军事存在，并继续为西方的手段和目的服务.
Missteps in the discourse narrative of American presence in Afghanistan blossomed into tangible weaknesses as the new democratic infrastructure was built. 美国支持的阿富汗政府很快就因腐败报道而声名狼藉, inefficiency, and general incompetency (Vittori 2021). The new government also crucially failed to consider the regional dynamics of Afghanistan – the central Kabli government had a low capacity to provide government services to remote villages and towns. Historically, 阿富汗人对地方领导人比对国家领导人更忠诚, 国家认同主要是通过伊斯兰教下的宗教团结而形成的(Younus 2024). There was general agreement amongst Afghans that the government was perhaps out of its element: unable to function effectively and inherently incompatible with its environment.
The American approach to governance in Afghanistan was reductively monolithic - fueled by the potential construction of the “modern Afghan” society through liberal intervention. 美国支持的政府旨在通过民主基础设施“教化”当地的阿富汗人, essentially installing a government that would socialize Afghans to descriptively American political ideals including liberty equality, private ownership, individualism, free trade, and the rule of law (Younus 2024). However, 美国严重未能适应阿富汗现有的社会政治规范, exposing the cultural incongruency of liberal interventionism. US-Afghanistan relations consistently operated under the inference of Western socio-political dominance: the assumption that stability in Afghanistan could be achieved via democratic installation alone.
Throughout the US occupation, the government’s institutional inability to provide government services effectively and its ideological incongruence with the established social norms exposed weaknesses that were quickly exploited by remaining Taliban forces in the region.
In 2009, 大约一半的阿富汗人表示同情武装反对派团体, mainly the Taliban (CFR 2024). This can be attributed in one part to general discontent with the US-backed government and to the Taliban’s narrative of the Western occupation; that the Afghan identity was being endangered by foreigners who had installed an alien government that served its own agenda, not that of the Afghan people or of Islam.
Subsequently, 塔利班在圣战(与伊斯兰教敌人的斗争)的概念下发起了一场意识形态运动。. They framed themselves as the preservers of the Afghan tradition against the onslaught of Western interference that hoped to strip them of their national identity (Younus 2024). Although general Afghan support for the Taliban or other militant groups weaned approaching the 2021 withdrawal of US troops (CFR 2024), the Taliban enjoyed particular popularity in remote villages and among religious-ethnic minorities (the particular groups being underserved by the existing government) (Younus 2024).
Once militarily driven out of Afghan territory, the Taliban had once again garnered notable political notoriety and was invited to the negotiating table by the United States in February 2020 to reach a peace agreement (CFR 2024). 这明显背离了布什时代赞美美国统一霸权的言论, 布什总统的著名言论是，美国不“与恐怖分子谈判”(美国广播公司2002), and perhaps an admission that the United States’ military might was simply not enough to achieve the societal transformation in Afghanistan that the Americans had envisioned. The peace deal called for a gradual reduction of American troops in exchange for the Taliban agreeing not to conduct terrorist activities on Afghan territory.
Despite reaching an agreement for measured peace, US troops and Taliban forces almost immediately engaged in combat when the Taliban launched dozens of assaults on Afghan security forces, 促使美国以空袭塔利班据点作为回应(Rahim 2020). Taliban leaders argued that American presence in Afghanistan inherently communicated a narrative of undue foreign occupation and advocated for the reconstruction of the Afghan government through an Islamic system.
塔利班和美国支持的阿富汗政府最终在2020年重新开始了持久的和平谈判, both expressing a desire to end violence in Afghanistan and to build a framework to allow for the departure of US troops (CFR 2024). In November 2020, 美国宣布计划在拜登总统就职前撤军一半, 拜登今年4月宣布，美国不会在《博彩app推荐》规定的最后期限前完成任务.S.并公布了在9月11日之前全面撤军的计划, 2021, ending the two-decade war. In August of 2021, 塔利班叛乱分子在阿富汗和美国安全部队几乎没有抵抗的情况下控制了喀布尔(CFR 2024).
反思美国参与阿富汗战争的结束, President Biden expressed that the United States “should learn from its mistakes” and that the withdrawal marks the end of “an era of major military operations to remake other countries” (拜登总统就阿富汗战争结束发表讲话.” 2021). As such, 美国不温不火地放弃了建立自由世界新秩序的大胆计划, 承认其“现代天定命运”的梦想可能是冲动地实现的.
西方的自由主义模式并不像美国最初设想的那样放之四海而皆准, 这是基于一种肤浅的假设，即阿富汗社会需要现代化，以达到西方的理想，才能实现持久和平. Not only was this approach inherently dehumanizing, but the inability of the US-backed government to institutionally acknowledge the Afghan tradition and sociopolitical norms with equity became its Achilles heel. 新成立的政府未能从阿富汗人民那里获得合法性, failed to deliver crucial government services, 最终未能将民主理想和持久和平引入阿富汗. 塔利班部队利用这种不连续性进行叛乱活动, and the United States, 谁曾经宣布过以任何它认为合适的方式结束恐怖主义的大胆计划, was left with little choice but to reflect on its imprudence.
Works Cited:
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