Rather than "restore" trans-Atlantic relations with NATO that Trump was actually rebuilding, Biden has kicked NATO in the teeth and strengthened the European Union which only wants America out of Europe.
America's reputation took collateral damage in our defeat:
America’s power to deter its enemies and reassure its friends has diminished. Its intelligence was flawed, its planning rigid, its leaders capricious and its concern for allies minimal. That is likely to embolden jihadists everywhere, who will take the Taliban’s victory as evidence that God is on their side. It will also encourage adventurism on the part of hostile governments such as Russia’s or China’s, and worry America’s friends. Mr Biden has defended the withdrawal by arguing that Afghanistan was a distraction from more pressing problems, such as America’s rivalry with China. But by leaving Afghanistan in such a chaotic fashion, Mr Biden will have made those other problems harder to deal with.
NATO, our most important security partner that holds Europe for the good guys, fought with us in Afghanistan under the only time NATO's Article 5 has been invoked. And what did our allies get? Less attention and respect than Biden's ice cream vendor:
Yet everything about Mr. Biden’s Afghan withdrawal has been a slap to those allies. They didn’t want the U.S. to leave, but he did. The botched execution has left them scrambling to airlift out thousands of their citizens and thousands more Afghan translators and others who assisted each nation’s war effort.
And the snubs keep coming from Washington. In his Monday speech, Mr. Biden made only a glancing reference to NATO and none to America’s European allies in his account of the conflict. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly had to wait a day and a half after requesting a call with the President to get Mr. Biden on the phone.
From London to Paris, Brussels to Berlin, the sudden fall of Kabul shone a light on Europe's limited diplomatic heft, military capacity, and political stability. ...
[Multiple European officials and diplomats] now fear the humanitarian and political consequences of mass migration from a country run by militants who've historically harbored terrorists and that is connected to mainland Europe by land.
Without the might of America to keep a lid on the situation, Europe is undeniably more exposed. As one EU official put it: "When America reversed course on Syria it sparked a crisis in Europe, not the US."
Biden's complete display of contempt to our European NATO allies will only strengthen the proto-imperial EU's desire to build a military capacity that starves NATO and results in the end of major American influence in Europe. The EU will argue that it, and not NATO which America dominates, must be the primary military organization in Europe. Mind you this is a case of the EU exploiting the Afghanistan debacle to do what they want to do anyway. It is not a case of Biden's debacle causing the EU to move away from America.
Unless that trend in Europe is reversed, Afghanistan won't be the only ally suddenly turned into a threat by the incompetence of our Turing Test POTUS.
But still, no mean tweets. That has to be reassuring.
UPDATE: The European Union won't waste this Afghanistan crisis:
“I think that what has happened shows that Europe needs to develop this famous ‘strategic autonomy' in order to be ready to face challenges that affect us eventually,” European Union High Rep. Josep Borrell, a former Spanish politician who now leads the bloc’s diplomatic corps, told reporters Tuesday.
The EU won't build the capabilities that in any way match what NATO can provide. Nor will the EU display the will to use such military power. The EU just wants the authority that such power provides.
UPDATE: Should NATO seek a global mission to stay "relevant"? I don't think NATO has to go "out of area or out of business." In fact, I think going out of area will kill NATO.
NATO members have trouble working up the resolve to defend the eastern border of NATO. How much worse will it be if we ask Belgium and Portugal to defend the South China Sea? How many countries will withdraw from NATO if they think they have to send its troops to die around the globe?
And if NATO starts to go abroad for potential enemies when Europe faces Russia, Islamic terrorism, and migrants waves from the Third World, the European Union will have more ammunition to argue that the EU should have the military mission of defending Europe rather than NATO. Will those NATO countries that don't want to fight in Asia decide that switching to the EU that simply--on the surface--wants to defend Europe is the best choice?
All I want from NATO is for it to hold Europe in the Western column while having common military operating standards to allow European militaries to volunteer to help America out of area. Trying to do more is just a gift to the proto-imperial EU that wants its own armed forces to strip away the prefix.
