After this stinging indictment, of the feckless Joe Biden, as presented by Mr. Luce:  

Headline: Biden’s Afghanistan fiasco: ‘We look like a deer caught in headlights’

sub-headline: The chaotic scenes in Kabul are unlikely to derail his domestic agenda but undermine his promise to restore competence

https://www.ft.com/content/c6e012d4-fe69-4579-a1b0-997c1a1e1bc9

Mr. Luce begins his latest essay with these paragraphs:

No, the western alliance is not about to break up. And America is not about to drift off into some isolationist reverie. Afghanistan is too peripheral to trigger such a dramatic shift. But the chaotic nature of America’s withdrawal, and the slight felt by most of its allies, have put an abrupt end to President Joe Biden’s international honeymoon. It has also left the world — and much of Washington — in confusion. What does Biden mean by “America is back”? To which America is he referring?

The answer is not obvious. Biden’s Afghan pullout fulfilled one promise, to get out of “forever wars”, and broke another, to restore the primacy of America’s alliances. The second promise was what sharply differentiated Biden from Donald Trump. Biden supposedly values allies. Europe’s chagrin is that Biden could have fulfilled both vows if he had closely consulted with them on his Afghan exit. He chose not to. The fact that Nato was there at America’s behest rubbed salt into the wound. The 9/11 attacks marked the only time Nato has invoked its Article V mutual defence clause — following an assault on America, not Europe.

…

https://www.ft.com/content/33b1644c-256f-4880-822f-b2bcfd70f551

To offer a cliché as one door closes, another opens :

Headline: Harris rebukes China in major speech on Indo-Pacific relations

Sub-headline: “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.”

SINGAPORE — Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a sharp rebuke to China for its incursions in the South China Sea, warning its actions there amount to “coercion” and “intimidation” and affirming that the U.S. will support its allies in the region against Beijing’s advances.

“We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea,” she said in a major foreign policy speech Tuesday in Singapore in which she laid out the Biden administration’s vision for the Indo-Pacific. “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.”

…

Harris’ remarks also come during a critical moment for the United States as the Biden administration seeks to further solidify its pivot towards Asia while America’s decades-long focus on the Middle East comes to a messy end with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Harris’ remarks echoed and expanded upon remarks she delivered at the U.S. Naval Academy graduation in June, where she described a world that is “interconnected,” “interdependent” and “fragile.”

…

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/24/kamala-harris-china-singapore-pacific-506675

As the Neo-Conservative fiascos of Afghanistan and Iraq almost closes, the Biden/Harris New Cold Warriors, offer a newish Theatre of Conflict: the Chinese sphere of influence. How many fronts will this iteration embrace, and the return of perennial enemies? Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Peru etc., The bloated Pentagon Budget, and the mad dreams of American Technocrats, and their hero Samuel P. Huntington, will never let go of their hegemonic ambitions!

Philosophical Apprentice