In 1976, Ronald Reagan campaigned for president against the idea of giving away the Panama Canal, telling the American people that “we built it, we bought it, we should keep it.” Today, the Middle East is in flames. Well, we built what’s now burning, we bought the turmoil with American blood, and still, we should keep a presence there. 

You won’t find any advocacy for a Surge-like troop buildup; we know that doesn’t work. What else doesn’t work? This administration retreated from Afghanistan three years ago, leaving more than 1,200 American citizens flapping in the wind and no allies in place to counter terrorism or nation-state encroachment. In doing so, it gave permission to our greatest adversaries to take what they want, without recourse from the United States. Six months after the last US C-17 departed Afghanistan, China began negotiating with the Taliban for the largest untapped copper reserves in the world and inked a $540 million deal for Chinese Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co. Ltd. to develop an oil and gas field in Amu Darya in northern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in March of this year, ISIS-K, a group with roots in the Khorasan Province in Afghanistan conducted a horrific attack in Moscow, which left 137 people dead and more than 100 injured. The attack is a display of the group’s ability to coordinate and export terrorism. As I write, a mass stabbing has occurred at a German music festival leaving at least three people dead that the Islamic State claimed responsibility for.

Former Director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center and Acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller, talks about gathering hardened National Security Council

(NSC) staff who had served in Afghanistan to come up with the minimum number of troops needed in the country to prevent an attack on the U.S. homeland during his time in the Trump Administration. The gray-bearded, wise old soldiers came up with 800 servicemembers — a number one tenth of what then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, had sworn by (8,200 troops to be exact). 

There have been tens of thousands of troops stationed in Germany for 80 years, totaling approximately 35,000 in 2024. There are approximately 28,500 American service members stationed in South Korea right now. That presence serves a purpose — and in the case of Afghanistan, the Biden-Harris administration gave it away to what now looks like a Chinese boon for critical minerals while giving terrorist groups freedom of movement to train and reconstitute. An American presence, even a small one, can be a force multiplier to allied forces. It is also a symbol of American interests while edging out our adversaries. Without that presence and the leadership it signifies, enemies flourish.

As we head into the final innings of what will surely be a tight presidential race, national security and foreign policy onlookers have to consider what a continuation of what Vice President Kamala Harris claims to be her influence concerning foreign policy over President Biden would look like. Afghanistan was the first, and biggest, foreign policy blunder of this administration that has had cascading effects. Tidal waves of empty messaging to the world have caught up. Our enemies have been galvanized together without true American leadership in the world. The secret’s out: there’s no will to decisively act behind the Biden-Harris administration’s hollow attempt at deterrence.

There is a saying in the Middle East that “nothing is for sale, and everything is for rent.” The way the Afghanistan withdrawal was handled in 2021 and continues to be ignored today, is a signal to our allies in the Middle East that the United States cannot be trusted.

There is a remedy to this, and it’s very simple: words matter, and in today’s particularly dangerous geopolitical environment, our national strategies have put too much emphasis on great power “competition.” Instead, define how we win and have the backbone to execute it. There have been too many losses over the last three years to claim that we’re even competing well.

Ronald Reagan knew this. In 1977, he was asked about his vision of foreign policy in the midst of the Cold War and stated: “my idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic,” he said. “It is this: We win and they lose.”