Foreign Policy ADD: US Troops Leave Helmand Province

Secretly and quietly, US and British troops left Helmand Province, Afghanistan for the final time last week. After over a decade of US involvement in the region, the mission in this section of Afghanistan has ended. Taken in anticipation of the major drawdown of troops slated for 2016, this move is quite dramatic and relatively unexpected. It represents a serious shift in US policy towards the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Additionally, it’s an intriguing development in the nexus of narcotics and insurgency. Helmand, along with neighboring Kandahar, produces the majority of Afghan heroin, which in turn provides nearly all of the world supply. It is also the region in which the Taliban are most concentrated. Although the troops have some faith in their Afghan replacements, it is unclear whether the Afghan government will be able to take advantage of the relative security in Helmand province and establish their sovereignty. Time will tell whether or not Helmand province will devolve to warlordism and poppy-fueled crime once again. 

Between all of the conflicts currently ongoing around the world, though, it does feel like the country has forgotten about our involvement in Afghanistan. Even in the realm of foreign policy professionals, it appears that events in our longest war have been overshadowed. While this behavior is relatively common, our foreign policy ADD is concerning. Public interest and media attention are expected to jump from topic to topic in rapid succession. This summer is an excellent example; within a few months, the biggest world story had moved from Ukraine to Iraq to Gaza to Syria to West Africa. Although all of these conflicts continue to have follow-on effects, the media has moved on. The real concern is that our distracted foreign policy process extends to governmental institutions. Instead of real planning for long-term concerns, we fall prey to the tyranny of the present, to the detriment of our global interests. Crises happen and must be dealt with, but when the parade of crises take precedence over larger issues, then we have a problem with our process. 

The war in Afghanistan, while winding down, is still ongoing. Just because the public furor over newly arrived crises is more intense does not mean that discarded foreign policy issues have gone away.