In 2019 the US President decided to withdraw US troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, a move seen by many – and certainly the Kurds, who were heavily involved in fighting and defeating IS in Iraq – as a betrayal.

In February 2020 the US reached an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, release Taliban prisoners, lift sanctions and facilitate economic co-operation in return for a promise that the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to host terror groups threatening the US. The Afghan government was not a party to this agreement.

February 2021: The Taliban gives guarantees to Turkmenistan about the safety of the trans-Afghanistan pipeline, a deal believed to have been brokered by the US.

Summer 2021: US troops (and those of its allies) are being withdrawn. The Afghan government has collapsed. The US President states that “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” The Taliban has now set up a government over the whole of Afghanistan.

Which country might be next to be subject to this America First doctrine / abandoned by the US [delete to taste]?

Taiwan? China certainly hopes and expects so.

Japan? Over the Senkaku Islands?

South Korea – which has the US’s third largest military base outside the US?

Israel?

And which of these has the willingness and capacity (and willingness to increase their capacity) to “fight for themselves” if the US won’t?

Cyclefree