If Europe wants strategic autonomy post-Afghanistan, it will have to adjust its budgetary priorities

Europe cannot establish itself as a foreign-policy heavyweight unless it adjusts its budgetary priorities and diverts resources from its welfare state, writes Ana Palacio

Foreigners board a Qatar Airways aircraft at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, fleeing Kabul earlier this month. The haphazard evacuation prompted a spate of finger-pointing and accusations in the EU but little could be done once the US decided to pull its support for the mission in Afghanistan. Picture:AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

There is good reason to be critical of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. If the images of desperate Afghans flocking to Kabul airport were not harrowing enough, the deadly attack on the gathered crowds certainly should have been. The chaotic and humiliating end to an unpopular war, with its terrible humanitarian consequences, was the upshot of a series of political miscalculations by a succession of American leaders.

In Europe, the rapid collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government has prompted a spate of finger-pointing and accusations. But the return of the Taliban to power has also intensified an already-growing sense of insecurity regarding the future of NATO and the transatlantic relationship more broadly. Whether anxiety will spur action, however, remains far from certain.