William Maley, Australian National University

In April 1961, just months after the young John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States, his reputation for expertise in foreign policy took a battering as a result of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, a covert action against the Cuban government that collapsed within a matter of days.

The collapse in Afghanistan that has flowed from current President Joe Biden’s decision to proceed with a complete US troop withdrawal is more than likely to be seen as his own Bay of Pigs moment.

But it may be something worse, akin to the Suez crisis of 1956, which not only humiliated the British government of Sir Anthony Eden, but marked the end of the United Kingdom as a global power.

When historians look back at the shambolic US exit from Afghanistan, it may increasingly appear a critical marker of America’s decline in the world, far eclipsing the flight from Saigon in 1975.

The path to disaster

How did this come to pass? Afghans, turning on themselves, are already pinning the blame on now-departed President Ashraf Ghani, and Biden’s defenders are sure to join the chorus. Yet this is an oversimplification of how things unravelled.

Ghani’s domineering style, poor personnel choices, and reluctance to delegate power to others all played significant roles in the current crisis.

However, the institutional and political problems that were festering long before Ghani became president are perhaps more to blame: a seriously overcentralised state; a presidential system that placed far too much formal power in Kabul; and the development of “neopatrimonial” politics, based on patronage networks that had flourished under former President Hamid Karzai, which in turn fostered electoral fraud.

Read more: Why the US won't be able to shirk moral responsibility in leaving Afghanistan

An even more significant role was played by Pakistan, the Taliban’s longstanding patron and supplier of sanctuaries, logistical support, and equipment.

But the (unintentional) green light for Pakistan’s “creeping invasion” of Afghanistan, with the Taliban as its proxy, ultimately came from Washington.

First, there was the catastrophic exit agreement signed with the Taliban on behalf of the Trump administration by the US special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, in February 2020. The flaws of this deal were immediately obvious. Following that was Biden’s conscious choice to adhere to it.

Biden has since sought to emphasise that he inherited the agreement from Trump, but it was his decision to stick with it, and to retain its architect, Khalilzad, as his own representative. Appalling US decision-making lies at the heart of the tragedy.

What lies behind Biden’s failures?

What factors might explain Biden’s gross misjudgement? At this point, several come to mind.

A first factor, universally overlooked, is his lack of relevant experience in dealing hands-on with complex and dangerous foreign policy challenges.

Until becoming president in January 2021, Biden had never held an office with distinct executive authority. He was a longtime legislator and then vice president, and he was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, including several years as chairman.

But he never occupied a position where he was routinely required to make final decisions on matters of high policy with significant associated risks.

Having an interest in world affairs is not the same thing as having strong judgement or a talent for developing and implementing foreign policy. Robert Gates, a former defence secretary in both Republican and Democrat administrations, argued in his 2014 memoir that Biden had been

wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.

Some reports suggest Biden’s decision to follow Trump’s path was driven more by instinct and longstanding beliefs than by a methodical, cerebral appraisal of the dangers.

Biden may also have been influenced by a deep, almost visceral, suspicion of the advice of the US military, going back to his failed attempts while vice president to argue against the “surge” of US troops in Afghanistan, which President Barack Obama ultimately decided to do.

A second factor at play is likely US domestic politics. Biden and his supporters have quoted polling in support of a complete US troop withdrawal, but it is unlikely this was much of a contributor to the final decision, as Afghanistan has never generated anything like the heat in US politics that was associated with the Vietnam War.

A more likely contributor was the internal politics of the Democratic Party. Biden had endured considerable criticism from the left over his ardent support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Supporting an Afghanistan troop withdrawal had the potential to ameliorate some of those concerns, and to appeal to the party’s progressive wing and ideological isolationists.

How the US-Taliban deal eroded confidence

The US decision also reflected a grave misunderstanding of power dynamics in Afghanistan.

As I have previously noted, mass psychology is a critical determinant of political trajectories in an environment as threatening and de-institutionalised as that in Afghanistan.

As in an avalanche, a small shift can rapidly snowball, resulting in what social scientists call “cascades”.

The collapse of the Afghan government provides a perfect example of a cascade at work. The 2020 US-Taliban deal created deep and widespread apprehension about what the future might hold. Then, it only took a few localised failures to sap the confidence of all sorts of actors, both military and civilian, in the survival of the government. Side-switching became a rational strategy, then spun out of control.

Read more: On the brink of disaster: how decades of progress in Afghanistan could be wiped out in short order

The US troop withdrawal also seems to have reflected a failure on the part of Biden – although not the US military — to appreciate how destructive the February 2020 agreement had been to the effectiveness of the Afghan military.

In requiring the withdrawal not just of US troops but US maintenance contractors, it compromised the ongoing capabilities of key assets in the inventory of the Afghan National Army, as well as depriving the army of critical air cover. As an insightful analysis put it,

in the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the US pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore.

The long-lasting damage to US credibility

It is hard to see how Biden can emerge from this disaster without his credibility shredded, but the greater loss is to the credibility of the United States, which increasingly appears a fading power internationally (as well as a failing state at home).

For no great gain, it sold out the most pro-western government and public in the region to a brutal terrorist group, all this after having long promised the Afghans that they would never be abandoned.

Read more: As the Taliban surges across Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is poised for a swift return

The implications of this abandonment stretch far beyond Afghanistan’s borders. As a group of eminent retired ambassadors has put it,

an ignominious American departure from the country would send a terrible signal to other countries as the United States competes with China and other authoritarian states. If US security guarantees are not credible, why not cut deals with China?

In May 1940, in a scathing indictment of the failures of the Chamberlain government to stand effectively by its allies, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George observed cuttingly that “our promissory notes are now rubbish on the market”.

As a result of its failures over Afghanistan, the Biden administration is rapidly heading in a similar direction.

William Maley, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sandy Hershcovis, University of Calgary; Ivana Vranjes, Tilburg University; Jennifer L. Berdahl, University of British Columbia, and Lilia M. Cortina, University of Michigan

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation came after more than a week of bad news, starting with a damning report from the state attorney general’s office that detailed his sexual harassment of 11 women, some of whom worked in his office. An executive assistant to Cuomo, Brittany Commisso, filed a criminal complaint against him with the Albany County sheriff’s office. The state Legislature readied impeachment proceedings.

Then, top aide Melissa DeRosa resigned amid a flurry of questions surrounding her role in protecting Cuomo. Attorney Roberta Kaplan also resigned from the #MeToo advocacy organization Time’s Up after the attorney general’s report revealed that she helped draft a letter that denied Cuomo’s wrongdoing.

As news emerged about the silence from Cuomo’s staff, who had long protected him, and his victims who feared blowback, our thoughts turned immediately to our research on harassers.

“See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” is the title of our new article for the Journal of Applied Psychology, which describes the role witnesses play in helping and protecting harassers. Evidence suggests that, rather than helping victims, witnesses often protect the harasser.

The report on Cuomo’s sexual harassment is replete with examples that showcase how members of Cuomo’s top staff, known collectively as the “Executive Chamber,” silenced victims. One victim explained in the report: “I was terrified that if I shared what was going on that it would somehow get around … and if senior aides Stephanie Benton or Melissa DeRosa heard that, I was going to lose my job.”

Although #MeToo gave voice to millions of women to speak up about sexual harassment, it remains rare for victims to report sexual harassment to employers. They are afraid of blowback. They think management won’t believe them. They fear being blamed or shamed. And these fears are warranted.

Silent complicity

Research shows that reporting mechanisms rarely work and often backfire.

For example, employees who speak up about workplace harassment frequently face retaliation, both personal and professional. This is evident in multiple victim accounts in the Cuomo investigation.

One victim was quoted in the report saying that “she did not feel she could safely report or rebuff the conduct because, based on her experience and discussion with others … it’s kind of known that the Governor gives the seal of approval who gets promoted and who doesn’t.”

But what about bystanders? Colleagues? Leaders? Why don’t they speak up when they see sexual harassment?

Part of the problem, we have found, lies with social networks – the webs of interconnections among victims, perpetrators, co-workers and managers. The way these networks are configured encourages members to be silent, silence others and not hear victims who voice concerns about sexual harassment.

One of Cuomo’s 11 alleged victims, a state trooper, described a conversation she had with Cuomo while driving him to an event. The governor questioned her clothing choices, asking why she wasn’t wearing a dress. After the conversation, the victim’s state police superior, who was in the car during the interaction, messaged her, saying that the conversation “stays in the truck.”

‘Textbook example’

Why do people protect harassers? A number of factors are at play.

First, a harasser can establish a central status by having many strong ties to others in the network. Strong relationships within a tie require an investment of time and resources on both sides, and in turn, they yield loyalty and reciprocity. So network members close to the harasser are more likely to stay silent about his misdeeds, and to silence or manipulate those who speak up into questioning their sanity.

Also, when the harasser is the sole link between disconnected members of the network, he can isolate victims, control information and conceal wrongdoing. The result of all this: Victims, witnesses and would-be supporters stay silent.

In the case of Cuomo, he had many loyal ties. The attorney general’s report states that the Executive Chamber had “an intense and overriding focus on secrecy and loyalty that meant that any and all perceived acts of ‘disloyalty,’ including criticism of the Governor [Cuomo] or his senior staff, would be met with attacks of a personal and professional nature.”

The second reason people protect male sexual harassers lies in how certain network beliefs prize men and masculinity. These beliefs normalize male dominance over women, encouraging support for those who enact displays of masculine superiority.

When these beliefs pervade a social network, and central men sexually harass women, network members stay silent. They also rally to defend and protect harassers by silencing and not hearing those who speak up.

Because women are devalued in these networks, powerful witnesses have little motive to hear sexual harassment complaints or take action to support female victims. The investigation into Cuomo’s conduct concluded: “This culture of fear, intimidation, and retribution co-existed in the Executive Chamber with one that accepted and normalized everyday flirtations and gender-based comments by the Governor.”

Finally, mythologies about sexual harassment are frequently found in social networks such as the one that surrounded Cuomo. These common myths deny that sexual harassment has happened, often by questioning women’s complaints – for example, suggesting that false allegations are common. Or they downplay the gravity of these offenses.

When harassment becomes undeniable, myths lead network members to move on to justify it: absolving harassers of responsibility or blaming victims – asking what women did to invite sexual advances.

Myths such as these silence network members because speaking up is likely to be futile or even dangerous. Throughout the report, senior staff members in Cuomo’s office denied wrongdoing by Cuomo. One victim, Ana Liss, testified that Cuomo had held her hand, kissed her cheek and been flirtatious. She did not want to report it because “the environment in the Executive Chamber deterred her … she was fully expecting the Governor’s team would deny, deny, deny, character assassinate.”

It is rare that scholarly research and current events so perfectly reflect each other. But the Cuomo case is – no metaphor here – a textbook example of a network of complicity and silence around sexual harassment.

[The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly._]

Sandy Hershcovis, Professor at Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary; Ivana Vranjes, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, Tilburg University; Jennifer L. Berdahl, Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia, and Lilia M. Cortina, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Psychology, Women's & Gender Studies, and Management & Organizations, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.