The Kamala Harris Doctrine

When it comes to the broader region, Harris has made multiple trips to Southeast Asia and been one of the prominent faces of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. But it remains to be seen how much she is weighed down during the presidential campaign by one of Biden’s lowest foreign-policy moments as president: the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that brought the Taliban back to power. Trump repeatedly used that episode as a cudgel against Biden during their first debate, and he may do the same against Harris, though experts say it might not land with the same effect.

“I think it’s going to be difficult for Republicans to tar Kamala Harris with the Afghanistan brush,” said Lisa Curtis, a former White House, CIA, and State Department official who is now director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). “It was fairly clear that it was Biden’s personal decision to fully withdraw in the disastrous manner that we did,” she added.

Should Harris become president, however, Afghanistan presents her with an opportunity to really have a strong foreign-policy impact. “As a woman, hopefully we could expect Kamala Harris, if elected, to focus more on supporting Afghan women,” Curtis said. “As somebody who’s fighting for women’s rights in the United States, I think it would be hard for her to ignore what is happening to women in Afghanistan—the fact that that is the only country in the world that denies education to women and girls.”

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