Biden Defends Afghan Pullout and Declares an End to Nation-Building

The president offered a glimpse of a different American foreign policy in the post-9/11 world, one that he said would be guided more by competition with China and Russia.

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Tuesday forcefully rejected criticism of his decision to end America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, hailing what he called the “extraordinary success” of the evacuation of Kabul and declaring the end of an era in which the United States uses military power “to remake other countries.” Speaking to the nation less than a week after a terrorist bombing killed 13 service members at the Kabul airport during a chaotic rush to leave the country, Mr. Biden said the costs to the United States would have been even higher if he had allowed the nation to remain mired for years in a civil war that has dragged on for decades. In blunt terms, he claimed the only alternative to the departure he oversaw was another escalation of the war. “When I hear we could have, should have continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low cost,” Mr. Biden said in the 26-minute speech, “I don’t think enough people understand how much we’ve asked of the 1 percent of this country who put that uniform on.”