The third anniversary of the US pullout from Afghanistan offers an interesting template to consider how US foreign policy might shift under a Harris-Walz administration. President Biden’s approval ratings sank, and never recovered after the catastrophic execution of the withdrawal. Harris supported ending the US military presence in Afghanistan, but would she have clung to the Trump-negotiated deal with the Taliban, ignoring the advice of the US military and the pleas of Afghan women? In her 2019 campaign she spoke about the need to “protect the gains that have been made for Afghan women and others.” 

Harris’s comments on the war in Gaza, including her suffering in her Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, suggest a greater sensitivity than Biden to humanitarian concerns. Also, that the Vice President is more in tune with the sentiments of her party: her statement about the Palestinian “right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination” drew some of the loudest applause of the convention. And Walz’s perspective on China, focusing on its people and their human rights, points to a similar direction.