Failure or Reasonable Move?: Portrayal of American Pullout from Afghanistan in Russian and American International Media

Abstract

This study examined competing narratives about the actions of the United States abroad through an analysis of 314 news items of the 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan by two media organizations: Russian Sputnik and American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The textual analysis revealed five dominant themes in Sputnik: Americans as losers and Taliban as winners, Americans as incompetent, Americans as unreliable, insensitive, and irresponsible, Americans as duplicitous, and Americans as a threat to world peace; and four dominant themes in RFE/RL: The Taliban taking over the country quickly, Americans successfully leading the evacuations, Americans having good faith and defending the decision to pull out, and Americans as naïve and lacking good judgment. The findings are interpreted in light of the image theory and second-level agenda setting theory.