Jake Sullivan: the Biden insider at the center of the Afghanistan

On the afternoon of 30 August, a White House aide brought a note into the Oval Office confirming that the last US military plane had left Afghan airspace, marking the moment America’s longest war had come to an end.

Joe Biden was with a team of advisers and on receiving the news he asked two of them, secretary of state Tony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, to accompany him to his private dining room to mark the moment with a call to the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin.

Blinken has been a constant presence at Biden’s side since 2002. By contrast, before he joined the 2020 campaign, Sullivan had worked for Biden for just 18 months, and that was six years earlier as the then vice-president’s national security adviser. His whole career on the national stage before then had been as Hillary Clinton’s right hand man.

The 30 August phone call – at the president’s side, at the end of two decades of war – was confirmation that he had arrived as a true Biden insider.

“It was a significant moment and the president wanted Jake to be there,” a senior administration official said. “I’ve watched him turn to Jake for advice on both domestic and foreign policy over the last two years. He has enormous respect for Jake’s judgment and relies on him intently.”

Being held close by the president made Sullivan a lead protagonist in a historic moment, but it also put him at centre stage when the blame was hurled for the chaotic and humiliating nature of its final scenes, particularly as it was Sullivan who was sent out to explain the policy on the television talk shows.

The national security adviser is responsible for ensuring all legitimate points of view are aired in the situation room, and all scenarios are examined. But the Biden administration as a whole was taken by surprise by the catastrophic speed of the Afghan army’s collapse.

Eight months into his job, there have been calls for Sullivan’s resignation, and not just from Republicans. Brett Bruen, who was director of global engagement in the Obama White House, went as far as writing a commentary for USA Today calling for a shake-up in Biden’s national security team, starting with Sullivan.

The White House has vigorously defended Sullivan, arguing that no one around the table in the situation room had predicted how fast Kabul would fall, and stressed the national security adviser’s role in coordinating the evacuation of 124,000 civilians, the biggest civilian airlift in US history.

Aged just 44, Sullivan is the youngest national security adviser American has had since McGeorge Bundy counseled John F Kennedy 60 years ago. Everyone interviewed for this article, fan and critic alike, used some variant of “old head on young shoulders” to describe him, saying he was sufficiently secure in himself to be unfailingly polite and thoughtful to those around him.

“Despite being probably one…