President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy. As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops. Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the US is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional US trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said.
The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional US troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops. The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, suggested as a "low-risk option" that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan...
More at McClatchy.
Comments
A 7 Nov article in the NYT by Alissa Rubin discussed, based on 30 interviews, albeit around Kabul and the outlying area, that American forces were dangerously close to being regarded more as occupiers than as allies by the Afghans. Further stating ordinary citizens expressed considerable skepticism that such a troop increase would actually lead to the defeat of the Taliban.
Whether her survey is representational of the whole country isn't known to me, but it may raise an interesting question concerning Afghan perceptions as opposed to ours?
I just wrote this comment on registan.net and it has some tangential connection to this news. (the comment was in response to the asia times story that the US is going to get out and is asking the Pak army to help them get a face saving deal with the taliban):
Here is my theory of the day (why not?): The Pakistani army high command is about to make another one of their periodic strategic miscalculations. These miscalculations usually arise when senior generals feed psyops to pet journalists, then read them in the paper the next day and start getting excited and then meet over dinner to discuss the latest breaking news and cannot believe how EVERYTHING is proceeding as they predicted.
The US may or may not be about to "cut and run", but irrespective of that, the days of "pre-eminent Pakistani interests in afghanistan" are not coming back (though its clear that GHQ believes they are; Ejaz Haider had a piece about this in the latest Friday Times in which he manages to write the following sentence: let it be said that modalities aside they need to sit down and work out a joint strategy that underwrites and accepts Pakistans pre-eminent role in Afghanistan and Islamabads security concerns... .). The news from Aabpara is that the ISIs brilliant strategy has been vindicated. The US is about to pull out (the next midterm elections are said to havve a crucial role in all this) and needs ISI to help them avoid a humiliating takeoff from the embassy roof. More money is on its way. India will be pressurised to compromise on Kashmir, money will flow into GHQ, China will "invest in mega projects", good jihadis will blow up Indian railway stations and bad jihadis will die of small pox. all will be well.
I am afraid I find the whole picture overly optimistic. I dont think Obama is leaving in 12 months. I dont think the US can make a deal with the good taliban even if it wants to. I dont think India is going to give up anything substantive. And I dont think the war against the bad taliban will end anytime soon. The army will continue to enjoy a pre-eminent position in Pakistani politics for a while and will keep getting paid by the US for various operations, but there is no pot of gold (vast mineral reserves, pipelines, Chinese bearing insanely expensive gifts) at the end of the rainbow. Its going to be more of the same... .