Afghanistan Needs 'Thousands' More Troops, U.S. General Says in Assessment by Kevin Baron, Defense One
Fifteen years after the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan is in a “stalemate” that will require several thousand more Western troops to break, the war’s top U.S. commander told Congress.
Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson’s testimony laid on Donald Trump’s desk the first major war decision - surge troops or not? - just three weeks into his new and tumultuous administration, which so far has focused more intently on U.S. border security than overseas military engagements. The commander of NATO’s Operation Resolute Support said he expected Defense Secretary James Mattis to present the request to alliance defense ministers when they meet next week in Brussels.
“I believe we are in a stalemate,” Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. He said the current Western coalition has a “shortfall of a few thousand” troops. But rather than the 30,000 combat-brigade soldiers sent by President Barack Obama in 2009, Nicholson said he wants more “advise and assist” troops to help Afghan forces, who incurred heavy losses in 2016 as they beat back various terrorist offensives. The general said his forces have enough equipment and resources for the mission but needed more “expeditionary packages” of advisors to deploy across Afghanistan. The desired troops would come “below the corps level” and could be American or come from allied nations of the NATO training mission.
“We’re going to be able to discuss this in greater detail,” at NATO next week, Nicholson said…
Comments
This will indeed be an interesting decision.
For many years now, we believed that the only cure to virtually all of the western world's problems was the transformation of the outlying states and societies of the world more along modern western political, economic, social and value lines.
Thus, in peace, outlying state and societal transformation (more along modern western lines) became our foreign policy way forward and, in war, our "better peace" direction.
When we stepped back from these such concepts and related responsibilities (such as initially during the Bush Jr. presidency?) and adopted the alternative isolationist/"don't tread on me"/"whack-a-mole" stance, incidents such as 9/11 seemed to come forward to show us the error in our ways.
Likewise when President Obama, also at the behest of the American people, attempted to step back from -- shall we say our "nation-building" responsibilities -- then ISIS, Russia, China, Iran, etc., etc., etc., all seemed to (a) step forward to fill these voids and to (b) turn things against us.
Now President Trump (exactly like both President Bush Jr. and President Obama before him?) has been elected by an American populous that wants the United States to step back from "nation-building" and adopt/re-adopt the more-isolationist/"don't tread on me"/"whack-a-mole" stance.
A stance which many see as the exact reason for both the rise of AQ and ISIS, and also for the resurgence of such great nations as Russia, China and Iran?
Bottom Line Question:
"Thousands of more troops for Afghanistan," thus if approved, to be seen:
a. More as per the continuation of President Bill Clinton's "engagement," "enlargement" and transformative nation-building "better peace" approach?
b. More as per the initially attempted and failed (by both President Bush Jr. and President Obama?) more-constrained/more-restrained/more-isolationist-in-nature "don't tread on me"/"whack-a-mole" concepts? Or
c. Something else? (Explain.)