Troop Reduction in Afghanistan
There are some hitches to the plan but the US would like to reduce its force in Afghanistan by as much as 20%. The stumbling block is of course NATO.
posted by theCardinal @ 6:38 AM
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2 Comments:
NATO is preventing the United States from withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan? On balance, NATO seems to be acting reasonably. The attitude of the US administration reminds me of Bacevich's review (many thanks for the copy) of Robert Kaplan's 'Empire without Apologies': "With his new book, Kaplan turns from describing the world's ills to proposing a remedy. The antidote to anarchy is empire, policed by American soldiers. . ."
On this theme, the NYT reports: "At the [NATO] meeting in Berlin, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he would urge the alliance to expand its role in Afghanistan beyond its security and peacekeeping duties. . . To overcome European opposition, the Pentagon is proposing, among other ideas, a joint NATO command structure in which countries willing to contribute troops to counterinsurgency would be under one officer, while allies that want to continue to conduct peacekeeping and other noncombat roles would fall under another. The two contingents would fall under one overall commander."
We have too much invested in Afghanistan to just walk away so in this case I am going to disagree with Bacevich and opt to keep our troops there or have NATO help them out. I would think (or hope) that we can come to an agreement with NATO on this matter.
On another note I wasn't thrilled with Bacevich's review because it was almost as if he did it in his sleep. He hits note for note what he did in his book - it was just too easy. I do realize however that others have not read it so I should not have been so hard on it.
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