As a vocal skeptic of plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan, I should be dismayed by President Barack Obama’s approval of 17K additional troops. But for various reasons, I think it’s a smart move. His initial delay in making the announcement led me to believe that he might be having second thoughts about doubling down. But after the delay, the announcement of a very muscular increase demonstrates the kind of resolve that won’t necessarily win the war, but will allow us to eventually withdraw at a time of our choosing, rather than under duress. That’s not an insignificant gesture, [...]
Is it possible we’ve actually reached the high-water mark for American forces in Afghanistan? Or is President Barack Obama simply holding the military command’s feet to the fire on approving recent troop requests to send a message? A few months ago, common wisdom seemed to have 30K additional troops penciled in for Afghanistan, with a couple brigades already inked in for January deployment. But Obama has yet to give the green light on even the two brigades, let alone the Afghan “surge” people were talking about. Part of that has to do with waiting for the outcome of the strategy [...]
A few years ago, anytime the Pakistani government negotiated some sort of ceasefire or peace agreement with extremist militants in the FATA, the Western governments fighting those same militants in Afghanistan condemned the moves as undermining efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, instead proposing enlarged military operations, complemented by targeted missile attacks from American drones, to defeat the insurgency. None of those peace deals ended up holding up, but despite limited increases in the pace of military operations, neither the FATA nor Afghanistan is any more stabilized than it was then, and arguably less so. So it’s hard to say who got [...]
