U.S. President Barack Obama’s new strategy in Afghanistan, and consequently in Pakistan, has three core elements: ‘maintain pressure on al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistani border and in other regions of the world;’ ‘blunt the Taliban offensive by sending an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, along with an unspecified number of NATO troops he hopes will join them;’ and ‘use the space created by the counteroffensive against the Taliban and the resulting security in some regions of Afghanistan to train and build Afghan military forces and civilian structures to assume responsibility after the United States withdraws.’ US withdrawal from Afghanistan is pegged to start in July 2011.
There is an ‘obvious but unstated point’ embodied in the new strategy. The additional troops to be sent to Afghanistan ‘are not expected to defeat the Taliban. Instead, their mission is to reverse the momentum of previous years and to create the circumstances under which an Afghan force can take over the mission. The U.S. presence is therefore a stopgap measure, not the ultimate solution.’
The ultimate solution to the Afghan problem does not lie in the hands of foreign troops but with the Afghans themselves. The ultimate solution is to train an Afghan force that will resolve the Taliban issue ‘over the long haul,’ plus ‘deal with al Qaeda forces along the Pakistani border and in the rest of Afghanistan.’
All in all, this is a well-thought out plan. The Afghan military forces are poorly-trained and inadequate. Their condition is not exactly battle-worthy at this point. Since they are the most important element in the Afghan anti-insurgency campaign, the US would do well to train them sufficiently for them to be better able to engage the Taliban till the resolution of the insurgency problem. ‘If the United States withdraws all of its forces as Obama intends, the Afghan military would have to assume all of these missions.’
Via STRATFOR
