Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation: US Turning Away From Afghanistan?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
(1) Much of the opposition to increasing U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan is based on an old style of thinking about Afghanistan and the U.S. mission there.
(2) Today’s security objectives focus on helping Afghans deal with the Taliban insurgency. The goal is to keep the country from reverting back to the chaos of the 1990s.
(3) The well-established U.S. presence in Afghanistan—diplomatic, economic, and military—helps America keep engaged in an important region at a relatively low cost.
The Trump Administration will soon make a final decision on its Afghanistan policy. The main question to be answered: Should the U.S. send more troops to help Afghan security forces continue to battle the Taliban?
After 16 years of military intervention in Afghanistan, it is completely reasonable to question the wisdom of increasing U.S. troops. But much of the opposition to increasing U.S. troop numbers is based on an old style of thinking about Afghanistan and the U.S. mission there.
U.S. policymakers have fallen into two traps when it comes to Afghanistan.
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WNU Editor: I was surprised when I read this WSJ article this morning (it is behind a paywall) .... White House Looks at Scaling Back U.S. Military Presence in Afghanistan (WSJ). The media narrative for the past few months was that the US was going to up its presence in Afghanistan significantly .... not scale it back. But the fact that the U.S. plan/strategy on Afghanistan that US Secretary of Defense Mattis promised months ago has not been delivered tells me that President Trump does not like the options that are being presented to him .... and that the expected U.S. surge may not happen. Personally .... I do expect this surge to happen .... but this delay is making people nervous, especially in the think tanks around Washington and those who cover Afghanistan for the Wall Street Journal.