Are we asking NATO to do more in Afghanistan?
By Christian Brose Can someone explain this to me? Despite the administration’s call for more troop contributions from its allies, Biden avoided making specific requests for increased deployments. This is a tender subject, since several European governments have already said they are unwilling to contribute more soldiers. Obama recently decided to send an additional 17,000 ...
By Christian Brose
By Christian Brose
Can someone explain this to me?
Despite the administration’s call for more troop contributions from its allies, Biden avoided making specific requests for increased deployments. This is a tender subject, since several European governments have already said they are unwilling to contribute more soldiers.
Obama recently decided to send an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to join the 38,000-strong U.S. force in Afghanistan. He made it clear he is seeking similar additions to the 25,000-member contingent of non-U.S. forces in Afghanistan, many of whom are engaged in noncombat missions, along with increased commitments in money and supplies for the rebuilding effort that many experts say is just as important as the military campaign.
But Biden indicated at the news conference that the Obama administration is also willing to listen to European suggestions that Western goals in Afghanistan should be scaled back, saying they must be "clear and achievable."
So the Vice President goes to Europe (wasn’t Secretary Clinton just there a week ago, by the way?), and with Afghanistan in dire need of a better U.S. and NATO policy, with 17,000 more Americans headed to fight there, with less than a month to go before the NATO Summit, and with presumably even less time before the "Af-Pak" policy review makes its prescriptions, Biden not only doesn’t ask our allies to contribute more forces; he goes out of his way to solicit their views on how we can lower our sights and invite failure.
Am I missing something here?
I’m all for multilateralism. I’m all for consulting our allies and taking their views into account when making U.S. policy. But isn’t the whole point to get results? Building bridges to America’s friends and allies is a worthy endeavor, but they really should lead somewhere productive.
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