34,000 troops?
So reports Jonathan Landay, John Walcott, and Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy: As it now stands, the plan calls for the deployment over a nine-month period beginning in March of three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., and a Marine brigade ...
So reports Jonathan Landay, John Walcott, and Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy:
So reports Jonathan Landay, John Walcott, and Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy:
As it now stands, the plan calls for the deployment over a nine-month period beginning in March of three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., and a Marine brigade from Camp Lejeune, N.C., for as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.
In addition, a 7,000-strong division headquarters would be sent to take command of U.S.-led NATO forces in southern Afghanistan — to which the U.S. has long been committed — and 4,000 U.S. military trainers would be dispatched to help accelerate an expansion of the Afghan army and police.
This is probably the safest short-term political choice — within the range of McChrystal’s request but not following his recommendation to the letter. Strategic leaks in recent weeks have sent the message that Obama carefully considered oterh options and the final plan apparently also contains a number of "off-ramps" — points in time when the strategy will be reevalutated.
Obama will reportedly addresses the nation to announce his strategy on Dec. 1. It’s risky for a president, when laying out a new strategy of this magnitude, to define specific benchmarks for success that can later be used against him if things don’t go according to plan.
But after eight years of war, I would hope that, at a bare minimum, Obama will explain in as specific detail as possible: what he believes the U.S. strategic objective in Afghanistan is, why no other strategy would accomplish that objective, and at what point the mission can be considered a success or failure.
This is his war now and "we’ll know it when we see it" won’t cut it anymore.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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